Jeff Stone lives in the Midwest with his wife and two children and practices the martial arts daily. He has worked as a photographer, an editor, a maintenance man, a technical writer, a ballroom dance instructor, a concert promoter, and a marketing director for companies that design schools, libraries, and skateboard parks. Like the heroes of The Five Ancestors series, Mr. Stone was adopted as an infant. He began searching for his birthmother when he was eighteen and found her fifteen years later.