What is Tar Heel Pie?

I get this question whenever I mention my current work in progress. The simple answer is that it is a type of pie that starts with that Southern classic, pecan pie and adds chocolate. Imagine if pecan pie and brownies had a baby. It’s incredibly sweet, a little dark, and a bit nutty. (I may have just found the tag line for this book.) That’s what Tar Heel Pie is to the rest of the world, or at least the part that knows what tar heels are.

To me, Tar Heel Pie is the novel that I wrote in 2019 and have been inching my way through revising ever since. If you’re a fan of Sweet Magnolias and other small town stories, you’re going to love Haverhill, North Carolina. And if you like the snarky, inner conflict of Fleabag, then you’re going to like Amy Monroe’s inner voice.

Amy Monroe, who Once & Future readers know from that series, is a character in need of some redemption. She carries around a lot of guilt from the events of The River Maiden and while Sarah has forgiven her, Amy hasn’t exactly forgiven herself. Tar Heel Pie is Amy Monroe’s redemption arc, but it’s also more than that.

In the course of learning to forgive and trust herself again. Amy also struggles with something that I think a lot of us from small communities in the South struggle with; reconciling her very modern beliefs and attitudes with those of the small community that she comes from. Amy is happily single and focused on her career, but when she returns to her hometown of Haverhill, North Carolina everyone wants to know when she will settle down and have kids. She’s rootless and travels almost constantly for work, but she is confronted with her family’s longstanding roots in the community. She has deconstructed her faith, but she is asked to help with her family’s floundering church.

I think a lot of us who grew up in small communities in the South struggle with the generational push and pull of needing to be part of the world in the early part of the twenty-first century while still appreciating and honoring some of the things we love about the communities we grew up in. We also struggle with getting those communities to recognize and leave behind some of the less desirable aspects of Southern small town life.

I’m hoping that in the traditions of Phoebe Waller Bridge and Amy Sherman Palladino, I can use humor to help us look at these difficult topics in a way that points out everyone’s foibles while also giving them grace.

For a sneak peek at the blurb and Chapter 1, Click here.