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Shelley Ballard
 
Grab a tissue when you read The Tinker of Petros.  The climactic battle of good vs. evil is that powerful.

Combine one of Og Mandino’s books, such as The Return of the Rag Picker, with the creativity of C. S. Lewis, and you’ll have some idea of Shelley Ballard’s ability to elicit reader emotions. The publisher believes Ballard’s storyline will prove to be the foundation for one of the most powerful allegorical series written this century.  He’s convinced that you will agree once you’ve read the encounter of Carl and Clovis in the walled city.

The Tinker of Petros is Book One of The Tinker Trilogy. Watch this web site for information about when Books Two and Three - The Tinker’s Apprentice and The Tinkers’ War – will be available.

Author Shelley Ballard awoke one morning with the storyline for The Tinker of Petros running through her mind.  During the next several days she wrote down the story that has since grown into The Tinker Trilogy.


Here’s an excerpt from The Tinker of Petros:

All had gone well. 

Or had it? 

He couldn’t exactly remember.  Such a strange feeling he had.  You might be wondering what it feels like to a person who has just had a tiny piece of his heart plucked from his chest.  For the baker, it was like a cold emptiness coming from some intangible place deep inside.  He couldn’t quite locate it, but when he rubbed his hand over his chest, he could feel the tiny cut left by the blade Clovis had used to open his chest.  That’s when the night’s events came back to him clearly and an involuntary shudder passed through him. 

A short distance away, a pair of compassionate eyes had been watching the baker, noting all that had happened.  They saw the confusion in the eyes of the baker and also the shudder that went through the man’s body.  Tears rolled slowly and silently down the kind face of the tinker of Petros.

 
And here’s a passage from The Tinker’s Apprentice:

Chills pricked his skin like electrical charges.  There was something not right about this.  Carl’s disappearance and the fact that his tools had been left behind was quite disturbing.  And now the ever-burning flames of the tri-wicked candle had gone out and could not be re-lit.

“We should go before it gets any later,” Paison said.  “I’ll get the lantern from the wagon and light it before we leave.  Maddy, I think you should ride in the wagon with us.  You can tie Paladin to the back.”

He got no argument from the maiden spy.  Her fire had gone out just like the candle sitting dark and lifeless on the wooden table.

As he turned the wagon down the narrow road and away from Carl’s house, Paison imagined he caught the faint odor of sulfur.

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The creativity of this Flagstaff, Arizona denizen is ever evident, even in the name she chose for her day job—actually, a paperhanging business known as "My Hang Up."
 
The Tinker of Petros marks Shelley Ballard's debut as an author.  This is the first of three books in this series, Book Two being The Tinker’s Apprentice, and Book Three, The Tinkers’ War.

For Ballard this allegorical trilogy is a labor of love, presenting the ageless theme of good vs. evil in a way that readers will never forget.
 
Novels in progress include The Eden Virus and Nazi Gold.



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