I always start off on a new account with an introductory post. It just gets that "what do I post first?" nervousness out of the way. And I usually do a new one each time — just to see how much has changed since the last one.

So, um, hi, I'm Lavinia Thompson. I describe myself as an old garden witch who writes about murder, true and fictional. I'm a music addict, animal lover, true crime junkie, whiskey drinker who loves reading and writing books, playing darts, cross stitching, and long road trips. I'm a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and domestic violence.

Currently, I am in what I have dubbed my "new adulthood" era. My mother just passed away on March 6, 2026 of COPD. The world looks incredibly different on this side of that tragedy than it did before. This was a woman I believed could survive anything. She survived my father's death in 1988 while she was pregnant with me. I'd watched her survive my ex-stepdad, who tried repeatedly to kill her, who burned our house down, and then watched her survive a brain aneurysm that almost ended her life.

At 37, it is weird to have still held onto that belief. And to navigate a world where her strength, resilience, and gentleness touched everything I knew. Where she no longer physically exists. We didn't always get along. Long-term trauma in a family where everyone healed on their own, not in unison, caused a lot of fractures and disagreements. But in her last few years, we got it together. We had the difficult conversations, the in-depth, contemplative ones, shed some tears, and finally developed a relationship at its most authentic, not one based on pretending everything was okay.

In many ways, she was the biggest supporter of my writing. She loved my mystery books and characters. She read everything. And she's the reason I love true crime so much. I spent my childhood reading her Ann Rule books and watching true crime docs when I was far too young to be doing so.

And so, I guess I am also trying to learn how to write in a chaotic world without my biggest supporter. That's the new adulthood. The new journey. That being said, this account will probably be a mix of some personal writings, poetry I've written over the years, and my crime fiction.

I have three crime fiction/mystery series on the go. My first is "Beyond Dark," a self-published series about a criminal profiler who specializes in female serial killers. The spinoff is "Beyond Cover," about two undercover agents trying to survive the Russian mafia in Canada and their own corrupt agency. (This is the one I'll be posting here." Finally, I have my self-published novella series, "Martha Holmes Mysteries," about a private investigator who gets thrown into a life changing case at the same time as her marriage falls apart. The first books in "Beyond Dark" and "Martha Holmes" can be found in the usual places online. The second books will be out hopefully later this year. I'll do another post with more details about my projects.

In the meantime, stay tuned for "Beyond Cover" and some other writings I have backlogged or am currently working on. I look forward to meeting everyone else!

~ Lav