From the moment Deborah Raney opened the cover of "Tip and Mitten" in first grade, she has loved to read. Growing up on a farm in Kansas, she was inspired by Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House on the Prairie" series, and first tried her hand at novel writing at the age of twelve. But after accidentally putting airplanes in a story set in the 1700s, she tore up her manuscript in frustration and vowed never to write historical fiction again. More than a quarter of a century passed before she dared to attempt another book.