Lift Off! My Novel “Keep Sweet” has Launched!

It’s time to celebrate and here are some fun things we’ve been doing.

Jun 22, 2025

Be a Cactus is free, but if you’d like to support me, please buy my latest novel, Keep Sweet, about escape from a patriarchal cult. I’ll be grateful, and you’ll have a great read! It officially launched yesterday (hello summer!). Available from the Publisher (Inlandia), Amazon, Bookshop.org, and Barnes and Noble. I handmade many beautiful fabric bookmarks. If you order the book from the Publisher (Inlandia), you will receive one as a thank you!

Hello Friends,

Today’s post is mostly photos. No essay, but I’ll get back to that next week. I just want to take a moment to celebrate. My novel Keep Sweet officially launched yesterday. I also have an essay in an anthology on sibling loss and grief, The Loss of a Lifetime, which launched on Tuesday. We had a very emotional reading by the authors on Wednesday. It was recorded. You can watch and listen to the recording, which is on the book’s homepage.

A table with copies of “Keep Sweet” and many fabric bookmarks in various styles and colors. — A table at my soft launch, which gives you an idea of the kind of bookmark you will receive if you order directly from the publisher. Upcycling all those fabric scraps!

For Keep Sweet, we’ve had a fun countdown with the publisher, Inlandia Books. Here are some posts from this week:

A photo of the author (salt and pepper hair, blue eyes, glasses); a photo of the book “Keep Sweet” (alt text in above photo); a pair of tennis shoes; information on ordering the book; the first lines of the book are quoted: “Elizabeth tapped the toe of her tennis shoe soundlessly on the wood plank floor to make a rhythm of her nerves. Quiet as she could be, she waited for the Prophet, Uncle Timothy. She scanned the walls of his office, viewing the many photos of women and children, fixing her gaze on the panoramic shot of Uncle Timothy with his nineteen wives and many kids.”

Photo of the author (salt and pepper hair, blue eyes, glasses; the book cover of “Keep Sweet,” described in alt text above; a photo of M&Ms; book ordering information; an excerpt from Chapter 17: “When Georgiana came back, she had the glass of water and a pack of M&M’s. ‘I hid these in the back of the cupboard so well I could hardly find them.’ Elizabeth wondered where the chocolate had come from. Uncle Timothy hadn’t allowed store-bought treats for three months because the wives and mothers needed to show care for their families by making everything themselves.”

If you haven’t seen the Netflix documentary on the FLDS and Warren Jeffs, I highly recommend that you do:

I’m a big fan of Laurie Halse Anderson. I previously posted about why her books belong in high school libraries.

Photo of the author (salt and pepper hair, blue eyes, glasses); the book cover of “Keep Sweet,” described in alt text above; the cover of Speak which is a close-up of a white girl’s face with gray tree branches in front of it; a photo of M&Ms; book ordering information; the text reads: “did you know …Victoria Waddle says, ‘I wanted my novel to pay homage to the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. For 25 years, it has remained a staple in high school libraries, a consistent favorite with teens because it shows the importance of speaking out about sexual assault.’”

Speak and Shout: Why Librarians Fight for Banned Books

Victoria Waddle

September 8, 2024

Read full story

And you absolutely should not miss Anderson reading this poem!

A photo of Laurie Halse Anderson (slim white woman with long brown hair); the book cover of “Keep Sweet,” described in alt text above; the cover of “Speak” which is a close-up of a white girl’s face with gray tree branches in front of it; the text reads: On the tenth anniversary of “Speak,” Halse Anderson wrote a poem, “Listen,” using words from letters she’d received about it. Scan the QR code to watch it now.”

Here’s a little reel of yesterday’s suggestions for four nonfiction titles about the FLDS that influenced me. I included more detail on each in my summer reading recommendations last week.

Summer Reading Recommendations

Victoria Waddle

Jun 15

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As I mentioned, The Loss of a Lifetime also launched this week. My essay about my brother John, “He was Our Brother, and We Loved Him” is included. If you have lost a sibling or know someone who recently has, it’s a bit of solace, a lovely book to have.

The book cover of “The Loss of a Lifetime: Grieving Siblings Share Stories of Love, Loss, and Hope.” The words “Losing a sibling is hard: You are not alone” and a link to purchase the book: https://lossofalifetime.com/book

A balcka nd white photo of five siblings at the Petrified Forest in Arizona. One boy standing; three girls and a boy sitting atop a giant, fallen petrified tree trunk. — From left to right, using childhood nicknames: Buddy, Kathy, Lisa, Vicki, and Johnny at the Petrified Forest in Arizona.

Be a Cactus

Lift Off! My Novel “Keep Sweet” has Launched!

It’s time to celebrate and here are some fun things we’ve been doing.

Speak and Shout: Why Librarians Fight for Banned Books

Summer Reading Recommendations

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