Clair Brett News Today

In the fall of 2020, a post announcing the death of Susan Meachen appeared on her Facebook page, where she had often described her struggles with mental health and complained of poor treatment by other writers. The post, written by her daughter, led many to assume she had died by suicide. It sent fans and writers into a spiral of grief and introspection, wondering how their sisterhood had turned so poisonous.

Late one Monday morning, two police officers drove up a gravel driveway to a mobile home in Benton, Tennessee, a tiny town in the foothills of the southern Appalachians, to question Susan Meachen, a 47-year-old homemaker and author of romance novels.

A Tennessee homemaker entered the online world of romance writers and it became, in her words, “an addiction.” Things went downhill from there.

A Tennessee homemaker entered the online world of romance writers and it became, in her words, “an addiction.”