Ten-year old Kaylee Wren doesn't speak. Not since her drug-addled mother walked away, leaving her in a remote cabin nestled in the towering redwoods, in the care of a man who is as dangerous as he is evil. With silence her only refuge, Kaylee collects words she might never speak from the only memento her mother left behind: a dictionary.

Sierra Dawn is thirty-four, an artist, and alone. She has allowed the shame of her past to silence her present hopes and chooses to bury her pain by trying to control her circumstances. But on the twelfth anniversary of her daughter's death, Sierra's control begins to crumble as the God of her childhood woos her back to Himself.

Will Kaylee and Sierra let the truth set them free?

Ginny L. Yttrup is an award-winning author. Words won the Christy award for best first novel.

Buy Words today to follow Kaylee and Sierra on their journey to freedom.

"First-time novelist Yttrup writes a riveting, emotionally charged story about a 10-year-old sexual abuse victim, Kaylee Wren, who has literally lost her voice in the aftermath of ongoing trauma. Kaylee, living with her mom's abusive boyfriend after her mother abandons her, turns to the world of words for her comfort and sanity. Smart as a whip, Kaylee sounds out words in her mind and links words and phrases far beyond comprehension for her age as she puzzles out hour-by-hour survival. Enter the 30-ish Sierra Dawn, a grief-stricken artist whose own infant daughter died 12 years earlier. When these two meet, there is a supernatural connection. Rescuing Kaylee from her tormenter is only the first step to freedom for both of these characters, as they walk toward wholeness. Yttrup's story is particularly powerful as it in part mirrors her own painful past. Page by page, word by word, this talented author proves the adage 'Write what you know.'" Publishers Weekly

Words - second edition - updated February, 2018.