Fifteen-year-old Isannah has lived her entire life inside an old prison camp out in the wilderness, with no contact with the outside world. On the upside, Genesee Settlement is a rather nice community, and large enough to have several young men her age as prospective husbands. Better yet, all but one of them seems like someone worth marrying. So, her life looks like it will be fairly smooth and as pleasant as a life of exile could hope to be.But then the ongoing war that sent her parents into isolation comes closer and closer, and Isannah is face to face with possibly losing all she holds dear. She begins a journal addressed to the outside world, in part to let them know what would be lost if in fact someone did wind up wiping out her community.Soon after, the outside world comes crashing into her peaceful life, for better and for worse. For the next three years, Isannah writes to whoever will listen, sharing her hopes, fears, and her zest for life in a world that is set on stamping out freedom and faith, neither of which she is prepared to give up. This book was previously published as a series of ebook shorts: Dear Invader, Dear Citizen, Dear Neighbor, To Whom It May Concern, and Isannah Here.
About the Author: Kathryn Judson is a former newspaper reporter who switched to helping run an independent bookstore, and then to writing books after her husband volunteered to run the bookstore by himself so she could write full time. After her husband passed away, she had to close the bookstore. She grew up in the western United States. After a few detours, she lives there again. Along the way, in addition to journalism and selling books, she worked in summer stock theater, as a waitress, and delivered office supplies, among other things. She also toured briefly with an international goodwill group putting on concerts, and (as a lowly assistant to producers) helped put on a Superbowl halftime show. But her favorite job was being a housewife, of the 'available to help the neighbors, do volunteer work, and babysit at the drop of a hat' variety. (It would have surprised her college-aged self to know this, since her college-aged self was misled by feminism into thinking that homemakers were bored and boring, not to mention hapless and close to useless. That shows what her younger self knew about the real world - which wasn't much!) Mrs. Judson is the author of Almost Hopeless Horse, Why We Raise Belgian Horses, Trouble Pug, The MI5 1/2 series, and The Smolder series, among other things. She is also active online, writing on a variety of topics. She is fascinated by history. This fascination started young. In grade school she checked out and read every biography in the school library, after which the librarian apologized for not having more biographies and gently but firmly introduced her to other types of history books - some of which were even better than biographies. She continues to study history on the side, and delights in having access to documents and other resources online. She is an adult convert to Christianity (which fact would have also surprised her younger self), coming to faith midway in her writing career. She now does Christian outreach to people in assisted living centers, as well as continuing to write full time.