Books





Feel free to peruse and view my available titles -- for both Michaela Bush and Makenzie Gray!

Follow THIS LINK to go to request signed paperback copies! 
Follow THIS LINK to request signed paperbacks by Makenzie Gray!

 

 Back To Him: A Thirty Day Devotional on Giving Up Old Hurts and Relying on God


Everyone encounters suffering through their lifetime.


What you do with it involves a series of choices.


In this devotional, we'll learn...
  • To pursue forgiveness, not bitterness
  • To reconcile the past and rely on God for strength
  • The importance of moving forward
  • How Satan uses hurt to distract us from God, and how to fight against his schemes
  • Why we need to submit ourselves to God in continual obedience

With daily readings, Bible verses, a starter prayer, and questions to contemplate with God, this devotional shares a personal journey of healing while presenting the case for giving up control back to God, throwing off the bondage of sin and shame we've held onto for too long.

Sustain: A Thirty Day Devotional and Study Guide on Remembering God's Sovereignty in Hardship


Sustain: to uphold, to nurture; patiently enduring...to persevere.


In this devotional, we'll find...

  • Ways God helps us through trials
  • The importance of using pain to grow closer to God
  • Case studies of biblical characters whose testimonies point toward a God who does incredible things through suffering
  • Why we must submit our will to God's daily
  • Ways we can find gratitude in the midst of trouble

With daily readings, Bible verses, starter prayers, and questions designed to deepen your relationship with God, this devotional shares numerous Scriptures that promise God's sustaining strength in our lives even when He feels far away, while challenging various lies the world has taught us about suffering. Included is a five-week study guide for individual use or groups.

AMAZON | GOODREADS


Faith, Hope, and Love Volume One



What could God do with absolute brokenness? With shredded pasts, hopeless futures, and hearts beyond human help? In the midst of war-torn minds, broken self-worth, the harrowing reality of human trafficking, and doubts, three couples find healing, hope, and love. Not to mention the interesting ways that life intertwines the stories of family and strangers alike. In the Faith, Hope, and Love Vol. 1 Collection, follow the lives of Lucy and Spencer, Levi and Eleanor, and Morgan and Martin as they explore themes of healing, selflessness, sacrifice, and what we are called to do above all else.

A contemporary Christian volume containing the complete first three books of the Faith, Hope, and Love collection: Welcome Home, My Compass Home, and Guide Me Home.

The Bridge Duology

Back To Me
I'm not me anymore.

Bridget Owens spends her days working and her nights trying to escape the nightmare she was born into. One year after leaving her old life, she still sees ghosts, hears threats, feels nails digging into her flesh, and can't sleep unless she wants to wake up sobbing. Her memories become a graveyard of who she once was, and she nurtures it daily until she reaches her breaking point.

When Nick, a childhood friend, suggests help at the last moment, she finds it hard to sit across from a counselor who says he cares. She finds it impossible to trust anything, even herself. She's broken, and she isn't sure how to put the pieces back together. What if they never fit right anymore?

A story of redemption, calling, healing, and recovery.

Back To Me: A Contemporary Christian Novel, book one of The Bridge Duology.




Between Us 

There's a lot between us.

As Christmas bells ring, so do wedding bells for Nick and Bridget. Yet, something is off. Between frustration with the guest list, eerily familiar work with her recovery group, and whispers of Bridget's past threatening to break back to the forefront, it's time to put her ghosts to rest and celebrate her future. Can she stand firm, or will she stumble and fall?

A novella celebrating found family, selfless love, and the power of testimony.

The second book in THE BRIDGE DUOLOGY.


 

Short Stories & Poetry

 
 
Sometimes the world can make you feel as if you're everything and nothing all at once. Follow along to read poems and short stories that exemplify the darkness and light that balances the world.

 
 
This short book includes short stories, poems, and flash fiction works. They encompass everything between the briefest of loves to the everlasting pain of loss. Open the pages to this book and find bits of life's truth folded within.







everything i became: a poetry collection
Life goes sideways.
When it does, it can make or break us with
the flip of a switch.

What we do next - after the switch - is what matters most. Light meets the dark and always overcomes.

Everything I Became celebrates the overcomers, the encouragers, the process of returning to the light after darkness has lost its battle, and sits to mourn and cradle those still struggling.

Darkness only wins if we let it.
Healing takes time and that's okay.
You're seen even if you feel invisible.
Light meets the dark and the dark cannot comprehend.



wading through the fog on a sunny day: a poetry collection

Oftentimes the deepest betrayals and softest beginnings arrive intertwined. 

wading through the fog on a sunny day grapples with fleeting moments of loss, fresh starts, and the moment dreams become reality...unless we destroy them ourselves.






Mount Sterling Collection



 Beautiful Chaos (Book 1) 
Trust is a gift rarely given or received, and Joanna Markus knows this better than anyone. At nineteen, Joanna has her life all planned out, and getting away from the childhood town that left so many scars is her top priority. When Walter, a boy from her past, shows up unexpectedly, she learns that not everything is as it seems. Can he convince her to see life anew? And will she give into the beautiful chaos called love, or will she turn her back on it all?
 
 
  Something New (Book 2)
 
Joanna is the newest advisor for international students at Mount Sterling University, but her life still doesn't feel quite...settled. How could it, though? With Anthony Wilkins' trial to testify at, a death in what will soon be the other half of her family, a wedding to plan, and the discovery of an even darker life led by her uncle, she can hardly catch her breath! When disaster strikes, she's driven to consider something new, a pathway she has never even imagined. With Walter at her side and God leading the way, can she take the scars from her past and use them to help others in her future?
 

 
 
Keeping Cassie (Book 3)

Joanna and Walter are growing quite comfortable in the role of foster-parenting the baby that slipped into their lives so soon. However, they are once more uprooted when Cassie's biological father steps forward. In a college town like Mount Sterling, gossip is always flowing - when they discover a secret that Cassie's father is hiding, they take it upon themselves to fight for Cassie's life. Meanwhile, plans for Carter's House are well underway, offering light to any teen who wants to reach out for it. Will Joanna be able to turn her memories - the very ones that once drove her away from home altogether - into a path to Christ for the brokenhearted, or will she crack under pressure?
 
 

Standalone Novels

A Dance of Rebels

Your attendance to the Dance of Fates is mandated. Hide and you will be found. Resist and you shall die.

It’s no surprise when Verity Kühn receives an invitation to the annual Dance of Fates from Allemagne’s Grand Captain. But a new mandate requires all paupers to perform this year: the best saved for an elite Troupe, and the rest sold worldwide to settle their debts to the kingdom. Verity has already lost one brother to the Grand Captain, and the mandate confirms her worst fear: her attempts to hide her little brother have failed. Obeying the mandate means abandoning the only family she has left, but rebellion could cost both their lives.

When Verity learns that her other brother may still be alive, she becomes a stowaway on the Grand Captain’s own merchant ship, determined to bring him home. But in the meantime, she discovers a mysterious rebel soldier with world-tipping news. Not only does he know her brother’s whereabouts, but he is involved with a rival kingdom’s plan to invade Allemagne and topple its twisted regime, once and for all…and he wants Verity to join his quest for justice. But it’s a dangerous dance filled with traitors and deception, and their lives hang in the balance.

Trapped between generations of evil and an unknown future, the pair set out to discover the sacrifices it will take to conquer darkness, rescue those they love, and bring light to a broken kingdom.

Fans of The Nutcracker will be thrilled with this new twist on a familiar story.

GOODREADS | AMAZON


 

Anthologies

Where Giants Fall
Man-eating monsters. Devils in the dark. Darkness lingering in the shadows.
Can light overcome it? Can the weak and fearful stand strong?
This anthology will keep you reading past your bedtime with heartfelt stories of light illuminating the darkness.

Tales From The Tower

A burst of inspiration drives a baker to build a tower-without a door. But it proves to be the perfect dwelling for a certain old woman. The question is - Why?

A tower can be a safe place, especially during a zombie apocalypse. But what do you do when your safe place becomes a prison? 





Tell Me You Love Me 

GOODREADS | AMAZON 
Tell Me You Love Me – a timeless collection of stories that truly understand the meaning of “I love you”

Twelve young Christian authors have come together, alongside romance novelist Grace A. Johnson and editor Issabelle Perry to show our world of depravity and cheap imitations of romance what love really means: faith, hope, and sacrifice.

These stories range from contemporary YA to historical to fantasy, and tell diverse, unique love stories that compel, captivate, and warm readers’ hearts with their sweet and authentic nature.

Featuring work from Michaela Bush, Saraina Whitney, Karynn Heckler, Margaret Copeland, Lucia Molano, Sarah Lawton, Brooklyn O’Brennan, Mackenzie Hendricks, H.S. Kylian, Lydia M. Jupp, Katherine Perry, and Amelia Cabot, the Tell Me You Love Me anthology is the collaboration of talented and inspirational young writers you’ve been waiting for!


The Depths We'll Go To 
A girl willing to do anything to reunite with her dead lover, mermaids that attack a town with waterspouts, a sailor who might miss his chance at love, a skeletal whale that hunts ships, and a mysterious captain who rules the dead at the bottom of the ocean.
This oceanic collection spans genres, ranging from poems of love to stories that exhibit a visceral fear of what lurks in the depths.

 


Here Lies Wanderland 

'Wanderland isn’t a home of happiness. It’s the place
we venture through for hope, unaware we’ll be given hurt'

'Here Lies Wanderland' is a collection of poetry from a
variety of writers. It explores reality through a creative lens,
turning the everyday into something much bigger.
The poems are as connected as they are unconnected, a
tapestry of humanity waiting to be sewn together.
AMAZON | GOODREADS






Seize the Fight

Honoring the Freedom of the Savior

 

Freedom. Liberty. Independence.

 

All forms of freedom have a cost. Seize the Fight pulls readers into an anthology of stories all showing freedom. An Army veteran crashing at his sister’s with hidden pain, a lieutenant returning home from overseas, siblings celebrating the Fourth even in the midst of turmoil, and many more stories all show a form of freedom and the fight it represents in some way.

 

Freedom can mean many things as is shown in this anthology with tales of finding freedom from the past, freedom from slavery, and freedom from sin through Christ who saves…

 

Galatians 5:1

 

Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

BEYOND THE BOOKERY


The Stars Weep Too



The stars weep too as they watch us lose ourselves in the fast flow of life. This collection is a return to the original muse of all our art; humanity and nature and the points where they cross.


AMAZON | GOODREADS








Legends of Lanaria

A kidnapped princess, a promise, and a kingdom cursed with mysterious plagues.

"Mark my words, Evangeline; if you set foot outside this tower, you will surely die."

 
Evangeline has spent her entire life hidden in an ancient watchtower, gazing through a window as the world passes her by. She heeds her mother's warning closely, the truth hidden from her always. When a young guard stumbles upon the tower, Evangeline's life is changed forever. As she strikes up a secret friendship with the guard, she learns about the Kingdom of Lanaria and the mysterious plagues that haunt all who live there.

But as she delves into the world she barely knows, not everything her mother says adds up. Will they find the truth before it's too late? A Rapunzel retelling.

AMAZON | GOODREADS



The Healer of the Brigade

A mysterious healer and an injured soldier, both caught in the crossfire of war.

Aurelie was exiled to Absricht at a young age, cast away by a father who swore she was cursed. Now, with no one to trust but herself, her life is thrown into upheaval when war approaches. But Aurelie knew the war would come.

Word of Princess Evangeline’s return has swept the globe, and a mysterious enemy soon emerges, bent on conquering Lanaria and its surrounding nations. Horace is the first to board the warship sent to aid Absricht, determined to find out why the little country landed in the crosshairs so soon.

When Horace arrives injured at Aurelie’s doorstep, she has a decision to make. Does she hold the key that will end the war? How many secrets will she need to sacrifice in the process? Meanwhile, Horace is quickly flung into deeper waters as he realizes there is more than meets the eye behind the war: as both prophecies and traitors emerge surrounding Lanarian soil, will he unravel the enigma in time?
AMAZON | GOODREADS

The Highlander's Victory 

Her family refuses to fight the war. But Isla refuses to cower, no matter the cost.

Isla is outraged at the damages the Norvege war has caused to her own country, and she refuses to turn a blind eye. As the rageful warmonger focuses on finding the rest of the Prophecy before Lanaria, Isla joins forces with the countries fighting to end the war. Labeled a rebel, traitor, and runaway, she takes control where her clan leader would not, and recklessly leads a group of zealous soldiers into battle.

But pride has a deadly cost. And when Isla falls to rock bottom, she’s lured to the darkness her ancestors once worshipped. Will she succumb to death, or will she emerge victorious?

Inspired loosely by the biblical story of Deborah, grab this compelling story of conquering darkness and following God’s path no matter the cost.


The Kingdom's True Queen


Two kidnapped sisters and a secret to ruin a kingdom.


As the race to find the rest of the written prophecy continues, Asta, servant and sister to the Norvege queen, holds a grim secret.

When a Lanarian guard secretly arrives to infiltrate the castle, Asta must make a decision: betray her wounded sister, or betray the countries at risk of crumbling. Abused and broken by her sister’s rule, it should be an easy decision.

But yet another secret ruins the reality Asta once knew: the man commanding the Lanarian guard to capture and kill the Norvege queen…is their father. She is offered freedom and refuge—at the cost of her sister’s life. Will she accept the new world offered to her, or will her loyalty to her sister be her undoing?

Loosely inspired by the biblical story of Joseph, you won’t want to miss this touching story of humility, forgiveness, and healing from bitterness.
The Kingdom's True Queen is book four in the Legends of Lanaria series.

AMAZON | GOODREADS


 

Midnight Hour Series (Makenzie Gray)

Those With Ears
What will Takvi do when the End begins?
In the blink of an eye, Takvi's guardians disappear into thin air, along with thousands more. When the government swiftly moves to cover up the Disappearing, she and her siblings grapple with the truth behind what happened. They've been government loyalists their whole lives, but a split in opinions threatens to upend their lives permanently.  

And Takvi is trapped in a vacuum where no solution leaves her or her family unscathed, which is the one thing she can't bear. 

The illegal book their guardians left them has answers that agree with her siblings, but Takvi struggles to accept it. When the newly-formed government tightens its grip in eerie prophetic fashion, will she stand up or will she fold? Will any of it matter in the end of the world? 

A compelling apocalyptic story on redemption, sibling bonds, and seeking truth in a corrupt world, Those With Ears is the first novel in the Midnight Hour series. 

Let Them Hear
Since the End began, Unmarked are hunted and imprisoned like animals while the Marked live in excess. Eighteen-year-old Takvi has been on the run since it all began. When she learns that her brother is in the One Order’s custody - alive - she leaves everything to search for him. But to succeed in her rescue mission, she’ll need aid.

Gathering a ragtag group of Unmarked is dangerous, but it’s Takvi’s only chance at saving her brother. As they travel across apocalypse-torn North America, they learn the Order is growing darker and more powerful than they ever imagined. The group wants to save as many tortured Unmarked as possible - but Takvi refuses to face the wickedness she’s running from. One person can’t stop the End and Takvi won’t die for a lost cause. But everything has a cost these days. Will the rescue come at a cost too high to pay?

A gripping novel about sacrifice and redemption, The Hunger Games meets Mad Max in this post-apocalyptic ride.

Let Them Hear is Book 2 of the Midnight Hour series.

Eyes to See 

A false messiah emerges, Tarik Azrael announces a death penalty for Unmarked, and wicked beasts lurk in the shadows.

Two months after Noam’s prison escape, Tikvah and the group find themselves on a new mission: find Halfway, a strange place promising shelter, buried deep in abandoned woods. But there’s a price on their heads and the work of liberating Unmarked refugees grows harder. Riskier. Even Noam’s liberation was not a clean escape.

When a ghost from Noam’s imprisonment is assigned a deadly new mission, the team scrambles to stay ahead of the game. To make it worse, the horrors they’ve witnessed come calling in unusual ways. Will they have eyes to see the spiritual and physical war they fight against?

A story of sacrificial love and surviving in defiance when the world demands your death, EYES TO SEE is the third installment of the Midnight Hour series.

GOODREADS | AMAZON


Remnant Of Us
Following the heels of Halfway’s destruction, the survivors must fight their way to escape the Order’s grip as well as a new rebel group. Navigating the new horrors they’ve discovered, truth mixes with fiction. The dead are alive; traitors in the midst. Who can they trust now?

As the world spins closer to The End, the mission of the Unmarked must shift in order to survive. Turmoil unfolds as the world prepares for war. Allies of the Order are assassinated as Tarik Azrael ascends in power. And as the heavens pause before the final battle, the unthinkable explodes.

A story on seeing and following Adonai’s plan when we are broken beyond repair, REMNANT OF US is the fourth installment of the Midnight Hour series.

Miscellaneous


A Town Nativity: A Christmas Play
*If you are interested in producing this at your church or school and would like a sample before ordering copies, please send me a message via Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, or email and I can share a PDF of the first scene with you.  It is perfect for small churches on a tight budget.  My church is the one that I wrote it for and we produced it without a hitch! 


And once upon a time, in 2017 I worked as a columnist for Zachary Levi's Nerd HQ for eight brilliant months.  They were the best and I miss them very much. 

I also wrote for The Clarion Call from 2015-2019 as an opinions columnist.