Everything sounds made up until it happens to you.Jewel, on the family story nobody quite believed
A story everyone thinks they know
The Ruby Road
Jewel Gale didn't ask for a Kansas farm, a dead witch's grudge, or a pair of shoes that fit like they'd been waiting for her. But the storm doesn't care what you asked for — and it's already on its way.
From the first chapters
A few lines to start with
Three moments from the opening of the book — no spoilers, just the feeling of the thing.
Nobody makes shoes like this in Kansas.Jewel, holding something that shouldn't exist
My shoes. There they are.A voice that was supposed to be gone for good
The girl
Jewel doesn't flinch — mostly
Thirteen years old, newly orphaned, and newly a farm girl, Jewel Gale has learned exactly one useful thing about grief: plain words carry it better than careful ones. She saves her fight for things that are still up for grabs — and something has just decided to be very much up for grabs.
The farm
Gale Farm, older than the state itself
Passed down from a great-great-something named Dorothy, the farm has survived a hundred ordinary winters and one family story too strange to be true — a storm, a girl, a whole different world. Everyone laughed it off. Everyone, it turns out, was wrong.
The storm
Something is digging itself out of the ground
Far from Kansas, in a place that isn't on any map, a patch of dead earth has started glowing again. What's buried there remembers exactly whose shoes it's missing — and it has had a long, long time to get patient about getting them back.
Step onto the road
Get The Ruby Road, or hear about it first — new chapters, release news, and the odd Kansas weather report.