Welcome

a brown cat peeking out from behind a cardboard panel which is stamped with a black sailboat & the words "Dawnrigger Publishing" To the cat's right, the words K. M. Herkes, author, gardener, cat wrangler in black against a gradient background that goes from from blue through pink, top to bottom

You’re probably here to learn more about the books or about me, so let’s get right to it.

The Books

The Rollover Series:

Ongoing contemporary science fantasy. Moms who get superpowers at midlife & traumatized teenaged radicals make the military very nervous by saving the world.

Cover for Sharp Edge of Yesterday: A Rollover Novel, showing a woman in flames crossing an autumn meadow under a deep blue partyl-cloudy sky
Book 1
The cover for Rough Passages: a Rollover Novel, with an image of a woman in flames dancing against a backdrop of an urban skyline at night.
Book 0: a prequel novel told in 8 stories

Stories Of the Restoration: 

Completed series. Cozy near-future SF thrillers. A genius billionaire philanthropist inventor whose life is destroyed by jealous competitors gathers a team of misfit specialists to help him bring down criminals the legal system can’t touch.

The cover for Controlled Descent,  two figures slogging across a snowfield or glacier towards a futuristic city skyline under a clear blue sky with a contrail cutting across it.
Book 1
Broken heroes team up in self-defense & end up fighting for justice
the cover for Flight Plan, with a SanFrancisco skyline silhouetted against a fiery-red sky with black water in the foreground behind the title and smoke rising up behind the series logo.
Book 2
Accidental kidnappings, global conspiracies,
and tea breaks.
the cover for Weaving in the Ends, with two hands holding knitting needles and a square of blue knitting in the foreground beneath the title
Companion duology:
Chosen family shenanigans, knitting, & kittens.
The cover for Novices, with the silhouetted figures of two boys gazing across a farm field at sunrise toward a ruined city skyline.
The inevitable prequel.

A bit about me

I write about worlds that are only two flaps of a butterfly’s wing away from reality, and while the twisty plots are full of action–things blow up, burn down, and dissolve into puddles of goo–the outcomes hinge on acts of compassion and cooperation

The characters you’ll meet in my stories know the cost of hope and the weight of despair. They find safety and shelter with one another, fitting together at their broken places to become stronger together. Their big victories grow from small acts of kindness and understanding.

Nitty-gritty details about my professional background can be found on my official Author Bio page, just a click away on the top menu. If we meet in real life, you’ll find I am short, squeaky, and energetic, with a thirty-percent chance of loud. Other attributes are subject to change without warning.

My personal emblem is a phoenix, symbolizing my periodic reinventions of myself, and my motto is Spes Semper Vincit, which I choose to translate as Hope Over All or “Hope wins in the end.”

Upcoming Events

Finally, here is a picture of me. It isn’t current, but it was accurate when it was taken. The horse’s name was Sophie. She was feisty. We got along.


My latest on Wandering.Shop

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