By day Yosyph appears nothing more than a mute
tavern-hand. By night he is the shadowy leader of a growing revolution.
When he learns that thousands of his people will be
sent as slaves to the mines, he must choose—fight the royal army with an
ill-prepared rebellion or journey to the land of his ancestors through the
deadly King's Trial, where he hopes to win the help of his kin.
His journey grows complicated when he rescues a
maiden and enrages a prince, but if he doesn’t return with help in time, the
people he’s loved and secretly served will be gone.
As a youth, I made up stories to help my little
sisters go to sleep. It backfired. We stayed up for hours continuing the tale.
The King’s Trial was born in those late, whispered nights.
Ever since I climbed up to the rafters of our barn
at age four, I've lived high adventure: scuba diving, mud football with my
brothers, rappelling, and even riding a retired racehorse at full
gallop—bareback. I love the thrill and joy.
Stories give me a similar thrill and joy. I love
living through the eyes and heart of a hero who faces his internal demons and
the heroine who fights her way free instead of waiting to be saved. I read
fiction and true-story adventure. I write both, though I'm starting with
publishing the fiction—fact will come later.
I create high fantasy, fairy tale retellings, and
poetry. I live a joyful adventure with my husband and six children. I am a
Christian and I love my Savior.
Top Ten List
1. As a child, I couldn’t walk across a room. I danced, spun, skipped, ran, or otherwise moved, but I couldn’t just walk.
2. I took calculus at a community college at age 14. I planned to go to MIT and become an astronaut. Plans changed—in wonderful ways.
3. I love reading to my children. We’ve enjoyed books from Dr. Seuss to Les Misérables. Maniac Magee is one of our favorites.
4. I lived in St Petersburg, Russia for half-a-year teaching English to kindergartners. I learned to wash my clothes in a bathtub, filter and boil my drinking water, and love my sweet, crayon-eating, kids.
5. I have slight dyslexia. ‘b’ and ‘p’ sometimes flip flop on me. But it also means I can read a book upside-down.
6. I love climbing, rappelling, and horseback riding. But I hate roller coasters and bungee jumping.
7. I’ve journaled almost every day since I turned seventeen. I capture conversations, descriptions, happenings, and quotes. I explore ideas. Through the years I’ve written well over a million words. It prepared me to become an author.
8. Plumbing Repair is my nemesis. I’m grateful I don’t have to battle it very often. In the end, I always win, but I feel like I’ve fought an archvillain who pulled every dirty trick in the book, including Chinese water torture in claustrophobic conditions.
9. I live with a vivid imagination. I dream in 3-D, technicolor, and occasionally with my eyes open. This is a bane when it comes to nightmares. I will not watch horror movies.
10. The King’s Trial started as a bedtime tale I told my little sisters twenty years ago. Don’t worry. I wrote the second book, The King’s Shadow, in six months, and it will come out this autumn.
Plus an extra: I have an accent. People often ask me where I'm from. Maybe it's my reader accent. I've read out-loud enough different books in character, that perhaps it stuck.
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