Follow the author

In 19th-century Charleston, a Catholic priest grapples with his secret African ancestry and his love for a slaveholder’s wife.

Joseph Lazare grows up believing his black hair and olive skin come from a Spanish grandmother, and he’s shocked to learn she was an enslaved African. At thirteen, Joseph allows racial prejudice to limit his future and chooses the seminary. At twenty-three, he is ordained “a priest forever.”

But when he meets Tessa Conley, a devout Irish immigrant who shares his passions for music and botany, Joseph’s ordered world cracks at its foundation. He must conceal his true feelings as Tessa marries another man—a plantation owner who treats her like property.

Acting on their love could ruin Joseph and Tessa in this world and damn them in the next. Can two wounded people heal each other and find Heaven on Earth—or will there be Hell to pay?

Necessary Sins is the first book in the epic Lazare Family Saga quartet. If you like character-rich dramas, vivid period detail, and heart-wrenching choices, then you’ll be swept away by this page-turning series, perfect for fans of The Thorn Birds and Outlander.

Selected as an Editors' Choice in the Historical Novels Review

Since girlhood, Clare Stratford has dreamt of marrying David Lazare—until she meets the brother he left for dead on the Oregon Trail.

Charleston, South Carolina, 1859. After earning his medical degree in Paris, David returns home to discover that the impish girl he remembers has blossomed into a beautiful young woman. A young woman who proposes marriage. David longs to have Clare by his side and in his bed—but if he lets her that close, she’ll discover his secrets.

Then David’s greatest secret returns from the dead. Thoroughly Cheyenne in spite of his blond hair, Ésh has come East seeking answers. He finds not only the brother who abandoned him as a baby but also the woman he’s seen in visions.

Desperate to escape her father, Clare is torn between the childhood friend she thought she knew and the stranger who’s capturing her heart one secret riding lesson at a time.

At once intimate drama and multigenerational epic, Native Stranger is the third book in the sweeping Lazare Family Saga that transports readers from the West Indies to the Wild West, from Charleston, Paris, and Rome into the depths of the human heart. The series begins with Necessary Sins.

In the epic conclusion of the Lazare Family Saga, two very different brothers must become allies to save the woman they both love.

Charleston, South Carolina, 1860. For nine long years, Clare Stratford has struggled to understand her mother’s final choice. The truth comes at a devastating price.

Clare’s lifelong love, Dr. David Lazare, risks everything to heal her wounded body. But only the medicine of David’s Cheyenne brother, Ésh, can mend Clare’s shattered soul. Ésh offers her an escape from her past and from the South that has condemned her.

Can a scarred Southern belle find peace and purpose amongst Cheyenne tipis? Or, as the country hurtles toward civil war, does Clare’s destiny lie back East alongside her beloved physician?

At once intimate drama and multigenerational epic, Sweet Medicine is the final book in the sweeping Lazare Family Saga that transports readers from the West Indies to the Wild West, from Charleston, Paris, and Rome into the depths of the human heart. The series begins with Necessary Sins.