A Hero at Heart was the very first novel I wrote. When I was a teenager, I started my writing journey by creating small, illustrated children's stories. But I yearned to write something for an older audience; someone closer to my age. I was stumped on ideas, so I prayed, "Lord, will you give me a book I can write for young girls?" After that, a story began building in my mind about a girl's adventures in the West and about the true meaning of heroism. I wanted to show young people that, sometimes, the most heroic thing you can do is the little acts of kindness which we take for granted every day; things which cause us to deny our own selfish natures in order to make someone else happy or well. And sometimes, the hardest, most courageous thing we can do is trust in God's plan for our lives. That was the inspiration behind the Hero at Heart series.