Behind Puckerbrush: The Small Town That Wouldn’t Leave Me Alone

I was driving to my son and daughter-in-law’s house when I saw it.

A road sign.

Not an especially beautiful one. Not historic. Not magical. Just a green road sign standing beside the highway like thousands of others you pass without thinking twice about them.

But this one stopped me cold.

Puckerbrush.

I remember thinking immediately: That is the greatest book title I have ever heard.

What fascinated me wasn’t just how wonderfully odd the word sounded. Puckerbrush is actually a real term for the stubborn scrub brush that grows wild along roadsides and empty fields. It survives heat, drought, neglect — all the things that should kill it — and somehow comes back year after year anyway.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that was exactly the kind of story I wanted to tell.

Not stories about polished people with perfect lives.

I wanted to write about survivors.

People who carry old wounds quietly. People who have lost things, buried secrets, made mistakes, and kept going anyway. The kind of people who may look rough around the edges but who still stand strong when life tries to wear them down.

Every small town has people like that.

Puckerbrush is full of them.

I began building the story because a town with a name like Puckerbrush deserved unforgettable people living inside it. That first story became The Secrets of Puckerbrush.

Five books later, I still don’t think the town is finished with me.

The Town in My Head

Puckerbrush does not exist on any map, but to me it feels as real as any place I have ever lived.

I know exactly what you see when you drive into town.

Fields stretch along the highway, some green and thriving, others dry and cracked beneath the Texas heat. Cattle graze in the distance, and if you roll down your window long enough, you will understand why Berta insists the smell of livestock is “the smell of money.”

Main Street is lined with old brick buildings that have survived decades of hard weather and hard times. Wooden flower planters overflow with blooms because Berta refuses to let the town look neglected for even a single day. The old hotel became the Puckerbrush Café years ago, where Martha runs the kitchen with a booming voice and enough food to convince you that you have somehow wandered into your grandmother’s house by mistake.

There is Susan’s beauty shop, where more town business is handled than at any official meeting. Frank’s hardware store. Charles’s UPS shop. Beverly’s clothing boutique, where Beverly herself is always perfectly dressed and wearing earrings large enough to qualify as landmarks.

And across the street from the old Puckerbrush Press building sits a bench.

Most days, sitting on that bench, is Eldon.

The Character Who Changed Everything

Eldon may be the character closest to my heart.

When Abigail Stratford first arrives in Puckerbrush, she notices him immediately — an elderly man sitting quietly on a bench, watching the town move around him. Martha casually tells her, “That’s old Eldon. He spends his days sitting there watching the world go by.”

What nobody says out loud is that Eldon knows almost everything.

He spent decades running the Puckerbrush Press. He watched generations grow up, fall in love, bury secrets, and try to outrun their pasts. After he retired, the newspaper closed because nobody else could truly take his place.

Now he sits on that bench like part of the town itself.

Eldon was one of those rare characters who arrived in my imagination completely formed. His history, his heartbreak, his loneliness, his wisdom — all of it seemed to exist before I ever started writing. Sometimes I honestly feel less like I created him and more like I simply listened while he told me his story.

And his story begins long before Abigail ever arrives in town.

Where Puckerbrush Truly Begins

For me, the heart of Puckerbrush begins with Sister Angelica.

Years before the events of the series, before the sidewalks replaced wooden walkways and before the town became what it is, Sister Angelica took her usual morning walk and chose to turn left instead of right.

That single decision changed everything.

In an empty field outside town, she heard the faint cries of a frightened little boy curled in the dirt alone. His name was Eldon.

He was thin, bruised, terrified, and completely abandoned.

Instead of frightening him further, Sister Angelica sat down beside him in the dirt and softly sang “Jesus Loves Me” until he stopped shaking. Then she held out her hand and said:

Come with me, Eldon. I know we are going to become the best of friends.

That moment became the soul of Puckerbrush for me.

The soul of Puckerbrush is that simple act of kindness — one person refusing to leave another person alone in their darkest moment.

Everything else in the series grows from that moment outward.

Why I Keep Returning to Puckerbrush

People sometimes ask why I continue writing stories set in this town.

The answer is actually very simple.

Puckerbrush is where I write about what it means to truly be known.

When Abigail first arrives from Chicago, she expects a quiet little town where she can write an article and leave. Instead, she discovers a place where everyone already knows she has arrived before she finishes unpacking her suitcase.

Berta is calling ahead before visitors leave the motel parking lot.

The sheriff knows who came into town by dinnertime.

And Eldon notices everything from his bench across the street.

At first, that kind of closeness feels uncomfortable to Abigail. Maybe even suffocating.

But over time, she realizes there is something deeply comforting about living somewhere people notice your absence. Somewhere your life matters to other people whether you planned for it to or not.

That is what keeps bringing me back to Puckerbrush.

Not because the town is perfect.

It certainly is not.

The people there make mistakes. They keep secrets. They hurt each other. Some of them carry pain they may never completely heal from.

But beneath all of that is love.

A stubborn, resilient kind of love that refuses to let people disappear.

Maybe that is what all of us are searching for in the end.

A place where someone knows our story.

A place where someone notices when we arrive.

A place where, no matter how long we have been gone, someone is waiting for us to come home.