We're the luckiest people on earth!

Truly, I never believed I could be proud of my country - I never imagined I could love our President. I saw us as bullies, not half so great as we claimed or pretended to be. But with these two people representing us, I am filled with so much joy, and so much gratitude that we're wise enough to have made this choice. (And that picture of Michelle is just stunning.)

Welcome to the online home of author Stobie Piel. Since my first book, Rebel Wind, was published in 1995, I've written 15 novels and 7 novellas. My stories have included historical settings in the American Civil War, the American Southwest, and Anglo-Saxon England, as well as a series set in a futuristic galaxy. My journey through the Romance Genre culminated with two fantasy novels, Strange Brews and Prince of Ice.

Sometime after Aren and Cahira departed across a nether sea, my own interest in the genre faded, too, and I began to long for stories without the restrictions inherent to the romance field. I remembered what it was like to put all my heart & soul into a story, then open a letter that breathlessly asked the identity of the model on the book's cover. I can fully say I didn't care - and I can say with even more force that they never resembled the hero within the pages. (Aren's is ok, to be fair.) Maybe those limits and disappointments drained me of faith and confidence, or maybe I just wanted more. But I came to realize I had reached a turning point, in both my life and my craft.

A person's future path is revealed in their past, and so I know the past will dictate where I walk next. I love stories where relationships are poignant and passionate, but I also love the fellowship, the clash & unity of divergent cultures, and the epic journey of a soul becoming what they are meant to be. So in the end, when Aren and his group meet their age old nemesis, and offer him healing, that was an end for me, too.  I could have gone on, but there was no need. Cheveyo will return to his homeland and retake its soul, just as Fia from Lord of the Dark Sun will return to her mystic world and become queen.  But there's no need to put it in print now. (And I can't endure seeing Cheveyo as portrayed by some brawny, shirtless guy posing with a cringing tart.)

I write for one reason, and one reason only, and that is to follow the story that is already winding its way through my thoughts and through my heart. Everything I am went into my books, from Rebel Wind to Prince of Ice, and they remain deep in my heart.  My book pages now have personal comments, written in retrospect, about those I love best, and those that disappointed me, looking back. When I came to Aren's section, I realized something I hadn't known until that moment, and it helped me understand why I was finished with the romance genre.

I thank those who have shared this journey with me, and I hope we will meet again. When Bilbo and Frodo set off, they did so with a song, and a hobbit's willingness to follow a new path.  They didn't know where they were going. They didn't need to know.  

"...And whither then? I cannot say..."