In case you don’t follow me over on Twitter, I announced some big news earlier this week: I wrote a book.
The title is When the Moon Turns to Blood, and you can preorder it right now from the book shop of your choosing by clicking this little button below.
It was a project I started reporting and writing in the first days of March 2020, and on Monday of this week, I put my final red-pencil changes on it. I stayed up until 3 am scanning every last page — Mogwai Rock Action blaring in my headphones, my little dog curled up on his bed, loyal and attentive throughout this entire process. Normally I would be very irked about being up so late — I’m a big sleeper — but for once I could happily relish in the lonely, quiet hours. I was finishing my first book, and that is only going to happen once.
As a journalist, I like to find new challenges in each project I take on. If I’m not learning something, I’m probably bored. Writing a book presented every type of challenge imaginable, and yet I have never had a story fascinate me like this case did. For two years straight, I thought about it. I dreamt about it. It was the only thing I talked about. (Poor Joe!)
The book examines the mysterious story of former beauty queen Lori Vallow and her husband, Chad Daybell: a grave digger turned doomsday novelist. Here’s a bit from the book jacket:
When police in Rexburg, Idaho perform a wellness check on seven-year-old J.J. Vallow and his sister, sixteen-year-old Tylee Ryan, both children are nowhere to be found. Their mother, Lori Vallow, gives a phony explanation, and when officers return the following day with a search warrant, she, too, is gone. As the police begin to close in, a larger web of mystery, murder, fanaticism and deceit begins to unravel.
Vallow’s case is sinuously complex. As investigators prod further, they find the accused Black Widow has an unusual number of bodies piling up around her.
Like any project I work on, I became obsessed with the story when I learned the context — the bigger world and culture that Vallow and Daybell exist inside. So this isn’t just a true crime story (though, as the brilliant Jule Banville put it back in December, that label is so annoying: “If you're doing journalism and it's about a crime, it's true. It’s not a fake crime! … Like, why do we call it true crime? I hate that.”). When the Moon Turns to Blood is about a larger world of extremism, conspiracy theories, prophecies and an obsession with the end of the world.
And that last part — the world ending — is something I feel like we can all relate to, given the past couple of years of trauma. How are people supposed to act when it feels like the world could crack apart at any second? This project gave me something specific to focus on for two years, and yet it is born of these two years: a book that could only happen with the world on the brink.
It comes out on June 21. Summer solstice. Perfect timing, honestly, given the topic at hand.
It’s a strange thing to hold something so close, and finally, after all this time, let it loose into the world. But I’m eager for you to read it.
In the next couple of months, I’ll be planning events and readings, and if you’re interested in seeing one happen in your city, would you please let me know? I’ll do my best to make it happen. And please share and tell your friends, your book club, your local librarian about this crazy new book coming out soon.
For now, I am resting my brain. I always have a kind of writerly post-partum feeling after a big project, but nothing like this. An author I respect, who has written several books, tells me this is normal, and you just have to give yourself time to rebuild. It felt like I broke every part of myself to get this book written, and I think now I have to slowly put the puzzle pieces back together. Which means I’ll be making a lot of pottery, going on some long drives and giving my little pup, laying right here as I write this, a lot more attention.
More soon.
20. When the Moon Turns to Blood
Leah! Holy hell, this made my day! I let out a victory screech as I pre-ordered from Powell’s. I am so insanely excited for you!
I can't wait for this. And incredibly looking forward to your audiobook narration.
I'm a huge fan of your work.