Loveland Magazine columnist Julie Watson made her first ‘book’ out of paper and yarn when she was 10

I’ve wanted to be an author since I was four years old. I made my first ‘book’ out of paper and yarn when I was 10. I wrote my first play when I was in 5th grade. When I was 13, the 1st short story I ever wrote won the jr. creative writing category for the state of Ohio.

I’ve written everything from poems to newspaper articles to try and become the best writer I could be. I’ve filled notebooks upon notebooks with all kinds of writing. It took 37 years before I published my first book, Almost Home: A Katie Galloway Adventure, Book 1. Book 2 of the Katie Galloway series, Decidedly Courageous, came along three years later. Two years after that I published book 3 of the series, Turbulent Waters.

These books are works of historical fiction. Many hours of research went into each of them. I not only wanted to get the story’s time period correct, but also the attitudes and circumstances of the day. True, historical facts begin each chapter and help set the stage for the timely events that shape Katie’s world. These books are set in my favorite historical period which includes westward expansion in America.

Katie Galloway is born into affluence in a world torn by the politics of slavery and civil war. Her life is torn between her mother’s fruitless world of New Orleans’ high society, and her father’s need for financial security on a lonely Texas ranch.

As the South struggles to rebuild itself during Civil War Reconstruction, Katie comes of age as she searches for hope, truth, and a place to call ‘home’. Along the way she wrangles cattle, founds a school, loses her family, saves a man’s life, and survives the worst smallpox epidemic the world has known.

Katie’s story is a powerful testament of faith, family, human rights, and tenacity, which transcends all the books in the series. As a lover of history, I truly enjoyed following Katie on her adventures. The books are written under the pen name: Mercy Givens and are for sale on Amazon. Look for more Katie Galloway adventures in the future.