Julie Valerie Books in Order

Julie Valerie writes funny, observant women’s fiction about ambition, family life, and the strange pressure to make ordinary life look perfect. Her published novels so far revolve around Holly Banks and the polished, slightly absurd Village of Primm, a place where PTA politics, private insecurities, and neighborhood mysteries all matter at once.

Before her fiction reached readers, Valerie built a career around words from several directions. She worked as an editor, earned an editing certificate from the University of Chicago Graham School, and developed the kind of respect for grammar that comes from spending serious time with The Chicago Manual of Style. That mix of creativity and close attention shows up in work that likes a sharp joke but still cares about emotional fallout.

Her path to novel writing also ran through classrooms and the fashion world. Valerie has a master’s degree in education, a bachelor of fine arts in fashion, and experience as a trend forecaster. She has taught college courses in textiles and other fashion industry topics at VCU School of the Arts, which helps explain why appearances, presentation, and social codes feel so vivid in her fiction.

She is also the kind of Scrabble player who still remembers landing QWERTY on a triple word.

Valerie’s debut, Holly Banks Full of Angst, was published in 2019 as the first book in a two-book deal. It introduces Holly, a stressed-out mother and aspiring filmmaker who lands in an affluent community where even kindergarten drop-off feels like performance art. Readers who click with the book tend to like its blend of humor, awkward public mishaps, and very real worries about marriage, motherhood, status, and fitting in.

She returned to Holly in The Peculiar Fate of Holly Banks in 2020. The second novel keeps the same comic energy but opens the story wider, mixing family strain, career questions, and a town mystery sparked by Holly’s dog, Struggle. Across both books, Valerie writes about women who are trying hard, falling short in public, and slowly learning that perfection is usually just a well-managed illusion.

Valerie has said that a lot of her inspiration comes from motherhood and the wildness that comes with it. That perspective helps keep her books balanced. They can be satirical and over the top, but they still make room for embarrassment, longing, tenderness, and the plain wish to do a decent job in a messy life.

Under the comedy, she is usually writing about the pressure to seem fine when life is clearly not fine.

Outside the novels, Valerie has been deeply involved in Virginia’s writing community. She served four years on the board of James River Writers, has moderated, spoken, and contributed at its annual conference, and co-founded both the Bookish Road Trip and the 85K Writing Challenge. She is also writing her third novel, continuing a career that has grown alongside her teaching, editing, and community work.

Her off-the-page interests are wonderfully specific. She studies wine seriously, enjoys camping and section hiking on the Appalachian Trail, and is certified in wilderness first aid. She lives and writes in Virginia with her college-sweetheart husband, their four children, a chocolate English Labrador, and an orange tabby cat. A tea drinker in a coffee world, she has said she is charmed by vineyards and topiaries, and not especially gifted at keeping houseplants alive.