Dear Reader,

      I am so excited to introduce you to my brand-new series! Silver Springs is a fictional town of five thousand people modeled a little after the real town of Ojai, California, population 7,500. Like Ojai, it boasts some lovely Spanish colonial revival architecture and is nestled in a picturesque valley about ninety minutes northwest of Los Angeles. In order to keep the town unique, chain stores aren’t allowed. Instead, local business development is encouraged, and the whole area has an artsy, almost spiritualistic vibe. At the edge of Silver Springs, you’ll find a boys ranch called New Horizons, where a caring woman named Aiyana Turner takes in troubled boys and turns them into admirable men.

      The idea for this book struck me after watching a true-crime show where the son of an older couple came home one night to the farmhouse where he lived with his parents to find them murdered—and wound up getting blamed for their deaths. Several years later, the police were able to prove he hadn’t killed them, but I could only imagine how having something like that happen would change someone’s life. And since I was planning to write about men who’d once attended the same boarding school—some due to difficult backgrounds where they were orphaned or abandoned—I thought this idea would be really intriguing to explore, especially because the police would likely be even more suspicious of an adopted son with a reputation for causing trouble. Once the idea was born, my hero, Dawson Reed, stepped out of my imagination and onto the page, and, as you will soon see, he is not the kind of person most people think he is. I love to write stories like this one, where the characters overcome incredible odds and wind up proving—to themselves and everyone else—that they are far more than anyone expected. Here’s hoping you enjoy your visit to Silver Springs.

      I love to hear from my readers. Feel free to interact with me on Facebook at Facebook.com/BrendaNovakAuthor, or sign up for my monthly newsletter at brendanovak.com/newsletter-sign-up. I’d love to be able to stay in touch with you.

      Happy reading!

      Brenda Novak