Guest post written by Honeysuckle and Bone author Trisha Tobias
Trisha Tobias is the author of the forthcoming young adult debut Honeysuckle and Bone (Zando Young Readers, January 14, 2025). She is a 2019-2021 Highlights Foundation Diversity Fellow and a recipient of the 2018 Walter Dean Myers Grant. She has also volunteered as a 2018 Pitch Wars mentor. Trisha holds a BA in Media and Communication Studies from Fordham University. She crafts stories that illuminate the beauty within darkness, weaving meaningful tales with edge. In her down time, Trisha can be found vibing to K-Pop and showtunes, shuffling tarot cards, and perfecting her skincare routine.
About Honeysuckle and Bone: Honeysuckle and Bone is a deliciously atmospheric and utterly spooky young adult novel following an imperfect yet courageous teen as she seeks to remake herself in the homeland she always idealized, discovering that new beginnings don’t always come easy.
Take a peek at an excerpt after the guest post!
Blood isn’t thicker than water.
Don’t get me wrong. Family matters. But the family you’re born into doesn’t have to be the only one that makes you feel like you’re part of something meaningful.
In my debut novel, Honeysuckle and Bone, eighteen-year-old Carina lands in her mother’s homeland of Jamaica, ready to be an au pair for the wealthy and powerful Hall family. This is Carina’s first time actually visiting the island. She wonders how to fit in, not only with the Halls, but with the country and culture overall. While Jamaica is her mother’s birthplace, to Jamaican American Carina, it’s foreign; Carina is a puzzle piece that might not fit. And while the Halls invite Carina to be a temporary member of their family, the offer feels like both Carina’s greatest desire and a massive burden. To be like the Halls is to be bigger than herself and to meet their incredibly high standards. In short, there likely isn’t a place for Carina-the-person in the Hall clan.
Luckily, Carina finds acceptance and understanding elsewhere: in a group of teen coworkers known as the Young Birds. Carina and the Young Birds have a few things in common. They’re all employees of the Halls. They all share Jamaican heritage. But the Young Birds couldn’t be more different from Carina when comparing their upbringings, their current life situations, or even their ways of speaking. Still, despite this, Carina is brought into the fold and shown some love she’d long been missing. And soon enough, Carina is looking out for them too—sometimes, even when they’d rather she mind her business.
That’s a found family. A group of disparate-seeming people who find—and choose—each other.
The found family trope has serious staying power with audiences, which can probably be attributed to its wide appeal. And what’s not to like? The trope is a haven for outsiders. It’s a beacon of hope that speaks to connection despite life’s darkness. It’s a loving representation of friendship that can span different backgrounds and walks of life. For many, the idea of a chosen family is a lifeline all its own.
For years growing up, I had a lifeline like this. Some of my closest friends were girls who had Caribbean heritage too—from countries like Guyana and St. Vincent. In our largely white communities, finding each other felt like a quirk of fate, one for which I was personally grateful. I saw a lot of myself in my friends. We were girls with mothers from elsewhere, sitting in that spot between American and Caribbean influence.
Yet while we bonded in our similarities, we also enjoyed sharing in our differences. There were obvious things, like our individual personalities; every group seems to have a quiet one, a loud one, and an adventurous one, and my little clique was no different. But our lived experiences also ranged as much as our cultures. One friend introduced me to soca when I had only been exposed to some reggae and dancehall. Another friend’s grandmother made Guyanese bake, and I stuffed my face full of it because it was new to me—and it was delicious. When our mothers would speak, I’d note the contrasts in their accents and how, somehow, none of us kids had picked them up. So much felt distinct yet familiar.
These were my sisters. We’d laugh, and we’d argue, and we’d still be us, the ones who found and chose each other. Who else could understand our place in the world, our position amongst our peers at school or at church? That was our girlhood, and we had a mutual understanding of each other, even though we didn’t have the words to articulate any of it when we were so young. To discover and comprehend each other opened the door to discover and comprehend ourselves in a protected space.
I would not be who I am today without those girls.
In challenging and divisive times, found family is crucial, not only in storytelling, but in our day-to-day lives. We need more than community in order to thrive. We need more than shared DNA or surnames. We need to find our people, the ones who will support, uplift, and encourage us in moments of need, the ones who will stay when they have no obligation to do so. The ones who accept and understand us even though we live such divergent lives. That’s where true union grows. That’s where we become who we are meant to be—with safety. With love.
Blood over water? No. Not when the water represents those we chose and those who chose us. Not when blood and water are both needed to live.
EXCERPT
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