Helen N. Gladden is a retired high school and middle school principal, as well as a former English teacher. She grew up in Oakland, California and earned a B.A. in Rhetoric from U.C. Berkeley and an M.S. in Educational Leadership from California State University, East Bay. A member of a local writing group, she has enjoyed writing poetry over the years. Her work has appeared in the group’s self-published anthology and placed in a haiku contest sponsored by the San Francisco Examiner. Retirement has provided her the time to pen this novel, her first work of fiction. Helen lives with her husband in Northern California.