What Must Come Down

Some secrets are carved in stone.

Eighteen-year-old senior, Ansley Ellis, arrives at a protest in the town square right outside her family’s loft apartment on her very first morning in rural Clarkston, Mississippi. Checking it out, she meets an intriguing group of high schoolers, including dynamic twins, Moe and Maddox. They’re leading the charge to bring down a Confederate Army monument that’s the centerpiece of their town square. The city council votes in three weeks, which means they only have that long to get the votes needed to bring down the statue, but also to find a way to reopen decades’ old murder cold cases. They want justice and honor for the victims who never got it years ago.

Soon, Ansley is joining them, walking the line, and sometimes falling over, what’s legal and illegal. But someone or someones are out to stop them, and soon Ansley uncovers a deeply hidden family secret which may put an end to her newly formed friendships and budding romance with Maddox. Can the group stop the dangerous threats while still achieving their plan of bringing down the monument and bringing healing and justice to Clarkston? And will Ansley be able to confront her family’s racist past and still hang on to her new friends?

Inspired by true events in the Jim Crow South in Mississippi and a still-standing Confederate monument in Alabama, this YA Contemporary timeslip, at 84,500 words (with an additional author’s note and optional historical backmatter), explores themes of social justice, youth-led activism, family secrets spanning generations, and first loves. It would nicely on shelves alongside This Is My America (Johnson, Random House BFYR, 2020), Those Pink Mountains Nights (Boulley, Heartdrum, 2023), & I’m Not Dying With You Tonight (Jones/Segal, Sourcebooks Fire, 2019).