As the author of the Locket books, Kelly Morris Dreher took young readers on a literary journey through the pages of her first release, youth fiction short-story compilation The Green Locket: Legends and Lessons From Near and Far. Throughout the 13 stories in The Green Locket, readers meet fictional characters, navigate incredible adventures and learn valuable lessons along the way. While the book is perfect for kids and young adults, readers of all ages have found themselves engrossed in the magic, the hope and the love that these stories hold. 

Now, as she has grown with her fans, Kelly Morris Dreher's latest endeavor The American Locket: The Journey Home tackles a new genre and a whole new world. As part of the geneological fiction realm, The American Locket centers around one family and the incredible secrets their ancestral pasts hold. Do you know where you truly came from? Do you know the names and places and stories of the people who came before you?In The American Locket, Kelly Morris Dreher brings the past to life and reveals the long-buried secrets that surely lie within all of our families' histories. Through romance and lost love, times of feast and famine, births and deaths, war and peace, this exciting new novel -set for summer release- reveals the human condition in a way that will make you rethink all the rules about what it means to be a "family." 

The Green Locket

Legends and Lessons from Near and Far

"Once Upon A Time..." It's a phrase that evokes childhood memories of the very first stories we ever knew in a time when every day ended with, "Read me a story!" But legends and fairytales aren't just for little children. Not really. There is something within these stories that speaks to all of us in a very personal way- our desire to see magic come to life, to take an incredible journey to a far away land, to learn the moral of the story, to see a happy ending. 

This new collection of completely original short stories by Kelly Morris Dreher will give readers of all ages a reason to fall in love with this genre again. Each story in "The Green Locket: Legends and Lessons from Near and Far" features teenage characters that take the reader with them on a journey to "once upon a time, in a land far away." Readers visit exotic far-off places and travel back to a time where "happily ever after" existed, but took a lot of heart and bravery to achieve. Each story even features its own "lesson," reminding the reader that life's most valued virtues can be theirs if they make the right choices.

The original legends within the pages of The Green Locket teach some of life's most hard-learned lessons But more than that, they illustrate something that those who think they've outgrown fairytales have forgotten: That there is magic within the hearts of all of us and that that magic started when we were all just children hoping for someone we loved to read us a bedtime story. All that imagination and wonder and happiness still lies within all of us, locked up like a locket- or a book- just waiting to be opened once again.

The American Locket

THE JOURNEY HOME

From all over the world people migrated to the freedoms promised on American soil. But what are the stories that happened along the way? Who are the immigrants, the ancestors and the pioneers who braved uncertainty to keep their lineage alive? That is the story told in Kelly Morris Dreher's upcoming geneological fiction novel The American Locket: The Journey Home.

When family patriarch Emilio Castiglione dies, he learns that there was much more to his "life" than just the eight decades he spent on earth. In heaven, Emilio discovers that within every person (and, more expansively, within every family) lies the secrets of the ages- the concept that we all harbor in our souls a little piece of every ancestor from whom we have descended- a part of all of them that is eternal, immortal. But who are these people? To Emilio, part of heaven means finding that out.

On his cerebral journey of discovery, Emilio meets the familiar and also long-forgotten ancestors of his family members, and along the way, he learns a lesson from each. As he watches his children and grandchildren (the descendants of these storied sojourners) from above, he hears his own family reflect on their thoughts, feelings and knowledge of themselves and each other, and he is enriched by the realization that each of them carries within them the story of hundreds of others who fought through history to propel their lineage to this moment. More than just the tales like Emilio's of immigrants making their way to America, The American Locket reveals stories of ancestors from thousands of years ago right alongside the secret adventures of family members sitting next to us at Christmas dinner. 

Do we have our 10x great grandmother's eyes? Our 7x great grandfather's laugh? How did a part of us survive wars, floods, famines and plagues? What was the greatest love story that brought two of our ancestors together? How did they fight through the most disparaging and harrowing moments in history? Is the drive to survive just proof that our ancestors, our grandparents, our parents, have been fighting all along to bring us to this moment we're living in right now?

Who were YOUR ancestors?

From gladiators in the ancient Roman Forum to Salem "witches"...

From the gin-soaked exploits of Roaring Twenties flappers to the creepy graveyard haunts of Scottish body snatchers...

From the post-Civil War wild west Gold Rushers to the spies of the American Revolution...

From the bustling Irish immigrants in NYC's Hell's Kitchen to the prisoners of war-torn Poland's concentration camps...

From the zen mind of a Japanese samurai to the survivors of the African slave ships...

From the Oregon Trail pioneers to the millionaire industrialists bracing for the fateful Johnstown Flood... 

From the hippie rock and rollers at Woodstock to the plague-ravaged medieval French... 

The American Locket guides readers through what it truly means- in a broader sense- to be a family - and an American.

Together, Emilio Castiglione and his relatives, both in heaven and on earth, find out who they really are in The American Locket: The Journey Home, a novel of historical fiction - told through short stories- set for release in 2018..