Remember that weird girl from school you and everyone else avoided? Ever wonder what happened to her? In reading this melodramatic and quirky spin on the classic coming-of-age tale, you may or may not feel regret over the way you treated that girl, but you're definitely going to hate her mother.

Set in the 1970's South, Maggie's story is both heartbreaking and absurdly funny. Crazy Red is Book One in the Jackson Sugar series.

Maggie dreams of having a life like the ones she sees on TV, with laughter, loving parents, supportive friends, and a home free of giant flying cockroaches. In reality she lives in a cold, unhappy home ruled by Sybil, a mother determined to safeguard her daughter's virtue, and dark family secrets, at any cost.

As Maggie transforms into an oddly attractive young woman and finds love with the overly devout, All-American William Marshall at the neighborhood church, she becomes hopeful of realizing the life she's longed for—but it won't be easy. Between her mother's vicious schemes, a propensity towards suicide, killer tornadoes, and Will being blackmailed into marching off to war, Maggie's got her hands full. Or she thinks she has until meeting Edmond Jackson, an attractive, charming, and sadistic drug trafficker obsessed with making a virgin his wife. Edmond is enthralled by Maggie's innocence, and contrives to seduce her into marriage by preying on her desire to be loved.