The Pattern Shop is here 🦋
For the ones who are brave enough to fly, despite the risk.
Hello.
After 10+ years of writing, revising, and querying, The Pattern Shop is finally here! A story about the hopes and fears we inherit and the courage it takes to choose home over and over again, join Eleanorah as she trades her stethoscope for a mustard-colored backpack and a one-way ticket to Ecuador, only to realize she can’t outrun herself.
This story took me so long to write because even though it’s fiction, it’s a mirror for my lived experiences.
Before I tell you more about the book (which I will!) I want to start by telling you about the brave/scared girl who knew when she left her nursing job and bought that mustard colored backpack to go and see the world, everything would change, even if she couldn’t know how.
About the girl who became a woman because of the stories she’s carried in her suitcase heart—stories lived and witnessed on continents with red dirt, upside down moons, and the kind of joy that will break your heart open and stitch it back together again with fragile hope.
And the woman who came back, needing to make sense of her past and present so she could create a home worth staying instead of running away.
Who got up early for days and weeks and months to write for half an hour before working full-time, renovating an old house, and going on dates. Who kept going through a global pandemic, the loss of her dad, grandpa, and grandma, loved ones who gave life to the word shelter.
I want to tell you about the new mother who carried her four month old against her chest for an entire day while attending writing workshops. Who started this Substack as a way to grieve and celebrate new life simultaneously. Who knew she had to make room for both in order to keep her heart open.
She never gave up. Even when 10+ years writing one book seemed like it might be a project worth shelving, a “sunk cost” investment to quietly put aside in favor of a different book. But this was the one she wanted to write and publish, even when it went against all logic.
Thanks to her, The Pattern Shop is yours, now.
A coming-of-age story full of messy characters wrestling with the weight of their choices and the limits of their love, The Pattern Shop is for anyone who’s ever felt lost—in their chosen career, a relationship with love but no substance, or a family that tries to clip their wings.
It’s for the misfits with stubborn curiosity who ask too many questions, who can’t seem to quell their wanderlust or belief that there’s more to life than this.
Most importantly, it’s for the ones who are brave enough to fly, despite the risk.
For readers who loved The Alchemist, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and 100 Years of Solitude, The Pattern Shop is a literary fiction story with guts and tenderness.
I can’t wait for you to step inside Eleanorah’s world!
Signed copies are available exclusively on my website, where you’ll discover a playlist to go along with each chapter, as well as book and movie recommendations to accompany your journey.
Physical books ship within 1-2 days of ordering and each will arrive in a special package, curated with love. If you just can’t wait to read the story, you can purchase the ebook (available immediately!) + signed copy bundle.
The Pattern Shop is a reminder of what we’ve always known to be true—beyond borders, across time and space, we belong to each other.
I can’t wait for you to read it.
All my love,
Mariah
Mariah, this is wonderful news. I would say congratulations, but that word doesn't do justice to the level of grit it takes (and perseverance) to withstand all of the grueling personal and professional growth and effort for TEN YEARS to get to this point! (The cover of your book looks lovely, by the way.) The story-behind-the-story here lends depth and meaning to your "why," and you deserve to be in this place where you bask in the "birth" of your book! (By the way, what genre is it?) So...for lack of a better word, CONGRATS!
amazing! congratulations on your launch!!!