Royal Beauty Bright

After an autistic man ends up in the trenches of World War I, a nun-turned-journalist dances with treason to care for him, and a candy store clerk posing as Santa Claus risks everything to bring him home.

Luther Baker is a kind-hearted autistic man with a savant’s knack for making chocolate truffles. His entire life, he has worked in his family’s sweet shop alongside his single mother—until he is illegally thrust into the horrors of World War I.

Two people who risk everything to save him, his brother and an aspiring journalist, finally cross paths with Luther on Christmas Day, 1914, when they witness one of the most uplifting spectacles of nonviolence in history, when thousands of soldiers broke orders and refused to kill dudring the Christmas Truce of 1914.

Ryan Byrnes of St. Louis, MO

Ryan Byrnes is a St. Louis native. His first foray into writing was founding the publishing imprint, Avency Press, where he wrote one illustrated chapter book, The Adventures of Wheatail, and four young adult fantasy novels in the Son of Time series. Since then, he has worked with a publishing company, a literary agency, and various aspiring writers seeking to self-publish. Ryan now lives in Iowa as a student in mechanical engineering and English. Between work hours, he builds Mars Rovers with his roommates, plays with cats, and watches Wes Anderson movies.