Bookwild - C.I Jerez's At The Island's Edge: Healing After Trauma, Family Bonds, and Second Chances

Episode Date: September 30, 2025

This week, I talk with C.I. Jerez about her emotional and empowering novel At the Island's Edge. We dive into the inspiration for the story, how she explored PTSD, and why she chose to write about a single mom who served in the army.At the Island's Edge SynopsisAn Iraq War veteran returns to Puerto Rico to reconnect with―and confront―the past in a heart-wrenching novel about duty, motherhood, and the healing power of home. As a combat medic, Lina LaSalle went to Iraq to save the lives of fellow soldiers. But when her convoy is attacked, she must set aside her identity as a healer and take a life herself.Although she is honored as a hero when she returns to the US, Lina cannot find her footing. She is stricken with PTSD and unsure of how to support her young son, Teó, a little boy with Tourette’s. As her attempts to self-medicate become harder to hide, Lina realizes she must do the toughest thing yet: ask for help.She retreats to her parents’ house in Puerto Rico, where Teó thrives under her family’s care. Lina finds kinship, too―with a cousin whose dreams were also shattered by the war and with a handsome and caring veteran who sought refuge on the island and runs a neighborhood bar.But amid the magic of the island are secrets and years of misunderstandings that could erode the very stability she’s fighting for. Hope lies on the horizon, but can she keep her gaze steady? Get Bookwild MerchCheck Out My Stories Are My Religion SubstackCheck Out Author Social Media PackagesCheck out the Bookwild Community on PatreonCheck out the Imposter Hour Podcast with Liz and GregFollow @imbookwild on InstagramOther Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrian 

This week I got to talk with C.I. Heres, who is the author of At the Island's Edge, which is a very empowering and emotional story about a single mom who has just left the army. When Sergeant Lena LaSalle returns to her parents' home in Puerto Rico, she faces a different kind of creating a brighter future for her young son, Teo, while making peace with her past. Teo thrives in his new life on the island, and Lena finds. kinds of kinship too, with a cousin whose dreams are also shattered by the war and with a handsome veteran who runs the neighborhood bar and offers understanding without judgment. But even in paradise, old wounds linger. As Lena wrestles with her guilt over the harrowing choices she made in Iraq

and the temptation to numb her pain, long-buried secrets threatened to erode the very stability she's fighting for. Hope lies on the horizon, but can she keep her gaze steady? This is It has this looming suspense underneath it, but it's a really, really, really good, like, fiction as well about family dynamics, the effects of PTSD, the difficulty of being a single mother who also has had experience in the army. It has a lot of elements going for it. And it was so fun getting to talk with CI Herez about it. So let's hear from her. I am so excited to talk about at the island's edge, but I did want to get to know a little bit about you before we dive into the book itself. So did you always want to write a book? What was the moment when you decided you wanted to write a book? Like how did that all happen for you?

Oh goodness. So I have been an avid reader since I was like six years old and I was really fortunate. that my grandfather lived in Manhattan, and he and his wife would always send me books. So I grew up on the Mexican border in El Paso, Texas, and there were not a lot of programs to support literacy for children in my neighborhood and at that time. And so these books arriving in the mail were like respite for me. And they introduced me to all of these beautiful worlds, and I just became obsessed. So I remember being very little and insisting that my mom put a bookshelf in my room, and I just began to collect.

And so I think I was maybe eight or nine years old before I was telling anybody who would listen that I was going to grow up one day to be a writer. Oh, I love that. That's amazing. It is like that's something I definitely talk about on here a lot. The way you can like, there's just so many things you can do with books, but the way you can like escape into them, understand. in the world, like all of that. I just, I feel you on that one so much. Um, how has your writing

process developed? So do you outline? Do you go with the vibes? How, how does that work for you? Yeah, it's funny. It's, it's an ongoing process. I think I'm still trying to figure it out. And I have written five manuscripts so far. So, um, I would say the one that got published at the Island's Edge, which was my third attempt, was very much a pancer process. I woke up one morning with this idea about, you know, Lena's journey on the battlefield and what that would be like. And just with that idea and knowing that she would be going home to Puerto Rico for respite, I sat down to write the story. And so I really had no idea where it was going to go, who the characters were. All of that unfolded organically as I was writing.

So then when I went to write the next manuscript, taking the advice of many instructors, I outlined this whole thing. I have gone through an outlining course, and so I spent a lot of time in energy and outlining my plot. And then as I began writing, I didn't really incorporate anything that I had outlined. So I thought, okay, well, that didn't really work well for me. So then on the next manuscript, the fifth, I tried a synopsie. So I had a full, like, three-page synopsies of what this book was about. And I thought, well, maybe with that much effort in a synopsies, I will stick with it. And what I found is I ended up, like, taking out the first 50 pages of the novel.

It didn't start where I wanted to. So I think for me, it's really important to go organically and on pure instinct with a strong idea in my head. That seems to be the works best. Yeah. Yeah, this, at the island's edge is really, it's really emotional too. And the characters feel so real. Like, they feel very lived in and just all of her family as well. So I can kind of, I feel like sometimes it makes sense that you're kind of like following, maybe following the characters even like as you're writing them in more emotional stories. Is that maybe kind of how it works for you? Yeah. I agree.

I agree. I think, you know, stepping away from the structure, and it's funny because on the professional side, when I'm not writing, I work in very structured industries, and that is, you know, my go-to. But when it comes to the writing, I really feel like I have to step back from what I think I want and just let that story unfold and let the characters come to me as they are without any of my own predispositions in mind for who they are. And it's true. I think that works best. Yeah. That's cool. How has your experience, I know you were in the Army as well as the main character that we'll talk about a little bit too. How did that experience inform writing this book? Yeah, it's funny. I've always been very thankful for the Army for, you know, changing my life in all the best ways. but Lena's experience, my protagonist, is very different from any of mine. And so she's enlisted.

I was an officer. She's a combat medic. I was in IT and then in finance. So very, very different day-to-day experiences and backgrounds as soldiers. I think what it did inform was that I was a mother when I joined the Army. I had two young daughters at the time and then I had a third daughter while I was in service. Lena has a son. She's a single mother.

I was not a single mother. But I do understand what it is to put on the uniform and understand the implications, especially in wartime, and what that means as a mother. And so that was very intimate for me. And then in terms of like the logistics and the lingo and the convoys and all the technical stuff

about being a soldier, that was natural. for me because I lived for nine years. Yeah, totally. Um, so you kind of said that when you were writing this one, you sat down and you kind of had the feeling of like Lena on the battlefield. Was that your, was that the main point of inspiration for this book? Or was there something else that was like, this is a story I'm going to tell? Yeah, I really wanted to explore at the heart of this. What was most important to me is to write a story to show. share a woman's perspective in a military environment or for like the women that serve in the fire

department or the police you know police units i didn't feel like we have spent enough art and time exploring a very unique journey which is women in uniform in combat on the front lines like They are at the head of this thing, and yet we have all these movies about the men coming home for more and the men's experiences, and ours are very different. And so at the heart of this, I wanted to show, look, in the military, 20% of the military are female, and many of them are experiencing combat right up close and up front. And this could be what is, especially when they're mothers. And I don't think really anybody has explored what it's like for these women that are also coming home and taking on that. Another big job, you know, raising their families. Yes.

Yeah. It's a huge job to have on top of a huge job as well, basically. Right. And you do explore. She has PTSD from her experiences. and so a large like a large portion of her story arc is like how is she going to choose to deal with this so how did how did you approach that and what what do you think kind of it I think it kind of fits in thrillers or like books like that kind of well too because we're also kind of used to like

flashbacks and going back into the past so yeah what kind of what kind of drew you to that. Yeah, so I think in that regard, Lena's experience is very universal. Given that I served in wartime and I was an officer, so I was leading soldiers, so understanding their experiences and talking with them, men and women alike coming back from the battlefield are oftentimes in denial. That is the first reaction, right, is I'm fine, especially in an environment like the U.S. me where you are taught mental toughness and that is really, you know, programmed very early on is intestinal fortitude, mental toughness, you know, shake it off and drive on, like these, which are very necessary when you're entering into these environments, you need that mental

toughness, right? But then coming back and recovering from what you've seen and those experiences and really processing what was happening out there. Sometimes that kind of ingrained thought process gets in the way. And so I really wanted, and I think this is why a lot of male readers have had such favorable experiences reading my book because they relate to what Lena's going through in that sense, that sense of denial. And for Lena, she's got this priority of raising her son. And so for her, her own issues and her own pain has to take a back seat to priority number one, which is, you know, being a mom.

Yeah. Yeah, totally. So with her son, he, he's so sweet. I loved him so much. Or love him as I actively. Yeah. So he's dealing with Tourette's. and the way that disrupts his life just as himself,

but also the way like the kids at school treat him. And so, but he's so sweet. So how did you kind of craft his character? So it's funny because my idea originally started with Teo. I had been reading Robert Dagoni's The Extraordinary Life of Somehow. I finished that book and I fell in love with Sam. And I said, I've got to write a story with a little boy. Like, I just felt very inspired by that.

And then Teo one day in my head said, I want to tell you the story about my mom. And then Lena's kind of idea popped in my mind. And I explored it through that. But Teo had ticks in my mind and I couldn't figure out what or why. I'm not familiar with Tourette's as a mother. None of my children were diagnosed with Tourette's syndrome. So I began, you know, with Dr. Google and researching, you know, what would drive

ticks in a child? And then as I began to study Tourette's, I started to go on YouTube and watch videos of, like, kids that are being interviewed with Tourette's. And their experiences and those interviews really helped me bring Teo's condition to life in his character. I already had a very clear sense of who he was with his buddy Holly glasses and his love of science. Like I already knew those aspects.

But then the research on Tourette's helped me finalize that cohesive picture of who he was. Yeah, that makes sense. So it's kind of told non-linearly as well. And with stuff like that, I always wonder, did you write her past first? Or did you write mostly in the order that the book is in? Yeah, I wrote absolutely 100% the order that the book is in. And even the twists that materialize happened very organically in that moment that I was like, oh my gosh, of course.

How did I not see this? right and so i had not intended for those twists as i was going that way but when i got to the scene the characters were revealing those twists to me and i thought thank god for you guys because i had no idea that is so cool i think that's like so magical that people can write that way and like still surprise themselves as well like it's just so cool that it can work out that way um so it also So Lena's returning to Puerto Rico for kind of like you mentioned the beginning for a respite is what she's wanting. That's not exactly what happens overall, but the setting feels like a character in this book. And I love those.

I feel like it's so immersive when you're just so aware of where you are the whole time. So how did you, how did you kind of craft that? And yeah, that's the main question. Yeah, I'm really proud of that part of this book and really proud that it made it out into the world because I fell in love with Puerto Rico. The first time I went to live there, I was almost 30 years old. It was, you know, a while back. And I've lived there twice since or worked there the third time I was kind of back and forth. but the island just blew me away with so many different facets of what it's about and, you know,

who it is. And it's funny because it did come out like a character. So when I was writing about her journey home, it's funny because for Lena, initially, this is like her last straw. It's the last thing she wants to do is go back to Puerto Rico after 12 years. away where she feels like the island sent her away to go do these big wonderful things and now she's going back with her tail between her legs broken and with her son you know single mom and this is like the worst idea in the world for her but she really feels she has no choice and yet as I walked through my mind of what it felt like to be on that island when I live

there it came to life for me on the page and I would put music on songs that were really popular when I was living there, and it just brought me back to that moment. And so those are those details of the island, you know, whether it's foliage, the smells, the food, the sound, the people that it came to life really easy for me because I lived it in so many regards. That's cool. I saw in one of the reviews, someone even, like, recognized the location from the cover, and I was like that's like obviously it wasn't something that I noticed by saw in the review and I was like that is so cool when you like even recognize something like that on a book cover too yeah I

showed the cover so one that was all the publisher I give them all the credit they they designed like Union designed a beautiful cover and them choosing um la garita which is the cultural symbol of Puerto Rico as the cover was I mean just so heartwarming but the very first person that I showed that cover to is from Puerto Rico and he's got a business there. He lives there. He's a dear friend of mine. And we were on like a Zoom call and I said, let me show you the cover of the book. And his eyes got teary and he was just like speechless staring at this cover. And he said, that's Lagata. And I said, I know. And it just like watching him, I thought, oh my gosh, I am even more excited that this is happening. Yeah. That's amazing.

So her family life is there's some complicated dynamics going on there as well, which I think is what made it the whole story feel very real too. Because their relationships are very lived in. I may have said that earlier. But did those family dynamics? Was that also something that kind of came to you just as you were writing the characters? Yeah, so, you know, my family is very different from Lena's family. My dad is from Cuba, and my mother is a New Yorker, and she's half Irish, half Puerto Rican. So I couldn't just pull from my own experiences because Lena's family is very different. You know, they are all from Puerto Rico. So I had to really lean on the experiences with the families that I got to know while I was on the island in terms of how they would approach things culturally and like the language and I had some very dear friends that I was able to phone a friend and say, you know, give me some good expressions that you use, things of that nature. Yeah. In terms of like the emotional complexities of family, yeah, that's a really rich subject that you

can draw from any culture, right? Any of your experiences, there's just, I think it's pretty universal. Yeah, that's cool that you've got to like even get like the phrases. that are, because there is some Spanish throughout it as well. So that's cool that you're able to kind of talk to them about like how they actually would be talking about things. Yeah. Yeah, but I wanted, I was very intentional to make sure that you didn't need a dictionary with the Spanish in the book, that the context clues were very strong. I didn't want to have to translate every word. That's never fun, right? That totally pulls you out of the screen. So I used a lot of context clues. And then

I was very deliberate about when and where I used Spanish to honor the culture, but not confuse the reader. Because it is primarily American reader. Right. Yeah. I was, it was, I listened to this one, how was a while ago, but then a couple of weeks later, I listened to salt bones by Jennifer Yvonne. And I like, it was cool how she intertwined the Spanish as well. Um, it does just like it's another, I think it's probably another immersive thing, even though like you're saying, like, we're mostly English readers here, but it does kind of immerse you in it just a little bit more. Sure. I need to check that book out. There's so many wonderful things about it.

So you just reminded me. It is so good. And it's like there's like, there's like folklore going on. It's in like that the borderlands area as well. Um, but yeah, it's really, it's so good, especially for. like going into spooky season too so like the the folklore horror is like whoa um and you get like multi-generational stuff which is always really fascinating to me too yes me too similar here yeah um but then we do we do have a little a little romance i was about to call it a subplot but maybe it's not

even a subplot like it's like it is the plot too um but he kind of he kind of he kind of is a foil to Lena and kind of softens her out a little bit. So was that intentional or did you just kind of meet him and you were like, this, this is who he's going to be? Like, this is who Lena needs. How did that happen? Yeah, I totally built an author crush on Elijah Montgomery as I was writing him. I was like, hot for teacher. But he was a lot of fun. So it's funny because his disability comes from one of the soldiers that I served with when I was going to school at OBC, the officer basic course in the Army, had the same disability. And I had such respect and admiration for all the things that he was able to overcome despite, you know, his challenges. And so as I was putting

Eli kind of in my head and into the world on paper, I thought about all just those little minute details that I would admire watching this other soldier just in his day to day. And I that, you know, I really want to capture that in, that Ila is very much whole and, and so incredibly strong inside and outside. And the other thing that was really important to me about him, one is he's, you know, a southern gentleman from Charleston, South Carolina. So he gives an insight for the American reader who's never been to Puerto Rico or who's not familiar with the Puerto Rican culture. They get to experience Lena and her family in the island. through his eyes and relate through his experiences.

And so that was really important to me because that's the world that I live in as a Latina. I'm around so many different cultures. And I also wanted to show the many different faces of PTSD. So although Eli is softer and stronger in some ways, he is enduring his own battles. And so PTSD doesn't look like just one thing. got a lot of different evolutions. And he was very instrumental in helping me show that as well. Yeah.

Yeah, we do all react to things so differently, like based on even just, well, I guess that's like also the nature versus nurture. But it's like you have your temperament and then you have your experiences. And like, then that shapes how you process it. So yeah, I think it is good to remember that it, uh, present. in different ways. Yeah. With Lina, she does lean on alcohol as a way to deal with it, which obviously is understandable for what

she's gone through. But how did you approach writing about that part of her story? Yeah. So there was a few things that were very intentional for me, which one was that she had not been a drinker beforehand. So a lot of people assume, oh, the Latino culture, that's, you know, part of who they are. That's what they grow up drinking rum when they're eight years old, which is not true, by the way. But, you know, some people think that.

And so I wanted to be very intentional about highlighting that. Lena was a character and a young woman who did not drink. And that was not part of her lifestyle. And coming back from Iraq and meeting a fellow soldier at a bar opens up this world for her where she realizes that alcohol has the ability to numb her memories and numb her pain. And it becomes very easy for her to say, if I don't drink to the point that I can't care for my son at all, like I'm incoherent or I'm passed out,

if I don't reach that point, then I don't have a problem, right? Because all I'm doing is kind of self-medicating and numbing my experiences so that I can then take care of my child. And I think that's a very relatable state of mind that a lot of people will lie to themselves. And so it's very easy for her to take that from, I'm fine, I don't have an issue to all of a sudden I have a pretty big issue. There's obviously, there's like highly functioning alcoholism,

just like there's kind of, there's highly functioning depression, all of that. And I felt like it kind of also played into what you were talking about earlier, where, like, if your job has trained you to, like, tough it out and just move on, move forward, whatever, it's probably easier to come to the conclusion of, like, if I'm still functioning, like, I'm technically fine. Right. I think we all have different versions of that. sometimes and it's like no actually maybe you're hurting right now right and especially like in her

case she's very much an overachiever so it's really hard for these kind of type a overachiever types not that I would know or anything but to admit that you know they are hurting and and I so I really wanted to walk that storyline and show readers you know Lena's very unique not a lot of women join the military, much less as a single mom. Like, there's not a lot of women that represent who she represents. And yet, she does fail. She does falter at times. But her heart is always in the right place. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Yeah, you do feel that. Like, you're not, you're not, like, like angry at her even even in the moments where you're just like a little bit frustrated like you still you really do understand why she's coping the way she's coping is kind of what I'm

trying to say um so yeah I obviously I loved it I loved how emotional like emotional it was or like emotionally invested I got um so everyone needs to go read this one or listen I really did enjoy listening to it. Oh, yes. So the narrator, I cannot highlight enough. She is so good. Her voice, when I listen to her read, I mean, one, she just had Lena's voice. I don't know how that happened. It was a little bit more magic, but I heard Lena, and when I heard Kyla Garcia narrator, I'm like, oh my gosh, these are, it's the same voice. She's a Broadway actress. She's a poet, and she just knew the intonation in moments that I was like, how is this possible? How could she know this?

That's so cool. Yeah, I love finding like it's so fascinating the way voices can like bring the story to life so much too. And then you just like sometimes you just love someone's voice. Like there are books now that I may try out just because I love the name. narrator and I'm like I probably wouldn't have even like looked at this genre maybe but like having someone read it to you does just make it differently real sometimes so yeah I do I do recommend doing that with this one I think it did I see it was maybe Kindle Unlimited too I can't it was yes it has since it was yeah since it launched um so it's on Kindle Limited and it's they're also running a dollar

99 sale for if you're not on Kindle Limited for the entire month of October and it's just been heritage months so it's good timing yes yeah um i do always ask at the end especially since you said you're a big reader have you read anything recently that you've loved oh yes um so it's funny actually that i'm at the women's fiction writer association conference this week and i read i'm reading ral levitz the seer It's actually very atmospheric, great for spooky season. So I'm about a third of the way into it and loving it. And then the inheritance of Orquidia divina as a Latinx read has been really, really beautiful as well. And has been one of the books that I'm like tucking away as I remember this year.

And of course, on the military side, Robert Degonis holds strong. We actually pubbed on the same day this year on March 18th. That has to be one of the top five books I've ever read. And it's about the Baton Death March and his character, Sam, who is going through his experiences as a POW during the right after Pearl Harbor captured during the Baton Death March. and my gosh, like talk about an emotional book, but probably one of the best I read like top five ever. That's amazing. And you kind of, am I remembering correctly from Thriller Fest, you kind of worked with him a little bit? Or did he just blurb it? I can't remember. That's so cool that you're inspired by his book.

It's funny. He's my mentor, but doesn't know it. So he's like my spiritual support. He inspired me to write. at the Island's Edge, his book inspired my book. And then he endorsed it. We actually are published by the same publisher. So that was kind of a funny coincidence. He very generously and kindly endorsed it. Then he became the mentor during the debut panel because this book has a lot of suspense elements in it, which is my ITW recognized it. And he was my mentor. And I thought, oh, my gosh, what are the odds? And then our two books pubbed on the same day this year. And he's going to also be my mentor on my newest manuscript at the at a writer's conference with Stephen James in November. So you know, sometimes in life, you know, people are just meant to their

lives collide. And I'm very, very grateful to him for, you know, even the impacts he didn't realize he was making on my writing and all my books. Yeah. I love those stories like that. Yeah, it's a cool. It's been magical. It's been magical. Yeah. Well, where can people follow you to stay up to date with this other manuscript that may be coming out? Yeah. So I am on all the socials.

If you look up C.I.Herez with a J, you'll find me on Facebook, Instagram, threads, TikTok, Blue Sky. I'm on all of them. I spend a lot of time on Facebook, threads, Instagram, and TikTok. So it's easy to find me. Also, my website has a lot of wonderful material to support reading the book. I've got recipes of Puerto Rican appetizers. I have a Spotify playlist. I have discussion questions, which are actually in the book as well.

There's a trailer for the book. And so my website is www.c.g.org.com. and there's tons of material there. Yeah. I love when there's like extra stuff that accompanies or that mirrors the book or whatever. That's so cool. So I will put that link in the show notes for anyone who's interested. And thank you so much for talking with me about it.

Oh, my gosh, Kate. I'm so excited to be on the show. I appreciate your time and spending time with me on the page. Thank you for following Lena and her journey. And I wish you so much continued success on the podcast.