writer | teacher | poet
When Julian Monroe returns to Pikeville, North Carolina for his father’s funeral, he is forced to confront the echoes of a past he never fully escaped, rumors that chased him away, memories that refuse to settle, and a love that never had the chance to become what it could have been. In a town where everyone remembers everything, Julian must navigate grief, reckon with buried truths, and face DeShawn—the boy who once knew him best, and who might still. Tender, haunting, and unafraid, Love Will Ruin Us, Still asks a quiet but devastating question: What if the heart only knows how to heal in the presence of the one who first taught it to break?
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About the Author
Eric Saint James is a Southern writer, poet, and educator from North Carolina who writes toward love—its fractures, its memory, and its refusal to disappear. His work centers Black life with lyricism and emotional precision, often exploring the spaces where grief and tenderness meet.
When he isn’t teaching or writing, he is building worlds that feel as real as memory. Love Will Ruin Us, Still is his debut novel.