Troll Steps is the story of one person’s quest for self-identity; indeed, the story of all who have ever found themselves to be fundamentally different and imprisoned by false ideas of themselves and the world in which they live. This is a story of intertwined lives and fates and destinies and of the many different hands through which the precious gift of one’s self passes. Told through the eyes of the leading character and those who both touched him and were touched by him, the inner journey to wholeness and freedom mirrors the awakening of an entire world; a world trying to remember what it once was and what it may also, somehow, be again.

Denver NeVaar grew up in a small farming community in Wisconsin and has been writing creatively since before his tenth birthday. Obviously creative and artistically gifted since even before his first year of formal schooling, his life experience has been a thorough teacher in what it is to be an anomaly and to face the challenges of making one’s own uniqueness into something very good. Troll Steps began while he was in college and finished five years later while he and his life-partner were living high in the mountains of Colorado. By being a minister with a passion for spirituality, personal growth, and deep understanding of life itself, he brings to the craft of literature a quality that can reach to the depths of the human soul. Through the process of his own self-discovery, Denver learned what it is to look into the mirror and see nothing and to look again and see a more beautiful person than anyone thought was there. The experience of such a process of personal growth is most definitely at the heart of the journey of Troll Steps--a journey that will continue for ages to come.

Fully in the beam of the morning sun stood a door, five times my height and equally wide. The painted windowpanes were bound in grey lead as smooth as a lady's hand-mirror. Such artistry seemed strange, or at least a jarring contrast to the rough, grey walls of the surrounding fortress.

I took hold of the door. It was hard to get a footing in the sandy soil. The oaken door began to budge, and with a tired creak of its ancient hinges, I stumbled past into a dimly lit passageway. My long gnarled fingers steadied me against damp, coarsely hewn walls while I strained my eyes at faint shadows just ahead. My oversized feet carried me deeper into the recesses of the fortress, tripping over cracks and crevices in the jagged limestone floor. Cool odors drifted into my nostrils and my ears wearied themselves to hear some small whisper of life. It was like walking through the previously undisturbed tomb of some ancient, forgotten ruler.

There! Faint strains of a lyre and someone singing. The labyrinth twisted to the left. Then I was falling, tumbling down, landing hard. I looked up at faces barely visible in the dim candlelight. I'd found the great wizard-king at last. From somewhere in the darkness came the question, "Who are You?" It echoed in my ears, as I groped within myself for a response.