In college, my journalism classes were where I first felt truly inspired. I loved the discipline of keeping daily journals, the challenge of research assignments, and the energy that came from learning how to tell a story. But it was the 1980s, and practicality won out. Writing wasn’t going to pay the bills, so I majored in Accounting and Economics Management.

Even so, my career kept pulling me toward roles that required strong communication. Places that demanded the ability to make complex ideas understandable. I found creativity in unexpected places — drafting policy, auditing programs, explaining budgets to the people who approved them, breaking down complicated financial projects, and adding fun and creativity to presentations so the work felt accessible rather than intimidating. To me, this was its own kind of storytelling, and in that work I found my niche. But after thirty years, I finally had the space to retire and return to the part of myself I’d set aside.

By then, I had fallen in love with historical fiction. I loved discovering eras I knew nothing about, learning the history we were never taught in school, and being swept into stories that were both inspiring and suspenseful. I wanted to create a book that offered that same experience.

About a decade before retiring, I began walking regularly at Great Falls with my friend Joanne Foley. Those trails are steeped in history — preserved as a national park thanks to the vision of a few determined individuals, and home to the haunting ruins of Matildaville. Passing the old tavern site again and again planted the earliest seed of a story.

As I dove into the research, I discovered the remarkable life of George Pointer — a man whose achievements were largely erased from the historical record until two local authors brought his story forward. I also confronted, again and again, the brutal reality that enslaved people built so much of this country’s infrastructure yet were denied the very freedoms they helped create. There was so much to explore, so much that deserved to be remembered.