Youngstown attorney releasing second fantasy adventure book for young readers
A Canfield attorney and author is getting ready to celebrate the release of her second fantasy adventure book published by Simon and Schuster.
Joan Reardon has always known she wanted to be a lawyer, growing up to work alongside her dad as an associate at Roetzel & Andress in Canfield.
“From the time I was 14, I was pursuing a legal career,” she said. “I had always enjoyed writing as a hobby, but it wasn’t until COVID-19 hit in 2020 and my college shut down that I had the time to actually sit down and write a book - so I tried it.”
While pursuing degrees at The Ohio State University and later at Western Reserve University School of Law, Reardon began writing.
“My first book, The Grimsbane Family Witch Hunters, is about a girl’s quest to rescue her cursed brother from a haunted forest, was released on August 20 in 2024,” Reardon said. “I fell into the middle-grade genre, and it took me about three months to write the book.”
Reardon’s second book is about a father and his kids trying to rescue their dad’s pet dragon from magical poachers.
“My second book is a fun summer read, something that parents can do with their kids before bed,” she said.
Dad Rock Dragon Quest is coming out on June 3, and Reardon said she began writing it during her last year of law school.
“I finished it right before I took the bar exam,” Reardon said. “I sort of fell into the writing career by accident, just by nature of COVID-19 and trying to fill my time.”
One of Reardon’s favorite parts of being an author is connecting with her readers who live in the Mahoning Valley and want to be authors themselves.
“Young readers have the most inquisitive questions and are always so involved and so excited,” she said. “It’s really fun, especially for kids in our area to see someone that grew up down the street from them and lives down the street from them publishing books with publishing houses in New York.”
She said she wants her readers to know their stories are being listened to and they matter.
“They can achieve those sort of dreams from here in Youngstown,” she said.
After writing her first book, Reardon worked with literary agent Larissa Melo Pienkowski at Azantian Literary to get her book published.
“Then we sent it out to publishers, which is when I signed with Simon and Schuster,” she said.
