Sometimes, reading a book feels like eavesdropping on your neighbors' private conversations—the ones they'd never want you to hear. Kirkwood resident Anne Heinrich's Women of Paradise County Series (God Bless the Child, Violet is Blue and House of Teeth) offers that immersive reading experience.

I am passionate about in-depth character development because it’s something I strive for in my own writing. Humans are very complex creatures who are capable of a full range of responses on any given day, moment, or set of circumstances. Offering readers an opportunity to consider what motivates characters to behave in the ways they do makes a story worth sinking your teeth into. I am thankful to have been invited by Shepherd.com to name five of my favorite books with complex characters.

The collection of women featured in my second novel ‘Violet is Blue’ (out June 17, 2025) could not be more different, but they can’t avoid being connected. Limited to the confines of the same small town, they are bound to brush against one another in ways big and small. Some of them are more lovable than others, but together, they have the market cornered on complexity.

"I'm passionate about the power of storytelling. I just love to watch people. I like to imagine where they've been, where they might be going next," admits the Kirkwood resident. "I love listening to how people relate to one another and move themselves through their circumstances. I always start my stories by developing characters first and the stories seem to unfold."

We can believe that women must have autonomy over our bodies, and acknowledge their choices are neither easy, nor are they made with equal parts logic, necessity, emotion or fairness. I try to keep that in mind when I have the opportunity to connect with someone who doesn’t share my views. Somewhere, in that gray area, is where we can feel around for and find our shared humanity.

When I initially put pencil to paper for my first novel, God Bless the Child, it really was a primitive operation. Armed with a stack of yellow legal pads, two or three sharpened pencils, and roughly six miraculous hours of freedom each week, I started pushing out a story that took 18 years to publish, but I think this book and I needed that time together. We’ve both grown and changed. We are ready.

The women in God Bless the Child have been tangled up in knots since I first created them nearly two decades ago. Bringing them back out into the light for a fresh look with older eyes and a wiser heart has led even their creator to marvel and wince anew at the raw ferocity that motherhood represents. Whether it comes about naturally, by human design, and even when it leaves a gaping, unanswered void, the mother/daughter sphere offers much to explore.

As adults, we spend a lot of time and energy pondering, even agonizing about this role, but it is important to give just as much space and grace to how it is experienced by children, who land in this world not choosing their place in it. The circumstances we come swaddled in upon entry are random, even capricious. If we are fortunate enough to become adults who are blessed to have choices, it is essential that we acknowledge the consequences our decisions can have on children who are powerless.