New novel · Palmetto Publishing

Heron MountainSome come to the mountain to climb it. She came to bring it down.

A sweeping wilderness romance-thriller of courage, love, and second chances — set high in the search-and-rescue country of the Pacific Northwest.

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Cover of Heron Mountain by Kathryn Anne Michaels: a watercolor of a snow-capped peak with a rescue helicopter and climbers lowering a rescue litter.

The world of Kathryn Anne Michaels

Stories written from inside the rescue.

Before she wrote a word, Kathryn Anne Michaels lived it — as a nurse and social worker, an EMT, a ski patroller, and a whitewater river guide. Her books carry that hard-won authenticity into three different worlds, all bound by the same thread: ordinary people doing extraordinary things at the edge of the wild, and the grace that finds them there.

Wilderness & rescue

Technical cliff rescues, swift water, storms that turn without warning — the real mechanics of saving a life outdoors.

ii.

Medicine under pressure

Trauma, triage, and the quiet heroism of first responders, rendered by someone who has done the work.

iii.

Faith & the thin places

Guardian angels, second chances, and the mystery of what waits between life and death.

The books

Three journeys, one voice.

A wilderness thriller, a wry tale of Death on holiday, and the award-winning true story that started it all.

Heron
Mountain

Fiction · Wilderness romance-thriller

Heron Mountain

Coming soon from Palmetto Publishing

Ginny Rollins signs on as a guide and medic in remote rescue country, certain she knows what she's walking into. She's wrong. As the summer fills with technical rescues and a love she never came looking for, it becomes clear she's hiding a reason for being there — and she isn't the only one with secrets. When a savage storm closes over the summit, the truth and a hidden danger break wide open together.

If you love the real-rescue authenticity of Wednesday's Children or the guardian-angel heart of My Name is Tod, this is where they meet.

Releasing soon Notify me

My Name
is Tod

Fiction · Inspirational adventure

My Name is Tod

Confessions of a Reluctant Guardian Angel

Death — call him Tod — has grown callous, so the Archangels assign him to guard a single mortal. Dodging his brother Lucifer at every turn, Tod bumbles through a human life of paddling, climbing, and hard-won love, from the beaches of South Carolina to Rome to the depths of the Grand Canyon. A funny, touching, surprisingly moving ride to heaven, hell, and back.

Readers call it "as good as her first book" — a rollicking tale that leaves you laughing, then quietly wiping your eyes.

Available now Buy on Amazon

Wednesday's
Children

Memoir · Nonfiction

Wednesday's Children

Memoirs of a Nurse-Turned-Social-Worker in Rural Appalachia

When a young RN trades hospital nursing for paramedic medicine and child-protection work, she lands in one of the most isolated corners of Appalachia. Cliff rescues, back-country "hollers," an indifferent court, and neighbors who don't trust outsiders — a candid, unforgettable account of the early days of social work and rescue medicine that will challenge and renew your faith in humanity.

★ Best-seller · award-winning memoir

Available now Buy on Amazon

Kathryn Anne Michaels

Nurse · social worker · river guide · storyteller

She has splinted fractures on a cliff face, run whitewater, patrolled ski slopes, and carried children out of harm's way. Now she writes the world she knows.

Registered nurse MSW social worker EMT Ski patroller Whitewater river guide

About the author

The real experience behind the fiction.

Kathryn Anne Michaels is a retired family-practice nurse and MSW social worker whose working life read like an adventure novel: emergency medicine, child protection in rural Appalachia, ski patrol, and years guiding whitewater rivers. That firsthand knowledge gives her writing its unmistakable authenticity — the gear is right, the medicine is right, and the courage is real.

She is the author of the best-selling, award-winning memoir Wednesday's Children and the novel My Name is Tod: Confessions of a Reluctant Guardian Angel. Her new novel, Heron Mountain, is forthcoming from Palmetto Publishing.

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