The Secret Shelf in My Mind: Psychology, True Crime, and the Madness That Fuels My Stories

If you open the right drawer in my brain, you’ll find case studies, pathology charts, and handwritten notes on criminal minds. I’ve always been drawn to the intersection where medicine and madness meet. Not in a cold, clinical way, but in the raw, human, “how could they do that?” sort of way.

I read psychiatric textbooks like bedtime stories. I watch court testimony like it’s reality TV. I take true crime not just as entertainment, but as an unflinching look at how far people will go and how little we really know about the ones we love.

Mad Honey was heavily inspired by these fascinations:

• Neurotoxins and their unpredictable effects on memory, truth, and inhibition.

• Manipulative dynamics in trauma bonding and gaslighting.

• The psychology of secrecy, and what it costs to keep someone quiet… or keep them close.

When I write, I’m not just telling a story. I’m conducting a thought experiment. What happens if you push someone too far… and they like it?

Want a list of the weirdest medical rabbit holes I fell into while writing Mad Honey? Let me know, and I’ll open the drawer.

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