Rachel Leah Schade

Rachel Leah Schade — who writes as R.L. Schade — has been crafting stories since she could pick up a pencil. Her current project is Flames of Rebellion, the first book of her We the Gods trilogy.

She grew up on horseback. Her childhood unfolded across two Ohio horse farms, where she spent her days in the saddle of a quarter-horse mare named Sundance — packing paperbacks in the saddlebags and, on a good afternoon, climbing into the branches of a tree to read Shane while her horse grazed below. Horses gave her the first version of the wide, mythic country her fiction would come to live in, and the deep bond between a rider and her horse beats at the very heart of Flames of Rebellion, where the warrior Zseda is joined mind-to-mind with the horse who carries her into war.

Her stories keep circling one question: what happens when the enemy you were raised to fear turns out not to be the enemy at all. It's a tale of invasion and rebellion on its surface — and, underneath, a study of how fear is manufactured, and how it can come undone.

A lifelong horsewoman who studied veterinary medicine, she co-runs Powell Artisan Bakery with her husband, fellow author Allen Schade. They live in Powell, Ohio, with their son — and far more notebooks than any one trilogy could ever need.

Bio approved by Rachel — synced from the vault source (her edited copy).