Angels, Healing & Purpose by Raina Shephard

Have you ever longed to know that you are not walking through life’s struggles alone?

In Angels, Healing & Purpose, Raina Shephard shares her powerful journey through trauma, loss, and divine encounters with angels who carried messages of comfort, direction, and healing. This book is both a testimony and a guide, blending personal stories with spiritual insights and practical exercises to help you discover your own pathway to wholeness.

Inside these pages you will:
-Experience real-life accounts of angelic presence and supernatural peace in the midst of life’s storms.
-Discover biblical wisdom and faith-based tools for healing trauma, grief, and emotional wounds.
-Learn how to recognize angelic signs and divine guidance in your everyday life.
-Work through reflective journaling prompts designed to help you move from pain to purpose.
-Be encouraged that your story, no matter how broken, can be redeemed and used for God’s glory.

Whether you are searching for hope in the middle of hardship, longing to deepen your faith, or curious about the ways God sends His messengers, Angels, Healing & Purpose will uplift and equip you with renewed courage.

This is more than a book—it is an invitation to encounter the presence of Heaven and embrace the purpose you were created for.

🌷 Ellie’s Heart Between Homes

By Raina Shephard

When love lives in two places, where does home belong?

In Ellie’s Heart Between Homes, author and trauma-informed therapist Raina Shephard tenderly explores the emotional journey of children experiencing family change. Through the eyes of Ellie the Elephant, readers walk beside a young girl as she navigates the sounds of conflict, the silence that follows, and the brave discovery that love can stretch across more than one house.

Ellie’s story begins on a stormy night when home no longer feels safe. As her parents separate, she faces questions too big for her heart: Will I still be loved the same? Is this my fault? What does family mean now? With gentle honesty and warmth, Raina guides children through Ellie’s journey — from confusion and fear, through healing, to hope and belonging again.

Each chapter gently mirrors real experiences children face when homes divide, from missing family members and learning new routines to meeting new loved ones and discovering blended families. Beautiful reflection pages, activity prompts, and conversation starters help young readers express their own feelings and remind caregivers how to create safety through presence, not perfection.

By the story’s end, Ellie learns that love doesn’t disappear when life changes — it grows in new directions. Her “Two-Home Hug,” “Heart Journal,” and “Hope Garden” teach children that even in the hardest moments, they are never alone, and love can always find its way back.

Ellie’s Heart Between Homes is part of the Ellie the Elephant Series, written to help children make sense of big feelings through stories that heal. Perfect for families experiencing divorce, separation, blended homes, or major transitions, this book encourages resilience, empathy, and courage in every child learning that love can bend without breaking.

Surviving the Teenage Fallout

By Raina Shephard

Every teenager faces moments when life feels like it’s falling apart — anger that burns too long, sadness that won’t fade, pressure that feels impossible, and choices that spiral out of control. Surviving the Teenage Fallout is a raw, empowering guide that helps teens recognize what’s really going on inside and learn how to rebuild from the chaos.

Written by trauma-informed therapist and author Raina Shephard, this book speaks directly to teens who are tired of pretending they’re okay. It gives words to emotions that often feel unexplainable — isolation, stress, judgment, disrespect, shame, and sadness — and shows how each feeling is connected to a deeper need for belonging and truth.

Through honest stories, real-life examples, and the wisdom of “The Team” of inner voices — the Coach, the Comforter, the Tempter, the Future Me, and the Decision Maker — readers learn how to:

Understand what triggers emotional storms and shutdowns

Build resilience and self-respect even when life feels unfair

Heal from family conflict, peer pressure, rejection, or self-blame

Recognize unhealthy patterns and start making choices that protect peace

Move from anger and chaos to calm, confidence, and clarity

Raina guides readers through the fallout that every young person faces when emotions explode or when life doesn’t go as planned. With compassion and realism, she helps teens connect the dots between what they feel, what they think, and what they choose next — proving that healing isn’t about perfection, it’s about becoming functional, self-aware, and free.

Each chapter blends narrative reflection, psychology, and spiritual wisdom to show how growth begins in the middle of the mess, not after it’s cleaned up. Teens are invited to think deeply, journal honestly, and practice simple tools that strengthen identity, responsibility, and purpose.

Surviving the Teenage Fallout is more than a self-help book — it’s a survival guide for the heart. Whether read alone or shared with a parent, mentor, or counselor, it’s a powerful reminder that even in the wreckage, resilience is the piece that always fits back in.

Themes: Emotional Resilience • Identity • Peer Pressure • Mental Health • Faith and Healing • Self-Worth • Anger and Forgiveness

For Ages: 13–19

The Chosen: The Calling for Those Who See Beyond

Some souls are awakened by pain, others by purpose. The Chosen speaks to those who have walked through both.

In this powerful follow-up to Angels, Healing & Purpose, Raina Shephard invites readers into a sacred journey of divine alignment—a call to those who feel “different,” sensitive, or set apart. Through raw transparency, angelic insight, and life-tested wisdom, she reminds the reader that being chosen is not about perfection, but about surrender.

From seasons of heartbreak and loss to moments of supernatural clarity, The Chosen reveals how God refines His messengers through fire and anoints them in the ashes. It is a guide for the visionaries, the empaths, the broken-but-believing—for those who sense that Heaven has marked their life for more.

Inside you’ll discover how to:
Recognize divine timing and spiritual awakenings
Heal from rejection and step into anointed purpose
Discern your calling and release the fear of being misunderstood

This book is for the weary but willing—for the one who knows deep down: You were never overlooked. You were being prepared.

💔 Love Without Swords: Healing from the Battles We Call Relationships

By Raina Shephard

What if the way we’ve learned to love has been shaped more by survival than by truth?
What if the weapons we use to protect our hearts are the same ones that keep us from ever being fully known?

In Love Without Swords, author and trauma-informed therapist Raina Shephard exposes the hidden warfare that plays out inside relationships scarred by fear, pride, codependency, and unhealed pain. She writes with unflinching honesty and gentle compassion for those who have fought for love—yet keep ending up wounded in the process.

Through stories of heartbreak and redemption, Raina guides readers into a deeper understanding of what love looks like when it is no longer armed for battle. She reveals how childhood wounds, unmet needs, and spiritual disconnection distort the way we love others and ourselves. Drawing from faith, psychology, and real-life transformation, she helps readers:

Recognize when love has become a battlefield rather than a refuge

Understand emotional patterns rooted in trauma and attachment

Disarm the defenses of shame, control, and fear that sabotage intimacy

Heal from codependent or toxic dynamics without losing compassion

Rebuild relationships that honor truth, boundaries, and emotional safety

Rediscover a kind of love that protects without punishing and trusts without demanding

Each chapter unfolds like a mirror—reflecting both the pain of old battles and the promise of peace that comes when love lays its weapons down. Raina reminds us that God never designed love to be won through power, guilt, or surrender of the soul. True love is not a fight to survive—it’s a sanctuary where healing begins.

With tenderness and clarity, Love Without Swords is a lifeline for anyone ready to end the cycle of fighting for love and start learning to receive it freely. It’s an invitation to trade exhaustion for grace, self-protection for peace, and fear for the kind of love that never wounds to prove it’s real.

Themes: Trauma-Informed Healing • F• Codependency • Emotional Boundaries • Authentic Connection • Self-Worth

For Readers Who Love: Codependent No More, Boundaries, and The Road Back to You

🩵 Ellie Learns About Safe Touch

By Raina Shephard

Every child deserves to feel safe in their own body.
When Ellie the Elephant begins learning about “safe touch,” she discovers what it means to listen to her feelings, trust her instincts, and tell a trusted adult when something doesn’t feel right.

Through gentle storytelling and reassuring illustrations, Ellie Learns About Safe Touch gives children an age-appropriate way to understand the difference between safe and unsafe touch. The story encourages open conversations between children, parents, teachers, and counselors—helping build confidence, body awareness, and emotional safety.

Children will learn:
🩷 The meaning of safe, unsafe, and confusing touches
🩷 The importance of saying “no” when something feels wrong
🩷 Who trusted adults are—and how to talk to them
🩷 That their body belongs to them, and their feelings matter

This story is carefully written to protect innocence while empowering children with lifelong skills of self-awareness and communication. It’s a must-have tool for families, classrooms, and counselors who want to teach safety without fear—through the comfort of love, trust, and gentle guidance.

Includes reflection pages and a note to grown-ups for continuing the conversation in a calm, supportive way.

What if the love you’ve been giving away so freely was meant to heal you first?

Codependency: Healing the Hard Part is a powerful journey into the heart of emotional entanglement, self-abandonment, and the hidden wounds that keep us trapped in unhealthy patterns of love and loyalty. Written with both clinical insight and lived compassion, this book guides readers through the delicate process of untangling their worth from someone else’s chaos—and reclaiming peace from pain.

Drawing from over twenty years as a behavioral health therapist, Raina Shephard helps readers recognize the emotional, spiritual, and neurological roots of codependency—why we attach to the broken, why we rescue to feel needed, and why letting go feels like betrayal. Through deeply personal reflections, real-life case stories, and trauma-informed exercises, she exposes the hidden “contracts” we make with pain and gently leads readers toward the freedom of authentic love.

Inside these pages, you’ll discover:

The true difference between helping and enabling

How trauma, attachment wounds, and family conditioning shape our patterns of care

Signs of codependent dynamics in romantic, family, and workplace relationships

The neuroscience of emotional addiction and why “love” can feel like withdrawal

Healing tools to rebuild self-trust, boundaries, and emotional balance

Reflection and journaling prompts to apply insights in real time

Healing the hard part means facing what we were taught to hide—the fears, needs, and grief that live beneath our need to fix others. It’s not about blame or shame; it’s about awakening to the truth that your empathy is sacred, but it was never meant to cost your peace.

Whether you’re recovering from a toxic relationship, growing through family dysfunction, or simply learning how to love without losing yourself, Codependency: Healing the Hard Part offers the clarity, compassion, and courage you need to finally choose you.

Perfect for:

Individuals in recovery or therapy

Survivors of narcissistic or emotional abuse

Counselors, coaches, and faith-based mentors

Anyone ready to stop rescuing and start healing

Your healing begins where your worth is remembered.

“Ellie Learning About Bullying”

Even the kindest hearts can be hurt by unkind words—and sometimes, those hearts need help to heal.

In Ellie Learning About Bullying, readers walk beside Ellie the Elephant and her friends as they discover what it means to stand up for kindness, understand others’ pain, and use courage to make things better. This heartfelt story gently opens the conversation about bullying—what it looks like, how it feels, and what children can do when they see it happening.

When Ellie’s classmate Maya starts acting quiet and sad, Ellie’s big heart notices something isn’t right. With the help of her mom, teacher, and a caring friend, Ellie learns that bullying can hurt more than we see on the outside. As she listens, comforts, and stands up for what’s right, Ellie reminds us that kindness has power—and silence can be just as hurtful as mean words.

Through relatable characters and age-appropriate examples, Ellie Learning About Bullying teaches children ages 8–13 how to:

Recognize different forms of bullying—physical, verbal, emotional, and online

Respond safely and compassionately when they or someone else is being hurt

Find trusted adults and safe spaces to share their feelings

Understand that everyone—including those who bully—has a story that needs healing

Build empathy, courage, and confidence to create positive change

This book is part of the Ellie the Elephant Emotional Learning Series, written by Raina Shephard, a behavioral health therapist with over two decades of experience helping children heal from trauma and build resilience. Every page encourages honest conversation, reflection, and hope—helping children feel seen, supported, and strong enough to choose kindness.

At the end of the book, you’ll find:

A Reflection Page to help kids process their thoughts and emotions

A Dear Grown-Up Note for parents, teachers, and counselors to guide follow-up discussions

An Activity and Coloring Section to reinforce lessons through creativity

Kindness Coupons and a printable Certificate of Courage to celebrate every child’s growth

Ellie Learning About Bullying is more than a story—it’s a gentle guide for healing hearts, encouraging empathy, and inspiring children to be the change that kindness needs.

Perfect for:

Classrooms, counseling sessions, and family reading time

Character education programs and anti-bullying initiatives

Helping children navigate school challenges with confidence and compassion

Because every act of kindness, no matter how small, helps someone feel seen, safe, and loved.

Ellie’s Day of Feelings

Every feeling has a story—and every story deserves to be heard.

In Ellie’s Day of Feelings, children are invited to walk beside Ellie the Elephant as she experiences a full day of emotions—from happy and brave to angry, lonely, and loved again. Through gentle storytelling and expressive illustrations, Ellie helps young readers understand that all feelings are important, even the hard ones.

From morning giggles to bedtime tears, Ellie’s day reminds children that emotions aren’t good or bad—they’re messages from the heart. When Ellie feels frustrated, she learns to take a breath. When she feels lonely, she remembers people who care. When she feels scared, she discovers courage hiding inside her. And when she feels loved, she learns that love never really leaves—it lives in all the moments in between.

Created for ages 4–8, Ellie’s Day of Feelings helps children:

Recognize and name common emotions

Understand where feelings “live” in the body

Develop healthy ways to express sadness, anger, fear, and joy

Build emotional vocabulary through visual storytelling

Learn that it’s safe to talk about feelings with trusted adults

Written by Raina Shephard, a behavioral health therapist and author of the Ellie the Elephant Emotional Learning Series, this book is both comforting and educational. It gently supports emotional intelligence and early mental wellness, helping children learn that what they feel on the inside matters.

Each two-page spread explores a different emotion with expressive artwork, child-friendly language, and calm reassurance—ideal for bedtime reading, therapy sessions, or classroom discussions.

At the end of the book, you’ll find:

A Feelings Reflection Page to help children identify and share their own emotions

A Dear Grown-Up Note for parents, teachers, and counselors to guide conversation

Optional coloring and journaling pages for creative expression

Ellie’s Day of Feelings is perfect for families, schools, and counseling offices—anywhere children are learning that emotions are meant to be felt, not feared.

Because when a child learns to name what they feel, they learn to heal.

Ellie’s Day of Chores

Helping at home can be hard—but it can also be full of heart.

In Ellie’s Day of Chores, our favorite little elephant learns that responsibility isn’t just about getting things done—it’s about caring, teamwork, and pride in doing her best. Through playful storytelling and gentle lessons, Ellie discovers that chores can be a way to show love, build confidence, and even have fun!

When Ellie’s mom asks for help around the house, Ellie isn’t sure she wants to stop playing. But as the day goes on, she finds out that every small job—making her bed, folding laundry, feeding her pet, and helping in the kitchen—can make her feel proud and capable. With each task, Ellie learns that helping isn’t about being perfect; it’s about trying, learning, and working together as a family.

Written for ages 4–8, Ellie’s Day of Chores teaches children that responsibility is something to celebrate, not avoid. It helps young readers:

Understand the value of helping at home

Learn that teamwork builds family connection

Develop self-confidence through accomplishment

Discover ways to turn everyday chores into acts of kindness

Build early life skills like organization, patience, and gratitude

With cheerful illustrations and easy-to-read text, this story turns ordinary moments into joyful learning experiences. Each page is filled with warmth, love, and encouragement, showing children that even small hands can make a big difference.

Written by Raina Shephard, a behavioral health therapist and author of the Ellie the Elephant Emotional Learning Series, this story supports both emotional and practical growth. It’s ideal for families, teachers, and counselors who want to nurture responsibility, self-esteem, and positive behavior in a fun, engaging way.

At the end of the book, you’ll find:

A Reflection Page to talk about favorite chores and family teamwork

A Dear Grown-Up Note with discussion ideas for parents and teachers

Activity and coloring pages to make learning fun

A Certificate of Helping Hands to celebrate your child’s efforts

Ellie’s Day of Chores is more than a story—it’s a gentle reminder that when children learn to help, they also learn to shine.

Because helping hearts grow into caring hearts.

Ellie Learning Grief

When someone Ellie loves goes to Heaven, her heart feels heavy and quiet. With help from family, faith, and memories that glow like stars, Ellie learns that love never truly disappears—it just changes shape and finds a new way to stay close.

In Ellie Learning Grief, children walk alongside Ellie the Elephant as she discovers comfort in remembering, sharing stories, and holding love in her heart. Through tender illustrations and gentle storytelling, this book helps children understand that sadness is a natural part of losing someone they love—and that it’s okay to feel, to cry, and to remember.

Designed with both emotional warmth and spiritual reassurance, Ellie Learning Grief provides families and educators a sensitive way to open conversations about death, Heaven, and healing. It reminds every child that love never ends—it simply takes on a new form that we carry inside us forever.

Perfect for ages 4–9, this beautifully illustrated story offers guidance for families, churches, counselors, and classrooms navigating loss together. It’s a book that helps young hearts heal—with faith, hope, and the gentle promise that love remains.

What if the love you thought would save you was the very thing keeping you bound?
Untangled: The Lies Love Told Me & Getting It Right This Time is a powerful, trauma-informed guide for anyone who has loved deeply, lost themselves, and is ready to reclaim their truth.

Author Raina Shephard, a behavioral health therapist and survivor of toxic love, unveils the hidden emotional patterns that keep people trapped in cycles of pain—gaslighting, codependency, emotional manipulation, and the desperate hope that “this time will be different.” Through raw storytelling, clinical insight, and deeply compassionate wisdom, she shows readers how to recognize the difference between attachment and love, survival and healing, illusion and truth.

This book helps you:

Identify emotional lies you’ve believed about love and worth.

Understand trauma bonds and why they feel like destiny.

Break free from guilt, shame, and codependent cycles.

Reconnect to your authentic self and rebuild healthy attachment.

Learn practical tools for boundaries, self-trust, and emotional stability.

Every chapter blends real-life reflection, therapeutic insight, and healing practices designed to guide readers from confusion to clarity, from heartbreak to wholeness. Whether you’re recovering from a narcissistic relationship, processing complex grief, or learning how to love yourself without losing yourself, Untangled meets you where you are—with truth, tenderness, and hope.

You are not broken. You were just taught the wrong version of love.
It’s time to unlearn the lies, untangle your heart, and finally get it right this time.

The Four Critters of Feelings

The Four Critters of Feelings are gentle, expressive companions created to help children understand, name, and safely express what they feel inside. Each critter represents a core emotional state that all children experience—sometimes quietly, sometimes loudly, and sometimes all at once. Together, the Four Critters teach children that feelings are not something to fear, hide, or fix, but something to listen to, care for, and understand.

Children often feel emotions in their bodies before they have words for them. A tight chest, wiggly legs, heavy shoulders, or a burst of energy can feel confusing or overwhelming. The Four Critters step into that gap between sensation and language. By giving emotions a friendly face and personality, children are able to say, “My critter feels this way,” which creates emotional safety, distance from shame, and an invitation to curiosity instead of fear.

Each critter has its own emotional role. One helps children recognize big, fiery feelings like anger, frustration, or excitement. Another represents heavy or tender emotions such as sadness, loneliness, or disappointment. A third helps children explore worried, scared, or unsure feelings that show up during change, separation, or uncertainty. The fourth embodies calm, comfort, and joy—those moments when a child feels safe, steady, and connected.

The critters do not judge feelings or rank them as good or bad. Instead, they model an important truth: all feelings have a purpose. Some feelings are messengers, letting us know something needs attention, protection, or rest. Others are signals of connection, safety, or happiness. When children learn that emotions come and go, just like their critters, they begin to trust themselves more and fear their feelings less.

The Four Critters are especially helpful for children who struggle to express emotions verbally, including young children, highly sensitive children, neurodivergent children, and those who have experienced stress, trauma, loss, or change. They provide a shared emotional language that parents, caregivers, teachers, and therapists can use to support healthy emotional development.

Rather than asking a child to explain how they feel—a task that can feel overwhelming—the critters invite play, imagination, and storytelling. Children can draw their critters, talk about where they live in the body, notice when one shows up, or imagine what each critter needs in that moment. This approach helps build emotional awareness, regulation skills, empathy, and self-compassion over time.

Most importantly, the Four Critters of Feelings teach children that they are not their emotions. Feelings may visit, but they do not define who a child is. By befriending their feelings instead of fighting them, children learn resilience, emotional confidence, and the deep reassurance that they are allowed to feel exactly what they feel—and still be safe, loved, and okay.

Ellie’s Big Life: From Me to We invites children on a heartwarming journey through friendship, faith, and emotional growth. In this beautifully illustrated book, Ellie the Elephant discovers that life’s biggest lessons come from the smallest moments—learning to share, forgive, and love with kindness.

Set against the backdrop of a soft meadow and gentle skies, Ellie’s adventures teach young readers that growing up isn’t about being perfect—it’s about learning to understand our feelings and treat others with grace. Each chapter brings relatable stories of school, friendship, and faith, reminding children that love and courage grow strongest when shared.

Filled with charm, warmth, and gentle humor, Ellie’s Big Life encourages conversations about emotions, empathy, and community. Ideal for ages 7–12, this book inspires children to build confidence, nurture compassion, and trust that God’s love is big enough for every heart.

From Raina Shephard, the author of Ellie’s Day of Feelings and Ellie’s Heart Between Homes, comes a timeless story that reminds every child: life is brighter when we grow—from me to we.

The Hard Road Home: From Grit to Grace is a raw, soul-deep story of a woman who has fought her entire life to survive—yet has never once known how to stay whole. Roxi has lived through battles no one saw and carried wounds no one understood. Every relationship, every disappointment, every betrayal became another bend in the road she was never quite prepared to travel. And yet, she kept going. She always kept going.

But survival has a cost.

After years of running—from pain, from truth, from herself—Roxi reaches a breaking point. Standing at the crossroads of her past and her future, she finally faces the questions she has buried her whole life:
What does it cost a woman to stay strong for too long?
What happens when survival becomes the very thing that’s killing you?
And what if the only way forward… is back through everything you’ve been avoiding?

Set against the backdrop of emotional trauma, complicated family dynamics, and the quiet ache of a woman who wants to be whole but doesn’t know how, this story follows Roxi through heartbreak, loss, and the deep, often unspoken wounds that shape us. When her world fractures, she is forced to confront the patterns she once mistook for love, the people she never healed from, and the truth she has been running from: returning home might be the hardest road she has ever walked.

But it might also be the road that saves her.

As Roxi uncovers the secrets she buried to survive, she begins to learn what strength really means—courage shaped in silence, resilience forged through truth, and a grace that enters not when life is easy, but when we are finally honest with ourselves. Through each step back into her history, Roxi discovers that healing is not a single moment, but a long road paved with forgiveness, faith, and the unexpected beauty that comes from choosing yourself even when it hurts.

The Hard Road Home: From Grit to Grace is a story for anyone who has ever loved the wrong person too deeply, stayed too long in places that broke them, or carried childhood wounds into adulthood without ever realizing it. It is a novel about redemption, womanhood, second chances, and the quiet miracle of becoming someone you were never allowed to be.

This is not a fairy tale.
It is a rising.
It is the moment a woman finally stops merely surviving and begins to live.

Perfect for readers of emotional women’s fiction, trauma-healing narratives, and character-driven stories with heart, honesty, and hope. This book belongs to anyone who knows what it means to crawl through the hardest chapters of life—and still choose grace.

Every mystic has a beginning—long before they ever call themselves one.
Long before the visions, the intuition, the knowing.
Long before the collapse that forces them to choose between losing themselves or becoming someone transformed.

The Makings of a Mystic is the story of that beginning.

Blending spiritual memoir, trauma-informed psychology, emotional recovery, and mystic formation, this book takes readers through the deeply human process of becoming someone who feels the world more vividly than most. It is a journey into the childhood patterns, soul-marking wounds, holy interruptions, and unexplainable experiences that shape a sensitive soul into a spiritual seer.

With tenderness, clarity, and an unwavering commitment to truth, Raina D. Shephard guides readers through the interior landscape of a life that was never ordinary. Through her personal stories, reflections, and spiritual lessons, she reveals the hidden architecture behind what makes a mystic:
the sensitivity that others misunderstood,
the trauma that others dismissed,
the intuition that others doubted,
and the divine protection that kept whispering, “You were made for more.”

This book is for every person who has ever:

felt emotions in volumes that others only feel in whispers

carried the weight of their family’s pain

been the peacemaker, the listener, the healer long before they had words for it

felt God, the unseen, or the spiritual world before they felt understood by the human one

learned to translate their suffering into compassion

survived storms of the soul and still somehow loved deeply

The Makings of a Mystic shows readers that mystics are not born on mountaintops—they are made in the quiet, ordinary, painfully sacred moments that most people overlook. They grow in homes where they learn to read emotions to stay safe. They mature in the tension between spiritual sensitivity and real-life hardship. They sharpen their discernment through heartbreak, intuition through loss, compassion through suffering, and wisdom through the necessity of surviving what was meant to destroy them.

Part spiritual autobiography, part emotional healing guide, and part initiation manual, this book invites readers to look at their own life with tender curiosity. Beneath every trauma is a gift. Beneath every wound is a doorway. Beneath every collapse is the blueprint for awakening.

In these pages, Raina walks alongside other sensitives, intuitives, and spiritually attuned readers who have always felt “different,” helping them understand that their sensitivity is not a flaw—it is their calling. Their intuition is not imagined—it is their compass. And their story is not random—it is their training.

The Makings of a Mystic is an invitation into remembrance:
of who you were,
of who you are becoming,
and of the holy thread that has been pulling you forward all along.

Whether you have already awakened or are only beginning to understand your own mystic identity, this book offers validation, guidance, hope, and a gentle unfolding of the truth:
You are not broken.
You are being formed.
You are not lost.
You are being called.

This is where the mystic’s story begins.

The Collapse of the Mystic

When the mystic finally breaks, it doesn’t happen in a single moment. It happens in layers. Quietly at first, then all at once.

In The Collapse of the Mystic, the second book of The Mystic Recovery Series, the spiritual unraveling becomes impossible to ignore. What once felt like divine clarity now feels like a storm of contradictions. The intuition that once guided with such certainty begins to flicker. Beliefs that once gave life meaning now press in with unbearable weight. And the person who carried everyone else’s healing begins to crumble under the weight of their own.

This is the book where illusion meets truth.
Where the mystic’s armor shatters.
Where every hidden wound rises to the surface.

Through vivid scenes, emotional honesty, and a deeply human portrayal of spiritual burnout, The Collapse of the Mystic follows the internal fracture of a soul who has spent years being “the strong one.” It captures the moment the mystic stops performing and starts unraveling, facing the very darkness they once tried to transform in others.

But collapse is not failure — it is revelation.

As the world they built begins to fall apart, the mystic is forced to confront a lifetime of unprocessed grief, misplaced loyalty, and spiritual over-functioning. The voices that once guided—intuition, wisdom, inner knowing—become distorted echoes as trauma, exhaustion, and old belief systems collide. Relationships strain. Identity fractures. Faith trembles. And yet, beneath the breaking, something sacred begins to stir.

This is a story for anyone who has ever felt the weight of spiritual expectation.
For those who have carried others while silently drowning.
For those who have prayed for answers and found only silence.
For those who have believed collapse meant the end — when in truth, it is the beginning of becoming whole.

The Collapse of the Mystic is both a mirror and a companion. A deeply psychological, spiritually grounded exploration of what happens when a healer’s heart can no longer outrun its own truth. It is raw. Tender. Honest. And ultimately, hopeful — because collapse is the doorway through which the mystic finally becomes human again.

The Chosen Child: The Birth of a Mystic
by Raina Shepard

When tragedy shatters ten-year-old Joshua’s world, grief opens a doorway he never asked to step through. In the stunned quiet that follows his mother’s death, Joshua becomes aware of a presence that moves beneath the edges of ordinary life—a silent, watching awareness that turns toward him at the moment he feels most alone. It does not speak. It does not touch. But it chooses.

Taken in by Pastor Mike, his mother’s trusted friend, Joshua enters a home filled with love, fear, conflicted faith, and the weight of responsibility no child should have to bear. As days blur into nights, Joshua begins sensing things no one else notices—the moment someone’s breath shifts toward leaving, the subtle pull of futures unfolding, and the thinning boundary between the living and the dying. The world behind the world is awakening around him, and it refuses to let him slip back into innocence.

Haunted by visions he cannot explain and emotions too big for his small frame, Joshua struggles to understand why he can feel the dying before they pass… and why the unseen seems to feel him in return. Every revelation deepens the burden he carries—one that is shaping him long before he can shape it back. Yet it is through this painful awakening that the origins of a mystic begin to form: a child marked by loss, chosen by something he cannot name, and destined for a path that will demand everything from him.

As Pastor Mike tries to protect Joshua from spiritual forces he barely understands, fear fractures their bond. Love mixes with control. Guidance blurs into pressure. And Joshua learns what every mystic eventually discovers: that calling does not wait for readiness, and gifts born from grief rarely arrive gently.

The Chosen Child: The Birth of a Mystic is a haunting, tender, and deeply human story of a boy standing at the threshold of two worlds. Both heartbreaking and luminous, it explores the cost of spiritual sensitivity, the loneliness of being different, and the strange, quiet beauty of being seen by the unseen. This novel serves as the emotional and spiritual origin story for the Mystic Recovery Series, following Joshua’s earliest encounters with the thin places that will shape his life, his identity, and ultimately his destiny.

For readers drawn to mystical realism, trauma-infused spirituality, and emotionally resonant storytelling, The Chosen Child offers an unforgettable journey into the making of a mystic—beginning in the place where innocence ends and purpose begins.