I want to speak to you, not as an author, but as another human being.

I didn't begin this journey with the desire to teach. I began because I was searching for a way to survive. Long before there were thirty-three novels, there was one person trying to make sense of pain, loss, fear, and the invisible patterns that quietly shape our lives.

The first twenty-two novels are that journey.

They are inspired by my own experiences, my own struggles, my own transformation. They tell the story of learning that boundaries are not selfish, that kindness should never require self-abandonment, and that true strength is found not in enduring everything, but in finally choosing yourself.

I wrote these stories because I needed them. I needed to understand what I had lived through. I needed to find my own voice before I could ever hope to share it with someone else. Along the way, I realized something profound: if these stories could help me heal, perhaps they could help someone else begin their own journey.

Although these novels are fiction, the emotions are real. The lessons are real. The transformation is real.

Within every story is an invitation—not to become someone different, but to remember who you were before fear, trauma, disappointment, or survival convinced you to disappear.

Maybe you've spent years putting everyone else first.

Maybe you've questioned your worth.

Maybe you've stayed silent when your heart wanted to speak.

Maybe you've simply forgotten what it feels like to belong to yourself.

If so, I hope these stories remind you that your voice still exists. Your strength has never left you. It has simply been waiting for you to notice it again.

As Soraya's journey evolved, so did the world around her.

High in the mountains, I imagined the Resilience and Healing Academy—a sanctuary where people could lay down the weight they had carried for far too long. It isn't a real place you can visit, yet through imagination it becomes something deeply real.

A place where no one needs to pretend.

A place where no one needs to prove their worth.

A place where presence matters more than perfection.

From that sanctuary rises the Glass Pillar.

Not as a monument of power, but as a symbol of clarity, resilience, truth, and the light that emerges after we have walked through darkness. It reminds us that we are not defined by what happened to us, but by the courage to keep becoming who we were always meant to be.

Each of the thirty-three interconnected Soraya novels is another step along that path.

They are not meant to

give you answers.

They are meant to ask the questions that help you discover your own.

My dream reaches beyond these pages.

I hope one day to bring the entire Soraya series to television so these stories can reach millions of people around the world. Not for recognition, but because I believe stories have the power to soften hearts, awaken compassion, and remind us that every person carries a story we cannot see.

If these novels accomplish only one thing, I hope it is this:

That somewhere, someone who has spent a lifetime feeling invisible finally feels seen.

Someone who believed they had to endure everything discovers they have permission to choose differently.

Someone who believed they were broken realizes they have been resilient all along.

If you have ever learned to disappear simply to survive...

You are welcome here.

You are seen.

You are enough.

Walk beside Soraya for a while.

You may begin the journey believing you are reading her story.

By the end, I hope you discover something even more meaningful—

that you have been rediscovering your own.

Nikky Rich

Author of the Soraya Series