The blood rushes to Melissa Rowley's cheeks as she clenches her paper — a quick-write exercise for her English class at American Fork High. She hands it to her neighbor for peer review, heart pounding in her ears.
"I didn't realize we had to read them to each other," the 17-year-old recalled later, rolling her eyes in embarrassment. "It was kind of scatterbrained. I think I wrote it about a parking ticket I got."
Never mind the two paperbacks, branded with Rowley's byline, that hit bookstores all over the country this week. Forget about the 10-book contract she has with Shadow Mountain Publishing. Rowley is just a high school senior — and a shy one at that — who's timid about looking stupid in front of classmates.
"I'm not a very outgoing, share-everything-about-my-life person," she said.
Rowley doesn't even publish under her first name.
"She uses her middle name, M'Lin," said her mother, Deborah Rowley, who has several books of her own on the market. "I think she liked the idea because it allowed her to be anonymous."
It must have been disconcerting for Melissa Rowley, then, when news crews burst into her creative writing class Tuesday to talk about the release of the books "The Falcon Shield" and "The Silver Coat." The stories, which blend King Arthur lore with modern-day moral lessons about things like saying no to drugs and being honest, are the first in her "Knights of Right" series.
"Things have been weird at school since that happened," Melissa Rowley said.
Now every time the teen passes her papers to classmates, they smile slyly.
"Ooo! This is good," they tease. "We should get it published."
The whole situation still feels unreal.
Melissa Rowley handles her copies of "The Silver Coat" and "The Falcon Shield" incredulously, as if they were her fragile, delicate, newborn children.
"It's a book — a real book — except it has my words inside of it," she said. "I'm so in love with books. To have one that is mine is really neat."
The glossy, lively illustrated covers and seamless binding of her little books, which target six- to 10- year-old readers, enchanted the teen. Printed off on the family computer, decorated with clip art and bound at a nearby copy shop — the first "Knights of Right" books weren't nearly so pretty.
Melissa Rowley wrote the stories in 2007 as a Christmas present for her 8-year-old cousin. He loved knights and swords. She wanted to give him something meaningful to read that might influence him to "stay out of trouble" in the future.
"I never dreamed we'd publish them for real," Melissa Rowley said.
Tate Pace wasn't much of a reader.
"He was still at that age where you're learning and getting better at it," said his mother, Kim Pace. "It took a good book to get his attention."
Tate Pace couldn't get enough of "The Falcon Shield."
"I thought it was really entertaining," said the now-10-year-old. "It had a bit of adventure, a bit of action and it taught a lesson."
The little boy insisted on doing his third grade book report — a mobile of drawings tied to a twig — on his cousin's book. He begged Melissa Rowley to write him another installment.
"This is every bit as good as the other books Tate is reading," his mother told Deborah Rowley. "Maybe you should get this printed."
Deborah Rowley did.
She typed up a letter and sent the manuscript to an editor she'd been working with on one of her own projects. The stay-at-home mother has published several books, including "White Shirts," "White Dresses" and "Family Home Evening for Newlyweds," with Shadow Mountain Publishing's parent company, Deseret Book.
The editor read the girl's book, loved the book and called Deborah Rowley in for a conference.
"Let's do this," he said. But he thought Deborah Rowley wrote "The Falcon Shield." He couldn't believe a 15-year-old girl had put it together.
"I didn't even get invited to the meeting," said Melissa Rowley. "I felt a little left out."
These days, though, the teenager is pretty involved.
The publisher wants to print two new books every six months. Melissa Rowley, who's never before written fiction on a schedule, is busy typing manuscripts, trashing manuscripts and typing them again.
"I'm a little worried because it looks like this project's going to be extending into college," she said. "I imagine I'll have a little more going on then. I don't know if I'll be able to handle it."
e-mail: estuart@desnews.com