Featured Author: Holly May Cormier

Some writers choose the story. Sometimes, the story chooses the writer.

For Holly May Cormier, Memphis was not a calculated decision, it was a presence. The characters arrived first. The emotional arc followed. The conflict lived in her long before she ever sat down to call herself a novelist. What began as listening eventually became writing.

Based in Toronto, this Canadian author brings a background in marketing and the arts to her work, blending emotional intelligence with narrative control. Her debut novel, Memphis, was selected by Kirkus Reviews for their April 2026 issue highlighting independent authors with remarkable potential, and described as “an enthralling and sensitive work of crime fiction.”

Memphis

Set between Nashville and Los Angeles, Memphis is a women’s fiction thriller rooted in survival, generational trauma, and the cost of silence. Memphis Monroe has spent ten years trapped in a violent marriage to Johnny Freedman, a man shaped by alcoholism and entitlement. Raised to believe endurance equals loyalty, she has nearly forgotten her own voice, until the day survival demands something different.

With her young son beside her, Memphis flees in her husband’s prized Mustang Shelby, beginning a journey that is both physical and internal. As she searches for safety, she uncovers long-buried truths about her family, her mother, and the systems that failed her. When her past catches up to her in Los Angeles, the confrontation forces a final reckoning: live briefly and fiercely, or disappear quietly forever.

Book Blurb

A run-down suburb of Nashville, Tennessee is home to the Freedman family – a tight-knit clan of hard-drinking men who grind their women to dust beneath their boots. From the first moment she meets him, Memphis Monroe, a soft-spoken choir-girl, is overwhelmed by Johnny Freedman’s attention and reputation. Her mother, Doris, who partied with Johnny’s old man back in the day, wants to secure a future for her daughter outside of the trailer park and pushes Memphis to marry him. When the novel opens in the late 70s, Memphis has been married to Johnny for ten long years, and is too worn down by his drinking and violence to hope for a brighter future for her and her son, Michael. Until, that is, the day Johnny goes too far and Memphis is faced with a choice: live as a lion for one day or a sheep for a lifetime. With her son beside her in her husband’s prized Mustang Shelby, Memphis escapes and embarks on an epic journey from Nashville to Los Angeles in search of shelter and safety. What she finds instead is the voice she’s quelled for so long, a new love, and answers to questions that have plagued her her whole life. When Johnny and Doris track her to Los Angeles, Memphis finds herself caught in a web of lies spun long before she ever met her abusive husband – leading to a final, harrowing encounter from which there can be no turning back. Memphis explores the generational impact of alcoholism and violence on families, and the early days of abortion rights in America.

At its heart, Memphis is about sovereignty. About a mother choosing herself. About resilience after trauma. Readers have called it emotional, inspirational, and deeply human. Holly herself describes it as a story of redemption and voice, one that insists on being heard.

She is currently working on the sequel, scheduled for release by October 2026. The story, she says, is far from over. 

The next installment, Memphis: Johnny, shifts the lens to the man who once stalked her from the shadows, now stepping fully into the light. The novel dives deep into Johnny’s narcissistic psyche, expanding his point of view and exposing the manipulation, control, and calculated charm that define him.

In Johnny, he is no longer lurking in the shadows but out in the open with media and muscle at his side.

Welcome to gaslight nation.

Johnny is available for preorder now. This is a trilogy. Book Three will be a prequel called Doris set for release in 2027.

📚 Buy Memphis:

Amazon (Paperback): https://books2read.com/u/mZOEdE?store=amazon-paperback&format=PAPERBACK

Kobo (Audiobook): https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/memphis-34

Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/us/book/memphis/id6752213611

🌐 Website:

www.hollymaycormier.com

Holly has kindly shared she will link back to this feature from her website, a gesture that reflects exactly what Hidden Voices is about: connection, reciprocity, and storytelling that travels further together.