Hey Reader,

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When I wrote The Fatherhood Mandate, I thought it would be a one-and-done. A standalone story. One man. One law. One impossible decision.

But after it was published, readers kept asking about Rylee. They wanted to understand her. They wanted to know what kind of woman leaves her child behind to pursue her degree. What kind of system allows that. What kind of world requires it.

So I wrote The Motherhood Mandate. I thought that would be the end. Two books. Two points of view. One moment, split down the middle.

But that left Allison.

Would she grow up knowing the truth?

Would she ever realize she was a ward of the state—classified, tracked, legally bound before she was even born?

What would that kind of childhood create?

And what would that kind of future look like?

I watched the 2024 election unfold. I paid attention to the rhetoric, the court decisions, the quiet normalization of policies that once would have been unthinkable. I didn’t add flying cars or holograms. That’s not where we’re headed.

Instead, I found myself in a version of the near future that’s stripped down. Controlled. Familiar in all the worst ways.

That’s where A Ward of the State came from. Not a big concept. Not a market trend. Just a question I couldn’t shake: What kind of girl grows up in a world like this? And what happens when she starts asking the wrong questions?

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M.E. Wright

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