About Us

DeBokton Book is a family business, or even more, a family hobby/obsession. We write together, read together, and create worlds and characters together. We want our stories to inspire people to be more. Our motto is "Find your hero within!" We hope you can find good role models in the heroes in our books, and we hope our books inspire the hero in you. Yet, we are never preachy. Our stories are creative and very true to their worlds and characters. You won't find contrived plot devices, or villains who can't hit the broad side of a barn. All our books are proofread by science nerds, mythology buffs, creative minds, people in the spectrum, and detail people to make sure there are no inconsistencies, plot holes, or characters acting out of character. Journey with us through worlds of adventure!

The journey starts many years ago when Renee, a homeschool mother of seven, started into writing accidentally. So, how does one accidentally become an author? Is it possible to accidentally write a book? Yes. Renee decided to do a homeschool unit on writing short stories. To teach it, she decided to write a short story. After many hours, her husband and children started asking what she was doing, and she explained she was writing a story. They wanted to hear it, so her husband read it to the children. Everyone was engrossed, so they encouraged her to write more. Every day, the family wanted to hear what she'd written. The older children would volunteer to cook dinner, clean, or watch the younger children so she could type. One day, she came home to find a note on the door that said -- Mom, write! Forty pages into the book (full letter pages, not book-sized), she realized it wasn't going to be a short story, and her start as a novelist was set. The short story became the Heroes Trilogy.

After she wrote the first book, she had everyone she could get read it, took advice from them, read books on writing, and learned everything she could to be a better author. From that time forth, books would be a passion, and reading together as a family a bonding experience.

As the children grew, they took more active roles in the creative process. Many of the ideas for the books came from the children, and several of the books were written with different children (generally teen to adult) creating characters and getting together and role playing them as Renee would tell what was going on in the story. Eubos was done this way, and what fun it was to see the people banter as their characters would. Faeborn was Heather's idea, and we all created cities and war mage teams. With the Crown Series, we all created cities and characters from them. Rejected was role played very similarly to how Eubos was done. Think what fun we had with such eclectic characters and the banter between them. Writing is a passion that bonds us together, and we want to share that with you. The passion, the creativity, and the blend of diverse inputs really comes through in our books.

Besides writing, Renee loves theater, having grown up in it, directed community theater for over 20 years, taught drama for over a dozen, and performed for 5 seasons at a Renaissance Festival. Yet, surprisingly, she has a masters degree in theoretical math.

Michael was the second in the family to become an author, even though he is the sixth child and was only thirteen. Renee was reading for her youngest son's second grade class once a week and quickly ran out of books, as she just can't make herself read some of the popular children's stories. She asked Michael to start writing for the class, so he started the Woodcreek Academy series. Every week he would have a new chapter. The children in the class loved the story and eagerly anticipated hearing it. Michael got to watch as Renee read and the children laughed at what he'd written and loved the book. It encouraged him to write, and although the school year ended with him only writing the first book or two, he finished the seven book series. Since then, he's been actively involved helping develop story ideas, develop races through speculative biology, and writing books, when he can. Time to write is a problem, as he is an electrical engineering college student and currently on a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He has come up with many ideas and has a backlog of over 100 book ideas to keep us writing. Yet, somehow he's found time to write Woodcreek, novels, Through Humble Silence, and a fun book on probability that he did as his eagle scout project.

Heather joined as an author when she started writing the Misfit Knights series, but even before then she was integral in the writing process, as she came up with the ideas for many stories, such as Nameless and FaeBorn. She has incredibly creative ideas, which is where the clever solution to the vampire-human relationship came from in Shadow Wars. Heather has her degree in technical theater. She grew up performing with Showtime Performers. She also sews, crochets, and loves crafts. Mostly, she spends her time raising her five children, but still writes when she can.

Julia is an English major who specializes in creative writing, mythology, and historical context of literature. As a former actress with Showtime Performers, gymnast, and RenFaire performer, she has been inspirational in developing many characters. Due to being a mother of six, she hasn't had much time to write, so she has contributed with a great deal of consulting and writing children's books, as she makes up bedtime stories for her chilren. She loves to cook and spend time with her family. She's written several novels, and perhaps will finalize them and finish the series when her children are older.

Tamia, Renee's sister-in-law, joined our group as the primary illustrator, for which we are grateful, as her work is incredible. She also wrote Unicorn Whistle and Shingebiss. She works as a massage therapist, is a certified crystal healer, and a mother and grandmother. Besides her incredible art, she sings beautifully and is an amazing listener.

Joseph joined the team as an illustrator at ten years old, and started developing story ideas young. Time Cops was his idea when he was only eleven. He now illustrates and writes for us, when he isn't at the dojo. He is 16, a blackbelt in Taekwondo, and assistant instructs in classes. He loves psychology, history, and mythology.

Daniel is a creative consultant more than an author, who has a passion for story-telling and world building, which has kept him intricately involved in the writing group. He has come up with the ideas for many of the stories his mom writes, challenging her with unique ideas. He also does programming, wrote and upkeeps the website, and loves TTRPGs. He also grew up performing with Showtime Performers, and worked for several years as an assistant drama teacher. Now, he enjoyes video games and is learning to program them.

Doug, Renee's husband, is probably the most important person in the company. He's the one who encourages Renee to write, reads to the family, and keeps the passion going. He does the reading, encourages role playing characters and making YouTube channels such as Story Ideas on the Fly, and never loses sight of helping people find the hero within themselves through books. He also edits print and audiobooks, and does whatever is needed behind the scenes. He works in computer networking to pay the bills and fund our hobby. If he had free time, he enjoys spinning fire staff and wood carving, but what's free time when he's working full time and editing on the side?

Ryan is the strong silent type, very helpful at remembering names and details others forget, and good at noticing errors. He's a great deal like Fenyx in Rejected. He makes things happen and gets a great deal done, but is often in the background. He's inspired many great characters such as Bryan from Department of FAE.

Harry, Renee's father, wrote Johnny J. Jackson and the Jellybean Jar. He used to tell that story to his children when they were young, along with other stories. He was incredibly creative. He also directed plays, worked with youth at church, worked with cub scouts, and was an electrical engineer. He passed away in 2022 and is greatly missed. After his death, his wife asked for Daniel D. Dawkins and the Dooberville Dragon to be illustrated and publised, which we were happy to do.

Judy is Harry's wife. They have four children. Judy loves history and geneology. She wrote I Wonder.

Rebecca, Renee's sister, illustrated both Johnny J. Jackson and the Jellybean Jar. and I Wonder. She is an artist, mother of eight, grandmother, great cook, and mother to anyone in need.