Making books where healing, imagination, and honesty meet.
About H. Montinique Publishing
H. Montinique Publishing is an independent publishing studio based in the Tidewater region of Virginia. I create books and healing products for adults and children, with a focus on emotional clarity, honest storytelling, and design that respects the reader.
I started this press because the books I wanted to make were not the books most publishers wanted to publish. Some are quiet and reflective. Some are funny. Some sit with grief. Some refuse to. All of them are built with care for the person who will hold them.
The Catalog
H. Montinique Publishing produces books and healing products for adults and children, including grief support books for children, relatable stories for children and youth in foster care through the Brave and Belonging Series, caregiver guides rooted in trauma informed practice, coloring books for women seeking centering and rest, and illustrated adult storybooks through the Field of Fuques Series, where humor and honesty share the same page. Each title is shaped from first idea to final page, with attention to language, design, and what it actually feels like to read.
The Approach
I write with the assumption that readers are capable adults and curious children, not audiences to be managed. That is the whole frame. Everything else follows from it.
Being trauma informed is not a marketing phrase here. It shows up in word choice, in pacing, in the decision to leave space rather than fill it. It shows up in what gets said plainly and what gets held back until the reader is ready. It is the difference between writing about a child and writing to one, between performing care and practicing it.
I publish books that tell the truth, in the register the truth calls for. Sometimes that is gentle. Sometimes that is funny. Sometimes it is blunt enough to make a reader put the book down for a minute. The work is to choose the right register for the right reader, and to trust that the reader can meet it.
Why This Work
Books can be companions. They can also be mirrors, escape hatches, or the first place a person feels understood. I make them with that range in mind.
I came to publishing through the long way around, by sitting with families in crisis, supervising the work of helping children find permanence, and writing in the margins of all of it. What I learned in those years is that people do not need to be rescued by a book. They need to be met by one. They need pages that tell the truth, language that does not flinch, and design that respects the weight of what they are carrying.
The books and tools I publish are built for that meeting. Some are for children in foster care who deserve to see themselves in stories that do not flatten their experience. Some are coloring books for women looking to center themselves through color, humor, and rest. All of them are made with the belief that the person on the other side of the page is capable, complicated, and worth the care it takes to get the work right.
If you would like to connect about books, events, partnerships, or collaborations, visit the Contact page.
About the Founder
H. Montinique Publishing was founded by Hermoine M. Hamlin, a writer, consultant, and child welfare professional with nearly two decades of experience across counseling, family services, and creative publishing. She holds a Master's in Community Counseling from The George Washington University and a Bachelor's in Psychology from Howard University, with additional clinical training through the Relational and Multi-Contextual Treatment of Trauma Certificate Program at Simmons College School of Social Work.
Her professional background includes supervising adoption and foster care services, counseling children and families through trauma, grief, loss, neurodivergence, depression, anxiety, and behavioral concerns, and leading trauma informed training for child welfare staff. As a Fellow of the AdoptUSKids Professional Leadership Development Program, she developed a trauma informed coaching model for foster, adoptive, and resource parents centered on realistic expectations. Her work has appeared in peer reviewed journals and at national conferences. She has been featured on WTKR News 3 as part of the Faces of Care series on caregiving, resilience, and family advocacy, and was a guest on Episode 5 of the Break Your Chains Find Your Flame Podcast in an episode titled "Accepting Your Gifts." She is also a Reiki Master, and that training shapes the attention she brings to language, pacing, and the energetic register of her books.
She is trauma informed, and that sensibility runs through every title she publishes. It shows up in word choice, in what is said and what is left unsaid, and in the choice to honor the reader's experience rather than direct it. Her work brings together professional training, creative practice, and lived understanding, grounded in the belief that healing and imagination belong in the same room.
Outside of the press, she finds her grounding in nature and hiking, meditation, and crafting. Consulting services are available through hmontiniqueconsulting.com.