“Fantasy novels are a part of our lives for the rest of our lives.”

— S. R. Usher

“Fiction is the freedom to teach the soul revelation through story.”

— S. R. Usher

Dream it.

Sierra spent more time in the beauty of nature than most as a child. Her mother was a geologist and magazine writer for historical landmarks introducing Sierra to unique places. Inspiration from God’s creation ignited Sierra’s heart at a young age. She started drawing stories even before she knew how to write them. Sierra’s stories started as her hobby, formed from the pure-clay of a child’s imagination. This Alaskan lake inspired the creation of Havens Delving .
Create it.

Sierra first wrote the opening lines of The Unknown Past at eleven years old, but her teenage years were when she worked tirelessly on her books and gave her world the name Evynlore. By High School, Sierra had decided she would publish her stories. She started creating the artwork, maps, cultures, history, and elaborate world connections that would bring Evynlore to life in the eyes of her readers.
Live it.

Sierra met the love of her life at twenty-one. She shared the characters of her world with Jonathan and greatly appreciated his feedback. During the Pandemic, they had all the time in the world to be creative, literally. Jonathan is a gamer and he proposed they make a trading card game based on Sierra’s books. Realms & Resources was a collaboration of ideas and their expertise. They both enjoy the thrill of the outdoors but also the comfort of returning to family seated around a dinner table playing cards.
Grow it.

Sierra’s life became the kiln to cement her stories into novels. Writing allowed her to see through the perspectives of others. She grew strong despite childhood-family hardships, the impacts of the Great Recession, eleven wars, the Thomas Fire of California, and of course the Pandemic. Sharing her life with her book series built an author-character relationship which is felt throughout Evynlore. She jokes she wrote the books with three co-authors, “me, myself, and I”, as no one is the same person at eleven as they are as an adult.
Share it.

Evynlore exists out of love for information. The stories are fictional, but much of the information held within is factual. Sierra hopes to spark the imagination of thousands by opening the portal to this world of wonder. The Evynlore community is one who enjoys detailed connections between characters where even the structure of a sentence may convey a hidden meaning. Sierra hopes you enjoy Evynlore and will share it with your world.

Learn About the Author

S. R. Usher writes from experience.

Summers and winters are the same on the west coast with perfect seventy-five degree weather, leaving much of nature's seasonal excitement unknown to the city. S. R. Usher was named after the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Sierralynn Rojas-Usher is her proper name and she was born in 1996 and meant for the wild. Sierra searched for opportunities since a wee child to see the more desolate lands of the United States and was greatly rewarded for her curiosity. Every summer she spent hours in the pine forests of her family’s favorite vacation cabin. There she read the stories of Greats: J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and Jane Austin. What cemented her love for books was not only the ability to read them, but to also go out and live the same experiences herself. The morning after she read Little House on the Prairie at ten years old, the sun had barely risen over the White Mountains before she was in the saddle riding alongside her friends to check the high pastures up in the National Forest. Horses were more than a vacation pastime: back home she tamed stallions and rode the offspring of Secretariat and Seabiscuit. Dogs also deserve credit for her inspiration to write spirited creatures, as the heroic story of Balto drives the human-like intelligence she portrays in her fictional friends. In Talkeetna, Alaska, she dog-sledded and learned that all types of dogs could be trained for travel. She stayed on a private island where the natives shared their knowledge of how to live off the land: It was clams and eels, caught with her own hands for dinner! The Last Frontier ignited her love for the stars and sky, and Sierra imagined dragons in those skies. Part of her imagination comes from time spent in airplanes as a child: The B-25 Bomber is a WWII plane she spent hours in as her family flew it from one airshow to the next. Being in the glass bubble of the gunner's nose, above a blanket of clouds with the wind whizzing through the air holes, is the closest a human can feel to being a bird! As an adult, she flew Cessnas and studied the aerodynamics of flight.

This specialized knowledge can be felt as she describes dragons. The ferocity of wind has fascinated her since she lived in Tennessee where her mother had no choice but to out-race a tornado driving the family car on a country road, having no ditch for escape in the expanse of newly turned okra fields. Sierra will forever remember looking up out that car window and seeing the purple sky swirling like a tide pool. Art history led Sierra to a fascination with architecture, and the drawings within the books are her original works. Sierra was on vacation in the Old Growth Forest, in Northern California, visiting the lighthouses with her family. They had just read the Hobbit where the character Bilbo finds the magical One Ring. Sierra and her family explored tide pools down the cliff within the seabeds, at the base of Point Cabrillo Lighthouse. Sierra saw the light catch something gold. Sierra hoped it was pyrite! Her geologist mother instilled the love for rocks in Sierra. Once down the cliff she claimed her treasure! A treasure it was! To her shock the glinting sparkle beneath the waving seaweed was a solid gold ring! The ring had barnacles grown on it and looked as if it had weathered in that tide pool since the 1800’s! Celtic knots were engraved around the size-fourteen man's wedding band. It was a magical moment. The Celtic knot on the ring is called the Dara Knot and means “Strength Together” –an ideal symbol of the unity of marriage, which is why Sierra’s husband today had the idea to split the ring and have the engravings set into both his wedding band and her wedding ring, with an added diamond of course! The Celtic word Dara comes from an older translation of the word “doire” which means “oak tree”. Oak trees are Sierra’s favorite and are mentioned throughout the Evynlore series, including her own fictional branch of oak, the Tharill. Redwoods are Sierra’s second favorite tree. She recalls playing Robin Hood with her brother and shooting arrows in the ancient woods hitting targets of paper and straw.

Sierra is Scottish by heritage but her given name originates from Galicia in Northern Spain. Her Europe heritage and Spanish-bestowed name turnout to share blood. It was unknown to her parents when bestowing a Galicia name, but the Gallaeci people were Celts, who eventually traveled to Scotland. Centuries before that they occupied the Galicia territory bounded by the Lusitanians. Lusitanians sounds eerily similar to Lahtaynians… the mythical people of the eastern realm in Evynlore. S. R. Usher believes familiarity can be passed down genetically through the generations, since certain sounds make our ears happy. Whether using made up names with happy familiar sounds, or real name, the names in Evynlore have been carefully chosen. Darrick’s first name means, “oak hearted” and his last name pays homage to the days she gallivanted “Sherwood Forest”. Sierra feels a particular closeness to her mother’s maiden name Usher. Usher’s hail from Peeblesshire, Scotland. Relatives can also be traced from Dublin, Ireland, spelled Ussher with a double “s”. The Ussher herald achievement displays the family coat of arms and motto, which Sierra was told often as a child by her mother… “Ne Vile Velis”, which is to say, “never have a bad thought”. Sierra used this motto as a greeting in Evynlore. Usher family ties worked behind the scenes in the creation of Evynlore. James Ussher is Sierra’s distant ancestor and he is accredited for being the first person to date the earth based on the creationist view of the Bible. Evynlore’s entire fictional origin is based on her ancestor's factual world timeline. James Ussher originally was named James Nevile (hence the family motto). He served King James; Yes that king James, of the King James Bible. Surnames come from professions. James Nevile was one of King James’s church ushers. James Nevile liked his profession so much he changed his surname to Ussher in honor of his servitude to the church. Sierra continues to carry that family torch as she too is a creationist and christian, and those values reveal themselves throughout her stories.