Linada's Quest: Book One of the Pandor Chronicles

A widow of the war with Quarlon, Wanildra Offley attempts a good deed by pushing a stranded sea creature back into the water. She is shocked to find not a sea creature, but a young girl thrashing about on the beach. Other than a blue pendent around her neck, she is completely naked. After a month-long search, no family is found that reports a missing daughter. Eight-year-old Linada is awarded to Wanildra to raise with her other two children, twelve-year-old Kelwin and four-year-old Karci.

Fast forward four years. At the Fall Harvest Festival, a stranger who offers to help the family turns out to be Gryndahl, the Master Wizard of Quarlon. He has been sent to exact revenge on the Offley family because their father had killed the king of Quarlon’s only son in battle. When the children find their mother encased in a block of ice from a spell cast on her by Gryndahl, they flee the cottage. Linada bravely leads her siblings into the Kyrene Forest to escape. With her strong faith in God, a heavy dose of courage, and help from four very unusual new friends, she may be able to return and rescue her mother—but it could cost her everything, even her very life.