Novels
The Ballad of Dinah Caldwell
True Grit meets Sadie in this #ownvoices near-future revenge thriller that tackles capitalism, queerness, and revolution.
Seventeen-year-old Dinah runs her family’s farm in the Ozarks. When she finds her grief-stricken mother dead in the living room with wealthy rancher Gabriel Gates standing over her, Dinah’s life narrows to a single point: kill Gabriel Gates.
But Gates has built his wealth giving out bad loans and surrounds himself with bodyguards. Dinah’s mountains are now one giant foreclosure, including her own farm. It all belongs to him. Once he puts a ten-thousand-dollar reward on Dinah’s head, everyone in the starving county wants a piece of her.
Homeless and alone in the woods, all she has is Johnny, the moonshining bootlegger at home in the caves. He begs her to leave the mountains, to start over with a new life. But Dinah is hell-bent on sparking a county revolution. She’ll lose her life to see this killer dead.
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“The evocative worldbuilding and action-packed opening will suck readers in [...] A thriller that takes on enduring questions of loyalty, vengeance, justice, and equity.”
“A genre-bending thriller with undeniable grit. Kate Brauning delivers a stunning symphony through her evocative prose, diverse characters, and unrelenting action. The Ballad of Dinah Caldwell will strike unforgettable notes in the hearts and minds of readers from the first to final page!”
“An excellent combination of action and romance will hook readers into this dystopian revenge thriller.”
How We Fall
Ever since Jackie moved to her uncle’s sleepy farming town, she’s been flirting way too much–and with her own cousin, Marcus.
Her friendship with him has turned into something she can’t control, and he’s the reason Jackie lost track of her best friend, Ellie, who left for…no one knows where. Now Ellie has been missing for months, and the police, fearing the worst, are searching for her body. Swamped with guilt and the knowledge that acting on her love for Marcus would tear their families apart, Jackie pushes her cousin away. The plan is to fall out of love, and, just as she hoped he would, Marcus falls for the new girl in town. But something isn’t right about this stranger, and Jackie’s suspicions about the new girl’s secrets only drive the wedge deeper between Jackie and Marcus–and deepens Jackie’s despair.
Then Marcus is forced to pay the price for someone else’s lies as the mystery around Ellie’s disappearance starts to become horribly clear. Jackie has to face terrible choices. Can she leave her first love behind, and can she go on living with the fact that she failed her best friend?
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Kate’s Bookstore | IndieBound | Barnes & Noble | Amazon | Books-A-Million | Powell's
“…an unusual combination of romance and suspense… This quest for identity, wrapped up in an intriguing mystery, hooks from the beginning.”
“Heartbreaking and well-paced… an intriguing thriller… this title will raise eyebrows and capture the interest of teens.”
“Debut novelist Brauning tells a touching story of young, star-crossed lovers caught in a drama they have tried hard to avoid… A sweetly written mix of mystery and romantic turmoil.”
Kate's bookshelf: my-books
