Mary Beth McGruder is a North Carolina coastal writer of fiction about love, marriage, grief, and the small mercies that keep us afloat.

Her debut novel, Public Trust, is an upmarket domestic suspense complete at 83,000 words, set between Charleston and Paris. When a carefully curated marriage and real estate empire begin to crack, a woman trained in optics stops correcting, starts documenting, and quietly builds the story that will save her.

Her opening chapter for Public Trust was a finalist in Bardsy’s 2025 First Chapter Anthology Contest and is published in their anthology.

Mary Beth also completed The Library of Borrowed Days, a speculative short story in which a hidden library annex lends days from alternate lives, and borrowed time comes with rules, costs, and consequences.

She is currently writing Last Plane In, a suspense novel about belonging, silence, and survival in a remote Alaskan village, where the line between protection and control blurs, and the cost of asking questions can be steep.

Read new stories and essays on Substack at Mary Beth McGruder | Stories from the North Carolina Coast.