I have loved books for as long as I can remember. My brother, David, introduced me to reading at age seven or eight. He brought me phoenix young readers books from his friends in class I guess, and I read them. By the time I was in class eight, while many of my classmates borrowed gateway revision books, the only thing I borrowed from our tiny library at Lingway Primary, a village school in Burnt Forest, were story books. The Deputy headmaster was in charge of the library. He scolded me many times for not borrowing revision books. Sometimes, I bowed down and borrowed one that I never got to revise. I stuck to story books.

In high school, Moi Girls-Eldoret, my reading culture continued. I discovered the library when I was in form two. I also learnt of the Novella section. They had many pacesetter books. I read them. I borrowed novels from fellow reading fanatics, from sweet valley high, to sweet valley university, to Danielle Steel and Sydney Sheldon, John Grisham and my favouritest Barbara Taylor Bradford. I do not know how I managed reading and Architecture in college. But I still loved reading. Though my genre changed from drama and thriller novels to inspirational writers. I could read a whole 500 paged book between Nairobi and Eldoret as I visited my folks.

Being granted powers to read and easy access to computers and internet enabled me to start blogging. After reading so much, I guess I believed I could start sharing my ideas as well. I mainly wrote on pro-life and general inspirational issues. I remember one of my friends, Fr. Antony, telling me, “one day I believe I will read your book”.

At some point, two years ago, I blogged a 4 part on the Rosary. I shared my posts with my friend who is a priest. Fr. Gatua. He told me he would compile them al together to a small book. We started a communication, back and forth. He would propose additions, subtractions and reviews. I would adopt or reject depending on what I wanted to communicate. By October 2018, I thought I was ready to publish. I contacted a publishing, editing and printing company I was referred to. For some reason, they did not get back to me.

I shelved the idea but would occasionally go back to the book, read, add new ideas and edit. That is what happened the whole of 2019 and the better part of 2020. Two months ago, the desire to publish struck again. I forwarded my script to Pauline Publications, the publishers for a lot of the catholic content available in the market today. After a few weeks a did a follow up call and they had not looked at the document. They however promised to and get back to me. When they did get back, they told me the book was really good (A big plus for me) but they could not publish it since they had done several other books of the same kind. At this point I almost stopped pursuing this. However, a random idea to look at the Facebook page of the the publishers I had contacted two years ago struck and I peeked at the page. On it there was a blog post on how they had appeared on someone else’s blog. So I read the blog post which was about self publishing. I contacted the blogger and the editor quoted in the blog post and this very friendly lady guided me through the whole publishing process. And the book became a reality…

I wish to appreciate her, Nduta, of EIN Company. In addition to affordably editing my book, she guided me through processes of obtaining ISBN and copyright, adding a reference section to the book, ensuring adherence to the copyrights of any referred content and affordably formatting my book. I also wish to appreciate the people who contributed in any way to ensuring the success of the book through motivation, content analysis and and contribution and validation. Fr. Gatua, Fr. Kirui, Richard Kakeeto, Jacinta Keli, my neighbour, Lucy Kariuki, Nduta of EIN Company(the editors) who said my book was riveting, Gabriel of Writers Guild Kenya, just to mention a few. I also appreciate my cover designer, my nephew, Derrick Kebenei. I also appreciate Publish4All, the printers of my book.

To anyone who will read my book, I appreciate you. If only one person’s life will be positively altered by my thoughts and words, I will not have lived in vain. Be blessed abundantly.

To any aspiring author, put your thoughts into words, someday, you will hold that dream in your hands. I cant describe the thrill of holding it, but it is totally worth it.

Will there be a book TWO? Maybe. Someday soon, I hope. I believe.

Where can you find the book? The book is retailing at Ksh. 500. It is available at Holy Family Basilica Youth Container and at World Business Center Ground Floor, Shop No. 10. The author can also be contacted at 0738775560 for an autographed copy.

Thank you for buying yourself a copy and may you be blessed.