John L. Stone

John L. Stone became a published author later in life, following a career that included counseling, training and development, collaborative proposal writing, fundraising, and nonprofit management and leadership. Much of his professional life involved working with people and organizations—helping them identify possibilities, make choices, and turn ideas into something tangible.

His books have taken him in very different directions. C.H.O.I.C.E.S. Model: Choosing Love Instead of Fear grew from research that began as part of his master's thesis. What started as an examination of stress led him to a more intriguing question: why do some people seem better able than others to live with circumstances they cannot control? His research pointed toward the importance of internal locus of control and ultimately to seven areas of life in which people retain meaningful personal agency. Those ideas became the foundation of CHOICES.

Fuller Sight takes some of life's largest questions into fiction. After sacrificing his life for someone he loves, Danny Anderson discovers that death may not be the end of his story—and that understanding one life may require seeing the lives that came before it. The novel explores love, sacrifice, identity, reincarnation, and the possibility that a life may look very different when seen from a larger perspective.

With Before Pride and Prejudice, John entered an entirely different literary world. His interest began with the Bennet family Jane Austen left us and a question Austen did not answer: What happened at Longbourn before Elizabeth Bennet ever met Mr. Darcy?

Rather than rewriting Austen's characters, John wanted to imagine how they might reasonably have become the people Austen created. Before Pride and Prejudice follows Mr. and Mrs. Bennet from courtship and marriage through the birth and upbringing of Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia, eventually arriving at the threshold of Austen's novel. It is an original work of fiction inspired by characters and elements of Pride and Prejudice that are in the public domain and is not affiliated with, authorized by, or endorsed by the estate of Jane Austen or any organization associated with Jane Austen.

Although his three books may appear very different, they share a continuing curiosity about people: the choices we make, the relationships we form, the experiences that change us, and how we become the people we ultimately are.

His Books