Lucas

Lucas follows on from the story of Whisper, focusing more fully on the orphan’s life before he came to be a middle-aged man rescuing Britney from her world of abuse. In this book, we discover just how Lucas found himself growing up and then taking in the stray waif.When the boy’s parents die unexpectedly from sickness, the family’s neighbours end up taking him in. Lucas likes the Copperley children, but is afraid of not being welcome in the household when he accidentally overhears their parents talking about him. Quickly, Lucas decides that village isn’t for him anymore and chooses to spend a life on the road, constantly drifting from town to town, searching eagerly for his place and somewhere he could belong.During this course of aimless wandering, the boy finally stumbles across Seth and Ruby Rodgers and begins working for the friendly, easy-going couple, eventually being adopted by them. Lucas enjoys running the carpentry business when he’s older, but wonders if there is anything else for him, and the sudden arrival of the mistreated, terrified little girl brings even more responsibility upon Lucas’ shoulders than he ever thought possible.Lucas loves the child deeply, but his strength of character is severely tested – will Britney ever learn to trust him? Or has the memory of her drunken father been ingrained so intensely within her heart that she will never welcome another man’s presence ever again?

Alison has been writing short stories to share with friends and family for many years and always enjoys exploring her creativity when putting pen to paper, so she is excited to have the opportunity to share her love of writing with others. Alison grew up around dogs, first Mila and then Smoky, who each went on many wonderful adventures and lived to a good old age, and she especially loves including 'man's best friend' or some other favorite animal throughout most of her stories.

Alison has been playing trombone since about 2010, euphonium from mid-2019, and always likes getting together with a few friends to ‘make a joyful noise’ sharing music. Alison also enjoys a bit of freelance photography when she gets the chance, especially if it involves taking pictures of sunsets.

Both The Bronson Escapades and The Wolf Cub are Silver Recipients of the Mom’s Choice Awards® honorary seal of excellence, with the latter being a 2nd place winner of the Royal Dragonfly Book Award Competition of 2024 in both the ‘Education’ and ‘Coffee Table & Gift Books’ categories, in addition to obtaining an Honorable Mention in several others: Best Cover Design, Children’s Chapter Books, Middle Grade Fiction, and Animals/Pets. More recently, The Wolf Cub also received a Bronze Medal in the 'EBook Pre-Teen Fiction' category in the 2025 Moonbeam Book Awards competition. Her 2024 trilogy titled Whisper, Lucas, and Escape have also been presented with the NAPPA Award winning seal.

Customer Reviews

5.0

9 reviews

Holly Smith: Reader Views

Alison Bellringer’s trilogy continues with Lucas… delving deeper into the world of its predecessor… This time though, the story focuses on the character Lucas… a runaway seeking shelter. Along with him for the first leg of his journey is the dog of the family that took him in… He is then lucky enough to cross paths with the kindly Ruby and her ill husband, Seth, whose daughter just ran away… For readers of Whisper, nearly all of the characters will be familiar… However, this book introduces additional depth to the title character, filling out his backstory. It was also great to see another canine protector, Bandit, appear and I believe this will be a theme throughout the whole trilogy… Lucas is best read in conjunction with Whisper… Reading the entire trilogy will give readers the best perspective on everyone—including every dog—involved in this family tale… Bellringer has done a good job of fitting together this second piece of the family puzzle…