About the author

An Idyllic Childhood

I was raised in Northeastern Utah—not far from Skinwalker Ranch, if you’re familiar with the History Channel Series The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch.

It’s a place well-known for its mythology and mysteries and paranormal activity, perhaps explaining my obsession with all things curious.

However, my most vivid memory is the amount of free time I had, since I grew up pre iPhones and internet.

I rode my bike everywhere: to my best friend’s house on the other side of town, to the only swimming pool, and of course…to the library.

I loved the unending time available for entertaining my thoughts and imagination.

As a result, I always had something going on.

Constantly creating games of make-believe, I recruited my younger brothers, as well as the other neighborhood children, to take part.

A PAssion for ANCESTRY

Although a sixth-generation resident of the Western United States, like many Americans, and in particular those of us from the West, my roots originate elsewhere.

I’ve always had an interest in ancestry and feel very fortunate in that my family history is well-documented; as in, I know the actual names of my ancestors for at least six generations, many lines stretching back even further.

For instance, I was thrilled when I learned of a “Gateway Ancestor” in my line: my tenth great-grandfather, Governor Thomas Dudley.

Dudley came over with John Winthrop on the Arabella and served three terms as governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He founded Newtowne (later Cambridge, Massachusetts) and signed the charter for Harvard.

What makes a Gateway Ancestor so exciting is that they descend from royalty or nobility, making it possible to trace this particular line very far back.

Overall my family hails from the British Isles, primarily England. There is some Welsh, Scottish, and Scots-Irish in there too. As well as some Indigenous American, my Navajo third great-grandmother.

The bulk of my ancestors lived in New England before migrating West in the mid nineteenth-century.

In fact, today the little town they settled in southern Utah has the sixth highest percentage of people in American cities with English ancestry.

Still, in the late nineteenth-century, several of my ancestors arrived in the West directly from the Old Country, namely: Nottinghamshire, Shropshire, Derbyshire, and Kent, England; Carmarthenshire, Wales; Renfew, Scotland; and Tyrone, Ireland.

Hence, when my ancestors crossed the Atlantic en route to the New World, I like to imagine their trunks filled with not only their earthly possessions, but also stowaways-English Faeries, Scottish Selkies, or even Y Ddraig Goch-The Red Dragon of Wales.

A Return to MY roots

A few years back we exchanged our family cabin in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains for a New England farmhouse in the woods of New Hampshire.

Why, you may wonder? My daughter and son received scholarships and a fellowship for their bachelor’s and master’s programs, respectively, and needed a place to live.

(Truth be told it was an excuse to own an antique home; one of my favorite things).

Little did I know I was about to come into direct contact with the past, and in such an intimate way.

THE OLDE ROCKINGHAM MEETING HOUSE AND BURIAL GROUNDS, CIRCA 1787

I’ll never forget my first visit to The Rockingham Meeting House. It was mid-May, the trees en masse with spring blossoms, reflecting the bone white of the Meeting House.

My son, a GIS specialist, had been hired to map the Meeting House’s burial grounds as part of his fellowship duties.

Unbeknownst to both him and I at the time, our ancestor, David Pulsipher, my sixth-great grandfather, had donated a portion of his property for the Meeting House and Burial Grounds. His son and grandson assisted with its construction, since David and his other son died while fighting at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

David Pulsipher was one of the first settlers in Rockingham, Vermont, arriving from Connecticut, his family Massachusetts Bay Colony settlers. He built the first tavern, standing today as a private residence, down the wooded hill from the Meeting House.

One night my son called and asked, “Hey mom, are we related to any Pulsiphers?” after he learned one line of Pulsiphers had migrated to Utah.

The name was familiar. I had seen it plenty of times before…Pulsipher…in the family history book gifted one birthday by my grandmother…Pulsipher…scribbled on the lines of family trees and ancestry documents.

Later that same year I visited the Meeting House again, this time the trees leafed out in the dark green of summer, the building open for touring.

I sat in the box pew owned for many years by the Pulsipher family.

I noticed David Pulsipher’s great-grandson’s portrait on a plaque resting inside the pew, the same portrait hanging on the wall of my grandmother’s home, the portrait of my Pulsipher ancestor, Zerah, the one who migrated West.

This experience led to another of my passions, research, this time studying the lives and stories of my New England ancestors.

And since I was staying with my children for the summer (thanks to my very patient husband) I visited in person all the historical sites related to what I found in my research.

When the fiery foliage of a famed New England autumn took hold, I retreated back to the New Mexico desert, to my quiet, empty nest home.

Where I began working on a story.

AND I FELL IN LOVE

I loved the entire process of writing a novel, the taking thousands of fragmented ideas and piecing these ideas together, working with my imagination while simultaneously drawing upon my education.

I loved plotting, where anything felt possible, as I immersed myself in research.

I loved the moment my characters and settings began breathing.

I loved the countless edits.

And quickly I discovered that when I was not writing, I no longer knew what to do with myself.

I yearned for the moment I could return to my desk and escape into the world of my story.

I FOUND MY PATH