Current Writing Projects

Some projects spend years quietly gathering themselves before they are ready to be told. Others arrive almost fully formed and refuse to wait. What follows are the works currently on my desk, in various stages of development—from completed manuscripts awaiting publication to stories that have only recently begun insisting they be written.

Unless otherwise noted, all works are © Ashleigh Renée Mitchell.

Roots & Echoes

An intergenerational family saga following one extended family from its earliest known ancestor to the present day.

Like every family history, this one is necessarily incomplete. We know only the stories the survivors lived to tell, and those remembered by the generations who followed. Countless others have been lost to time. This saga follows one extended family from its earliest known ancestor to the present day, preserving what remains—and imagining, where history falls silent, what might once have been.

I. Roads and Song

Stories that precede the events of The Dream That Carried Us

• 1812 – The Fair at Miskolc — The earliest known story in the family saga. A chance meeting at a country fair changes the course of generations yet unborn.
• The Fire on the Hill Road — A devastating wagon fire leaves Ilonka Barbu widowed with only her children and a handful of salvaged possessions. As she turns west, she cannot know that her family’s journey will eventually lead to the Petulengros—and, generations later, to the Jones family.
• Forged in Fire and Song — Marek Holomek discovers that his future lies not at the family forge but in music, as one gifted violinist finds his calling while Europe slowly darkens around him.
• Prelude to a Dream — Marek and Sofija Holomek build a family in Brno during the final years before war, raising their children while the freedoms they have always known quietly disappear one decree at a time.

II. The Dream That Carried Us

A trilogy of survival, remembrance, and rebuilding.

• Rachel and Miriam (Companion novella; not intended for general publication.) — A companion to Unseen, following two sisters whose lives are forever altered by sexual violence in Auschwitz-Birkenau and the quiet courage they find in protecting one another and those more vulnerable than themselves.
• Unseen (Book One — Pre-publication Finalization) — Twelve-year-old Anastazia Holomek enters Auschwitz-Birkenau on 2 August 1944, where the destruction of one family becomes the beginning of another.
• Unbroken (Book Two — Final Draft) — Liberation is only the beginning. Chava and Józef struggle to rebuild their lives in postwar Prague while carrying the weight of everything they survived.
• Unbound (Book Three — Final Draft) — The family begins again in America, discovering that survival is only the first step toward healing.

III. The Dream Takes Root

Stories bridging the wartime trilogy and the generations that follow.

• The Dream Takes Root (Planning / Early Development) — An interconnected sequence of stories following Chava, Józef, and the family they build in New Orleans, as survival slowly gives way to ordinary life.
• Leap Toward Light (Planning) — Finn MacNaughton, Miriam (“Miri”) Schwartz, Tommy Ray MacLeod, and Genevra Louise Thibodeaux begin building the family they choose, discovering that hope is strongest when it is shared.
• Tommy’s Secret (Short story) — Tommy carries a secret that will shape Finn’s life for decades.
• The Storm and the Stubborn Rabbi (Short story) — As Hurricane Elena approaches New Orleans, Józef discovers that surviving Auschwitz did not prepare him for surviving an evacuation ordered by the women who love him.
• Józef’s Claim (Planning) — A quiet reflection on memory, grief, and the children of Auschwitz.

IV. Secrets and Love

The generation born from survival.

A. Of Love and Legacy

• The Light We Carried Home (Draft) — John David Jones and Angharad Hughes build a life together while navigating family, culture, and the legacies they inherit.
• Additional stories following the Jones and Hughes families.

B. After the Storm

Anna, Brooke, and the constellation of friends who become their chosen family.

• Tu es foutu (Completed novella) — Anna Jones discovers that first loves are not always what they appear on the surface.
• Leaving Ashland (Completed short story) — Marcus Wells returns home after his mother’s death and discovers that grief sometimes opens doors long thought closed.
• Where the Quiet Begins (Draft) — Doctor Gabriel Toussaint-Doyle discovers that healing often begins not with answers, but with someone willing to sit quietly beside you.
• After the Storm (Approaching Completion) — Set in the immediate aftermath of HUrricane Katrina in New Orleans, Doctor Anna Jones and ex-Navy Officer Brooke Morningstar navigate the survival and healing of lives deeply injured by their pasts.

V. The Road Continues

The generations that follow. The Holocaust has passed from living memory into family history, but its echoes continue to shape the lives of children and grandchildren who never experienced it themselves.

A. Life with Riley

Stories following the Brooke, Anna, Riley Jone-Morningstar family and friends.

• Surprise — Brooke’s “seventh for-real, once every four-years actual birthday.” Called in to work to cover for a supposedly ill supervisor, she has no idea Anna has orchestrated the deception so family and friends can surprise her. Riley is just over two months old.
• The Dreaming Child — Moments from Riley’s childhood as Brooke and Anna discover that parenthood is equal parts wonder, exhaustion, laughter, and uncertainty.
• When the Lights Went Out (working title) — The end of one story. The next awaits. What awaits the Jones-Morningstar family when the phone rings?

B. The Eld Island Cycle

• From the Gulf Coast to the Pacific Northwest – the family’s newest chapter begins.

Additional novels and stories set on Eld Island.

• Where The Bones Lie Working Title) — Following a late night phone call from “Uncle Tommy”, Brooke and her family relocate to Brooke’s childhood home of Eld Eldand. New adventures and old memories await our estwhile choosen fanily, Will they survive the ravagese of time?

• The Bones of Home (working title)Recovering from a devastating automobile accident, an unexpected divorce, and months of rehabilitation, Marina MacLeod returns home to Eld Island determined to build a new life from the pieces of the old.

• Good Bones (Book One of the Eld Island Mysteries — major rewrite nearing completion.) — Marina MacLeod and Brooke Morningstar find themselves drawn into a mystery that reaches far deeper into the island’s history than either of them imagined.