Riley Kilmore with the real Bridger.
Riley Kilmore
Kilmore is a 20-year veteran of the fire service and was one of the first women police officers in Lancaster Co., PA. In 2022 she earned her MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University. She holds an undergraduate degree in Theatre Performance.
Her fiction credits include GRIT, Lynx Eye Literary Journal, The Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Like Sunshine After Rain (Raw Dog Screaming Press), Beacons of Tomorrow (Tyrannosaurus Press), Eye Contact, Cogzine, and two of Wild Ink Publishing’s anthologies: Calliope’s Collection of Mystical Mayhem & I’m Not the Villain; I’m Misunderstood.
Kilmore’s poetry has been published by Sun Rising Poetry Press (Cosmic Brownies), Seal Press (Literary Mama: Readings for the Maternally Inclined), Skinner House Books (Coming of Age), The Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Georgia Poetry Society (Reach of Song), and Wild Ink Publishing (Ourania’s Orrery of Imagination).
In her youth, Kilmore studied in France, leaped from an airplane or two, and sailed the world aboard the SS Universe (Semester at Sea Program). These days, she and her husband of 35 years live in a mountainside cabin amid the sequestered hills of south central PA’s Appalachian region where they care for a multitude of critters—mostly of the four-legged varieties, now that their six children have flown the coop.
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Shay the Brave
Not all friendships are forged in the same fire.
Most have the power to transform, it’s true;
but only now and then does one come along with the power
to save everything and everyone you love.
Meet Shay, the manor lord’s youngest—and feistiest—daughter.
She wants to cut her hair short and trade her petticoats for britches, but most of all, she wishes the citizens of Oldenshire would stop eating meat. When Da’s hunters return to the fortress one day with a caged pouncer for the Harvest Revel’s “mane” course, wishing is no longer enough!
With the help of Alexy, the laundress’s mute son, and Bridger, Da’s retired war horse, Shay uses keen reasoning and mechanical sense (skills learned by spending long hours in Da’s library) to concoct a scheme to set the beast free before it winds up on Da’s holiday spit.
In gratitude, the beast, Talí, pledges to repay Shay’s kindness thrice as is customary, but when the fortress falls under siege and he comes to the rescue, it is Talí whom Oldenshire sees as their enemy. Swept into the fray, Shay and Alexy must act quickly before their fortress family and forest friends harm one another.
Can two imperiled children and a tired old horse save the day?
It will take bravery, but Shay knows she must try. After all, she may have given Talí his freedom, but in return he gave her the greatest gift of all, a whole new kind of bravery:
the courage to be her true self.
Find Riley Kilmore here:
Share with Shay
Hi. It’s so nice to see you again!
I bet reading Shay The Brave sparked a lot of ideas in your mind. Maybe you even talked about some of your thoughts and ideas with one of your friends or with an adult in your life (I do that kind of thing, too).
But sometimes I just want to think about things all by myself.
Doing that helps me figure out my own thoughts and feelings about a lot of topics – especially if I write my ideas down.
That’s why I came up with this very special journal just forus!
In these pages you can share all your deepest, bravest, and most creative thoughts with no one else but me, if you like.
To help you along, I’ve filled this journal with lots of prompts to help get you started. There are even spaces to draw some of your ideas. I can’t wait to see what you come up with!
Oh, and if you want to share your ideas or drawings with me in person, you can always write me. There’s an address inside where you can send me your letters, drawings, and thoughts.
Whether you write in this journal or write your thoughts in some other notebook, it can be inspiring (and sometimes healing) to jot your feelings down instead of keeping them all locked up inside your head.
So let’s get started!
Your friend, Shay
PRAISE FOR SHAY THE BRAVE
“Shay teaches readers to face their fears and fight for what they believe in.”
Amy Nielsen, author of It Takes A Village
“[Shay’s] mathematical thinking is really great representation for young girls to see themselves in a smart, kind protagonist.”
Kelly Webber, author of Wisteria
“I love [Shay’s] determination and how she challenges the status quo from a place of love.”
Mitra De Souza, author of The Fragile
You met Alexy, Nurse, and the young pouncer, Mládà, in Shay The Brave, now journey with them to Dorp House, an orphanage in distant Indusdorp where Shay’s da (manor lord of Oldenshire) sends Alexy to live. But Dorp House isn’t the school Da thinks it is; it’s a dismal tannery run by greedy Mr. Brisket and his towering one-eyed custodian, Crankhouser.
Can Nurse and the new headmaster Da hired—persnickety Mr. Perrytwinkle—save forty hungry orphans from a life of dirt and drudgery? Among them is Susanna, Alexy’s new best friend, and her two brothers.
What can one voiceless lad like Alexy do?
Things grow worse when Crankhouser sells Mládà to Farmageddon to be put on display with other captured citizens of Ailouros, the forest kingdom ally of Oldenshire, back home.
And who, oh who, is that mysterious man in the prison tower who begs Alexy’s help?
If only Shay’s da or Talí (ruler of Ailouros and Mládà father) knew what was happening in Indusdorp!
Let us know if you have questions for Riley Kilmore.
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