Golden had many pleasant recollections of spending summer vacations on Grandpa Gordon’s farm. She’d helped with chores, feeding the cows, collecting the eggs, working in the garden, mowing the grass, and digging vegetables from the garden. She missed her grandpa very much. Her dad had died when she was only five years old, so Grandpa Gordon had played an important role in her life. Many bittersweet memories came flooding back just from looking at his picture.

“Grandpa Gordon, how can I live without you?” Golden whispered out loud.

Excerpt from Dagger of Urachadh: Attack from the Underworld, p. 9-10.

I personally believe that there are only one or two people you will meet in your lifetime that will make a profound difference in your life. Once such person in my life was my uncle Gordon Mosier. The character Grandpa Gordon in my book is based on his life.  

Uncle Gordon came into my life during a period of great upheaval and change. I got reacquainted with him as an adult during this time of personal crisis. Although he didn’t have a formal education or a degree from a university like Grandpa Gordon in my book, he had years of wisdom and experience in how to navigate the world and to make the best with what you have.  
 
He gave me many words of wisdom that I have used over the years including “If today isn’t exactly how you like it, you can always work on making tomorrow a little bit better” and “Life is what you make it”.  

He died on December 4, 2015. He was like a father to me. I still miss him, but I am so grateful that God brought him into my life when I needed him the most.  

Karen E. Mosier

Instantly it turned pitch-dark, as though someone had covered her eyes, even though her eyes were wide open. She could feel a breeze blowing against her face as if she were moving extremely fast, yet she was still standing in one spot and had not moved her feet. Then, as quickly as it had gone dark, she could see again. Golden looked around and gasped in surprise.

She was no longer in her grandpa’s study. Instead, she stood inside a ring of fifteen standing stones. They towered over her, as tall as the trees on her grandpa’s farm. Looking up, she saw a perfect ring around the top, made by smaller, flat stones laid atop the large vertical ones. Beneath her feet was a level pavement of large, perfectly cut stones, in odd-sized shapes, filling the space inside the standing stones. They fit together perfectly, leaving no cracks or holes, like pieces in a puzzle. Golden thought each of them was larger than any of the rocks in her grandpa’s rock pile at the back of his property.

Excerpt from Dagger of Urachadh: Attack from the Underworld, p. 11-12.

When I first started the writing process, I wasn’t sure about what I would write about for my first fiction book. It is commonly recommended that an author pick a topic that he or she is familiar with. I thought about that for a while, and since I was born and raised, and lived all my life in Saskatchewan, I decided that I would write about my own province.

As I started my web search to identify all the unique places to visit in Saskatchewan that I might want to highlight in my story, I found an interesting article about the Mystery Rocks in Saskatchewan:

http://ryanwunsch.com/mystery-rocks-saskatchewan/

The origin of these rocks remains unknown. Some speculate that they are likely a unique rock formation, while others postulate that this location “is one of a few magical vortex power spots on the earth, others located across the globe like Stonehenge [1]”. Whether or not these rocks are Saskatchewan’s own Stonehenge remains to be seen. But regardless, I thought these mystery rocks would make a great addition to my book!

Karen E. Mosier

References:
1.    Ryan Wunsch. “Mystery Rocks of Saskatchewan”. Ryan Wunsch Photography. 22 September 2016, http://ryanwunsch.com/mystery-rocks-saskatchewan/