After receiving an M.A. from Stanford University and a J.D. from the University of Iowa, I taught law for ten years. I’ve always loved history and when my husband and I welcomed our two sons into our family, I would tell them bedtime stories about American history, with the kids playing starring roles in mini-time travel adventures.
One day, we wandered into a local cemetery and spotted the grave of a soldier who’d served under George Washington. Thinking of the hardships of Valley Forge and the sacrifices of those early soldiers, I wondered if modern Americans still had the grit to fight the Revolutionary War.
To answer that question, I sent four kids back in time to Boston, 1775, in ONE IF BY LAND, TWO IF BY SUBMARINE, a YA/upper MG time-travel adventure set in the American Revolution.
When Paul Revere is kidnapped by a time traveler determined to change the outcome of the American Revolution, thirteen-year-old Kep Westguard is sent to Boston, 1775, to take his famous midnight ride. Kep’s four-person team has twenty-four hours to light the famous lanterns at Old North Church, warn Lexington and Concord that the British are coming, and rescue John Hancock and Samuel Adams from hanging as traitors to the crown.
As the clock ticks, one teammate is arrested as a runaway slave, a British watchman stops another from lighting the lanterns, and Kep nearly drowns when he attempts to cross the Charles River in a Patriot inventor’s prototype wooden, hand-crank submarine. When Hancock and Adams ask Kep to sneak a trunk of critical papers out from under the eyes of the British Army during the Battle of Lexington, Kep has to decide how much he’s willing to sacrifice for his country. If he fails, there will be no America to return to.
My husband and sons were eager to take on the time-travel adventure, but I insisted they remain in the twenty-first century. For now, our family lives in Wisconsin with our Goldendoodle, Piper, but something that looks like a time machine is taking form in our basement, so stay tuned for book two.
2019 (world) – Wonder Jumps Press