Jerri Chisholm Books In Order

Publication Order of Eleven Trilogy Books

Publication Order of Pretty Little Robots Books

Jerri Chisholm is a distance runner, chocolate addict, and young adult author that is best known for her debut novel “Escaping Eleven.” She spent much of her childhood in solitude with only a pet parrot and imagination for company. Soon after graduating with a bachelor from college, she went back and got a public policy master’s degree and then went to law school to become an attorney. But Chisholm would leave legal work not long after as she wanted to focus exclusively on writing, which was something she had always wanted to do. She published her debut novel “Escaping Eleven” in 2020. She currently lives with her husband and children but has gotten rid of the parrot.

Jerri was inspired to write her debut novel “Escaping Eleven” from her experiences living with a family a few years before then. She had stayed on a lakeside house where she had firsthand experience of the breeze from the picturesque lake, the damp air, and the basement which are in the novel. During that time, she lived in a basement guest room that was cool, damp, and dark and started thinking what someplace further underground with no access to the beautiful lake and no windows would be like. Eve Hamilton the lead protagonist came fully formed into her mind as she had already come up with the trauma she had endured and this informed the drive for achievement and freedom. Chisholm also has a distinctive voice which she just incorporated into the character. Eve is a no-nonsense go-getter that is strong in mind and body though she can also be soft and kind when she needs to be. Growing up, she was a huge reader of fiction and asserted that some of the authors that have been an inspiration were Philip Pullman, JK Rowling, and Roald Dahl. These were the authors she found so inspiring and impactful as they offered an excellent escape from her then reality. Jerri thus writes her novels to provide the type of escape that was given to her.

Jerri Chisholm’s “Escaping Eleven” is set at a time when the land is too barren, the sun too hot and the land uninhabited and what is left of humanity is now organized into compounds. Only the very cruel can survive in Compound Eleven, where hierarchy is everything, violence a way of life and fighting is a form of entertainment. The fifth floor is inhabited by the Primes and they have the most comfortable life. For the Grounders and Means on the lower floors life is very difficult. Else Hamilton is a sixteen-year-old that was born to survive in the hell hole even though she lived for much of her life on the second floor. But she has ambitions greater than survival as she wants to go live above ground where she can taste real freedom and feel the cold breeze on her skin. But the government controls entry into and out of their world and not just anybody can be allowed above ground. Wren Edelman is a Prime that hates the underground as much as Else even if he has a more privileged status. But even though she is so determined to attain freedom, Edelman wants to ensure she stays by him even though the romance between the lower and upper floors is usually all but impossible.