She’s the last line of defense for LA’s most vulnerable children, until she’s ambushed by the past.
She’s the last line of defense for LA’s most vulnerable children, until she’s ambushed by the past.
A gripping drama of power, privilege, and the cost of doing what's right—told with razor-sharp wit and a heroine you won’t forget.
Eva M.
Author
In Los Angeles, justice depends on who you are—and what you're willing to sacrifice
Freya Gordon has built a career protecting LA's most vulnerable kids—but her professional instincts are tested when Melissa, a designer-clad, emotionally damaged sixteen-year-old, shows up with a story of psychological abuse behind Brentwood gates. As Melissa’s case falls apart, three other girls vanish—all who attended the same posh private school in Brentwood. Freya discovers that she has an enemy within her own ranks, and he puts her in the crosshairs of the LAPD.
With her career on the line and her own board working against her, Freya must confront dangerous truths about power and privilege, and how much depravity the walled-off wealthy can get away with. But can she save the girls caught up in their gruesome web?
At once gripping and sharply emotional, Dark Angels is a darkly funny, socially incisive novel perfect for fans of Lock Every Door, a young woman courageously unmasks a killer and exposes a horror-ridden past, Bright Young Women, two women in pursuit of justice persevere despite adulation for a serial killer, and The Quiet Tenant, the psychological impact of one man’s cruelty on the women in his life. This debut combines insight into the child welfare system, with character-driven emotional depth, telling a story about the cost of advocacy—and the cracks where angels fall.
Interested in the Full Manuscript?
A writers Journey
→
Attorney – Sacramento
→
'01
True Love for True Crime is born
'90s
→
East Area Rapist interest resurfaces due to DNA.
→
UCLA Writer’s Program
→
Sacramento Child Advocates Board of Directors
2009-2014
next
→
Memoir writing
→
'01
Allegra Johnson one of two finalists for "Miss Lotto" (unpublished)
→
→
→
2016
Mentorship with novelist
Lynn Hightower
2018-2021
→
Novel Writing
Dark Angels, current novel
Manuscript for A Long Shadow
In process: Compulsions, Love and Friendship in the time of the Golden State Killer
→
2022-2025
2025
next
Lock Every Door
LEarn More
Author: Clémence Michallon
Published: 2023
What it’s about: A serial predator hides in plain sight, told through the perspectives of the women around him—his captive, his daughter, and others.
Why it fits: Shares Dark Angels’ focus on quiet psychological tension, female POV, and the emotional ripple of violence and silence. Also centers women whose stories are often unseen or misunderstood.
Learn More
Author: Riley Sager
Published: 2019
What it’s about: A young woman is hired to apartment-sit in a lavish Manhattan building, only to uncover a disturbing secret about missing tenants.
Why it fits: Like Dark Angels, it features a woman uncovering hidden danger in an elite, insulated world. Themes of secrecy, power imbalance, and horror behind privilege align, though tone-wise it’s more commercial suspense.
Bright Young Women
The Quiet Tenant
LEarn More
Author: Jessica Knoll
Published: 2023
What it’s about: A reimagining of the Ted Bundy narrative from the women’s perspective. Two women refuse to let a serial killer’s story overshadow the lives of his victims.
Why it fits: Deeply feminist, emotionally charged, and centered on women demanding justice in the face of societal dismissal—mirrors Freya’s battle and the book’s message about who gets heard.
Comp titles
In an era when vulnerable children are increasingly left to the tender mercies of institutions, Dark Angels tells the story of one tireless advocate through fiction. With a sharp, empathetic voice, this novel pulls back the curtain on unlikely, dismissed victims – the children of the ultra-privileged. It's not a legal drama, but an emotionally-charged reckoning told through a woman who risks everything to expose the truth. Timely, voice-driven, and grounded in lived experience, Dark Angels stands beside breakout titles like The Quiet Tenant and Bright Young Women—books that don’t just entertain but challenge the narrative of who gets saved and who gets heard.
Eva is a lifelong Angeleno who spent twelve years in Sacramento, where, as an attorney, her love of true crime took hold. After returning to Los Angeles, Eva entered the writer’s program at UCLA, completing a memoir and her first novel, Miss Lotto. She was a finalist for the Allegra Johnson prize in Memoir and Novel Writing.
Eva is an avid reader of psychological thrillers, and Dark Angels is her paean to the genre. Her next project, already in the works, is a novel centered on a decades long friendship, built on surviving the East Area Rapist (later the Golden State Killer), of Sacramento.
When not writing, she’s out on gentle hikes, with her faithful companion Gumbo, the scruffiest of terriers.
Eva M.
