How Did the Yamabuki Series Come Into Being?

Ever stare at the shelves at a bookstore or your own home library and think, “I wish there was a novel where the main character was [fill in the blank] and did [fill in the blank] but there’s no book like that. Hmmm. Why, in fact, if such a book existed, I would read it!”

The next thing is the character takes shape in the person’s mind and the “adventures” of the character start to take form and soon you start writing the book you wished someone would write.

And from these musings Yamabuki emerged, as did all the other characters and the world of 12th century Japan. Her story is her challenges in breaking a glass ceiling of sorts: Can a provincial lord’s daughter, the sole surviving child, become a daimyo in her own right?

I invite the reader to come with her and me as she journeys across Akitsushima (fictive Japan) as the Empire slides into the civil war and the rise of the warlords—the Kamakura Shogunate.

Over time, she, along with many of the characters, have become real people to me, and I work so that my readers have a good experience. Change the world? No. Entertain on a topic that is still relevant today—the glass ceiling? That is my goal.