Meet
Bailey Brooks

Bailey Brooks grew up and stayed in Louisville, a city she knows by streetlight and shortcut. She’s divorced and raising a teenage son who outpaces her on the Big Four Bridge and calls her out when she’s being dramatic. 

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Her offbeat hobby is restoring old cassette decks and making mix tapes no algorithm would dare; Nineties R&B into women-led indie, a little Southern hip-hop, then something moody with strings. When she wants quiet, she’ll take a night drive by the Ohio River and let the skyline do the talking. She likes roller rinks when they’re nearly empty, thrift stores with creaky floors, and conversations that go one honest step further than most people allow. Nothing about her is loud, but nothing is timid either.

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She Takes is her first novel because it had to be the kind of story people call “taboo” and then refuse to touch. Bailey believes if something is controversial, it’s exactly what needs daylight, not whispers: power, boundaries, the ways charm can hide control. She wanted to flip the script and force the question people dodge; what happens when harm wears a pretty face and perfect manners? The point isn’t shock; it’s accountability. If a book makes the room shift in its chair, good...now we can talk.