Jessica Guerrieri ’07 comes from a family of English majors, so that’s what clicked for her at UC Davis. Her love of reading, journaling and writing led to her debut novel, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (Harper Muse, 2025), out this month.

The book examines the link between motherhood and alcoholism through protagonist Leah, who is at a crossroads in her life. It’s her first in a two-book deal with the publisher.

“I wanted to write the book that I needed to read when I was in like the depths of my addiction,” Guerrieri said. “I'm going on to almost 12 years of continued sobriety. I needed a book or something that was less scary to identify what it was that was happening to me with alcoholism.”

Guerrieri started the book in the pandemic. In 2023, she won the Maurice Prize, given by the UC Davis College of Letters and Science for promising unpublished work. She came full circle last year as a judge.

“I read six full manuscripts from really talented UC Davis alumni,” she said. “I thought, ‘this might be the start of something for them, too.’”

A Davis resident, Guerrieri will hold her book launch, with local bookstore The Avid Reader, at the Veteran’s Memorial in Davis on May 22. Author Lara Love Hardin will moderate.

An actor is set to read from the new book for Stories on Stage at Sudwerk on Sept. 14

Here, Guerrieri talks about the book and what comes next.

This book has themes that are very personal to you. How did you decide how much of yourself to put in the book?

I decided to go public during the pandemic. I wrote articles and told the world that I was in recovery. Before that I had told my friends and family; I asked them to hold me accountable. I was very honest about it. But I had yet to go on social media and say, “I'm an alcoholic, and I'm an addict.” I held on to the shame and the stigma of it even though I didn't want to. But when the pandemic happened, everybody understood isolation and loneliness and all the feelings that [I associated with] in early recovery. That's when I decided that I wasn't going to be afraid of drawing those lines between myself and [what I wrote]. So, is there a fight between my husband and I that is verbatim [in the book]? There absolutely is. Did he need to read it and give me his okay? Yes.

But also, you get to pick and choose the pieces you share. People who know, they'll know. I'm comfortable in that because that's where the fun lies in fiction. You get to invent your own world and work through things.

You started this as a pandemic project with friends to encourage each other. But what led you to be so productive during the pandemic?

I actually went back into active addiction during the pandemic and discovered that I am also a drug addict. I was using other substances to cope with the stressors of motherhood. Because of the pandemic, I was ready to reset and say, this can't be the past two years of my children's lives. I had young children at the time: a 5-year-old, a 4-year-old and an 18-month-old. I just refuse for that time to feel wasted, because I had wasted it in addiction. And I'm very collaborative with my groups of friends. I also have a foundation in a 12-step program, specifically with women. I started my own support system via text thread. It’s moms from all walks of life that I had met along the way, and we [wanted to] motivate each other to do something great.

And that’s what the second book is about?

Yes, I wrote my second book on the bond of women and how we're able to push each other along and hold each other up, and how the pandemic exacerbated that. I had started writing it as I was pitching Between the Devil. I was determined again to use my time and not slip back into bad habits. When I was in the meeting with Harper, they asked, “are you working on anything else?” And I was said, “funny you should ask that.” Then 20 minutes after the phone call, my agent told me it was going to be a two-book deal. [That one is] called Both Can Be True. It will be out April 2026.

Stepping back, what brought you to UC Davis for college?

I originally went to UC Santa Barbara for my first quarter. I had gotten into Davis and to me that felt like too close to home because I was from the Bay Area. And unfortunately, tragically, within my first week of being at UC Santa Barbara, I was sexually assaulted. I started drinking more. I wasn't sleeping. I wasn't eating, and I was traumatized and just so far away from my home. I went see a counselor, and they worked with UC Davis to do a transfer. And then I had this profound guilt, like I had used my assault to get there. But it was all misplaced and deeply misguided shame. Now I see that I got to Davis the way that I was supposed to. My husband is from Davis. We have daughters now, and I live in this town. Davis became a safe sanctuary for me. I felt safe, supported and started to care more about the academic piece of it.

In my second book, I explore sexual assault as a theme, because, again, you write what you know. I don't want to make it shameful, and I don’t want to hide behind it and not be honest. That is how I got to Davis; that is the truth.

And you stayed in Davis?

I went to Sac State for my credentials in special education, and I was a special education teacher here in Davis before I became a mom. And it was so nice to know my children will go to school in this system that I love so much. It's the perfect place to raise your family and has the student life, the college-town vibe. That's very rare.

This Q&A was edited and condensed from a longer interview.