GRAND PRIZE WINNER of the Texas Authors Museum Book Awards 
A haunting literary novel rooted in a real‑life Texas scandal — for readers who want fiction that challenges, unsettles, and stays with them. 
Before We Turn to Dust revisits the sensational Sneed-Boyce affair, a true early‑twentieth‑century Texas scandal that gripped the state with accusations of adultery, insanity, public shaming, and multiple killings.
The novel follows Lena Sneed, her husband Beal, and her lover Al Boyce Jr. as their private choices erupt into a public spectacle that exposes the era's attitudes toward mental health, gender, race, and justice — themes that continue to shape modern conversations about power and violence.
Drawing on family archives, court transcripts, and newspaper reports, award‑winning author Clara Sneed — great‑niece of Beal Sneed — transforms this history into a powerful, multi‑voiced exploration of love, vengeance, and the stories families and societies tell to justify violence.
This is not a light read: it confronts morally ambiguous violence and the emotional cost of loyalty and betrayal. But for readers who want historical fiction that feels both emotionally alive and intellectually engaged, Before We Turn to Dust is a gripping, absorbing novel that lingers long after the last page.

About the Author

Clara Sneed is a Texas‑born author whose work blends literary fiction, family history, and the complex legacy of a real Texas feud.
A great‑niece of Beal Sneed, she draws on family archives, court transcripts, and regional history to illuminate the early‑twentieth‑century Sneed-Boyce scandal at the heart of
Before We Turn to Dust.
Her research‑driven approach brings depth, nuance, and emotional honesty to a story long buried beneath myth and rumor.

Sneed holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in English literature from UC Berkeley and has published both fiction and nonfiction, including Because This Is Texas, her historical account of the events that shaped this novel. She and her husband divide their time between Berkeley, California and Milam County, Texas

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