James E. Ferrell
Our lives are like a puzzle with many different shaped pieces. We seem to easily put the most obvious pieces into the puzzle when we are very young. You know, the corner pieces! As time goes by, the pieces get harder to figure out, and we try to put the square peg in the round hole, so to speak. As the last ones are staring us in the face, we look and place the puzzle pieces where they belong. Aww, but that last puzzle piece is the sweetest. That is the one God puts in for us.
It is Sunday afternoon under a very overcast sky. Birds are singing. Hummingbirds are racing from feeder to feeder, pulling the rich nectar from the red bottles. I say this to let you know that all seems well in the animal world. I know that is not so with mankind. All the people I know experience brokenness. My pastor has leukemia and just went through back surgery. His sweet wife had brain cancer. He lost her before I finished this book. They have spent their lives doing the Lord's work together.
My friend Joan, who in the past greeted me with a smile at the local lumber, has been fighting cancer for twelve years. Like me, she wakes each morning thanking God for another day. My younger brother is dealing with cancer. Here I sit looking at a steady rain and am at peace, except...I am broken. I am dealing with stage four bone cancer. I have made a year with this my second round of cancer.
God has been very good to me. I sit here, consider my lot, and think BROKEN is a good name for this trilogy. God Bless all that read them.
I dedicate this book BROKEN to my brother Thomas, who is fighting the good fight and all that are walking the long dark valley, knowing that somewhere ahead, the valley ends.
Kathryn H. Clair
Kathryn Hall Clair is a mature woman (reaching her 72nd birthday in 2023). She was born in Mississippi but taken to Texas when she was a wee babe of only six weeks old. Kathryn was raised in Houston, Texas, where she developed a love of literature. She devoured all books of mystery and adventure. Her family moved to Spring, Texas, where she raised her own bull named “Blackie” and broke quarter horses. During a tough time for her parents, her mother, sister, and she moved to Conroe, where she played basketball and sang in the choir. She graduated from Conroe High School in 1970.
Attending Texas Woman's University from 1970-1972 for nursing, she fell in love with her first husband and moved to Winnetka, Illinois, where she was a Patient Care Assistant at Highland Park Hospital. Eventually, she moved back to Texas, had two boys, and then to Louisiana with her first husband, where they were divorced. She worked at the State Library, where she fell in love with her present husband of 39 years and counting. They have a daughter. Her lifelong dream was to be a nurse, and she was able to become one at the ripe age of 42. She is a retired Registered Nurse from the Baton Rouge General Medical Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
In 2010, she and her husband moved to Huntsville, Texas, where they joined the same church that James and his wonderful wife were attending. In 2018, Kathryn and James E. Ferrell partnered to self-publish his books. Over the years of learning that self-publishing was not for wimps, editing James E. Ferrell's books took on more writing and editing. Kathryn combines her time with editing, writing, singing, and caring for her grandchildren, husband, and two dogs making her life full and meaningful. She counts her blessings and thanks God for His goodness and watchful care over her family, this venture, and her life.
