Excerpt from Perish by LaToya Watkins, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"I don't have no friends, sir. All I got is me," she said, before dropping her eyes to her lap. And she wasn't sure why she even said that much to him, but she felt like she could've gone on if it hadn't been for the knot forming in her throat. The knot threatening to make her cry.

He didn't offer comfort. He didn't reach across the table and pat the backs of her hands. In fact, his silence was so thick that she looked back up at him to make sure he was still there. The hardness that folks were afraid of, that she hadn't noticed earlier, was in his jawline, in which she saw a slight twitch. She thought of her father. Of his twitching jawline, and pulled her hands from the table into her lap.

Excerpted from Perish by LaToya Watkins. Copyright © 2022 by LaToya Watkins. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.