AFTER being sexually molested by a relative at 12 years old, and surviving an abusive relationship, Jamaican-born author Jenelle Simpson has reworked her pain into her debut novel Commitment To A Deceitful Liar.

The mother of two, who now resides in Canada, hopes that this project will break generational curses.

“At the time when I had just gotten the inspiration, I had just given birth to my son so he was one of the biggest inspirations to break generational cycles. There was a lot of deep-rooted pain and the cycles kept repeating. When I first met my father’s children, we didn’t know much about each other. We decided that we were gonna break cycles together, till I stumbled on a message where he was saying he thinks he got a girl in Jamaica pregnant and the person was telling him not to tell me because if I don’t know, it wouldn’t hurt me. I knew I had a calling on my life but I kept delaying it and God would literally put me in situations where I’d have to do act on it,” she told the Jamaica Observer.

The self-published novel on Amazon was published on February 15. It is available on major online platforms. Prior to this, she released what she refers to as a healing journal.

Simpson hails from Browns Hall, St Catherine. She studied at Humber College and Seneca College to complete programmes in law. She now works as a senior real estate law clerk specialising in condominium development and commercial transactions.

She spent her childhood with her grandmother and brother, while their mother tried to make a better life in Canada. Simpson commends her grandmother for being her primary maternal figure. Unfortunately, she passed away on November 13 at 74 years old.

Although things have started to unravel in the family since she came forward about her sexual abuser, the author noted that the support far outweighs the negativity.

“The feedback that I’ve been getting is like the same emotions that I wanted my readers to feel when they read the book. There are people wanna write their own books, because they’ve read mine,” she said.

In September, Simpson was the winner of Canada’s Top 100 Black Women to Watch in 2022; an accolade that she didn’t expect.

“I didn’t expect it because I haven’t even dug my foot into the things that I wanted to do. This is just a little bit and I feel like God is saying, ‘I want to make sure you can handle the small stuff first before I give you the big stuff’,” she said.

In the coming months, she will be publishing two books written by her son (12 years) and daughter (eight years) titled Misunderstood: A Big Brother’s Journey, and My Ears and Them.

She also plans to expand her philanthropic efforts to help other abuse survivors and the less fortunate.

“I’ve been working on a podcast and I just need to press the button to launch it. There’s also my non-profit organisation for children and women called Roots of Jenerational Legacy. I want to open a centre that will give them an allowance and set them out to find employment,” she said.