About the Author

Shelly started writing The Tracing Time Trilogy living abroad, in the year after her father died suddenly, when grief had a way of making every ordinary moment feel like something she should have paid closer attention to. She found herself wondering about all the time that had already passed without her noticing it, and all the time she didn't get to have. 

Writing became a way of asking the question grief kept circling: what would it take to go back, even for a moment, and what would we risk to do it?

Years later, on a trip back to Brașov, Romania, the city where she and her husband, George, raised their three children for fifteen years before returning to her hometown of St. Louis, Shelly stood in the same square they used to walk every day. Her children were grown. A grandchild toddled beside her. (Not pictured because: the internet, ya'll.)

The city looked almost the same, but everyone standing in it had changed completely. It felt, for a moment, like past and present were occupying the same space. She recognized the feeling immediately, because she had written about it. 

These days, George leads a nonprofit, and Shelly writes the kinds of stories that ask what we carry forward and what we lose along the way. They are proud parents, proud in-laws, and besotted grandparents to children who make every moment worth holding onto.

"Good attention to detail. Interesting dialogue. I would recommend this book to women who don’t like the typical romance novels."