by Andrew Alonzo | aalonzo@claremont-courier.com

El Roble Intermediate School eighth grader Abigail Haughton had plenty of peer support Wednesday at a signing event for her sophomore novel, “Treacherous Waters: The Rouge Voyage — April 13-16, 1912.”

“We were so excited for her because she’s so young and people don’t expect the author to come out and be like ‘Hey, I wrote a book and I published a book,’” said Carol Braden, who was on hand with her daughter Abaeele, 12. “And to be my daughter’s age, it’s just inspiring to see such a young person just chasing the dream of writing.”

Abigail’s most recent work joins the 14-year-old’s debut, “Treacherous Waters: The Rouge Voyage — April 10-12, 1912.” Both were self-published through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing.

The new book continues the story of the Titanic tragedy from the viewpoint of 6-year-old passenger Joshua Grant and family friend James.

(L-R) El Roble Intermediate School Assistant Principal Heather Lyn, Principal Missy Samson, and eighth grader Abigail Haughton, 14, at Wednesday’s signing for Abigail’s latest book. Courier photo/Andrew Alonzo

“While being sore and drowsy, Joshua still had vivid dreams about the R.M.S. Titanic, the ship that they were on, sinking and James plotting an evil and dangerous plan against the family … He wouldn’t know how right he was until the last hour,” reads an excerpt at Amazon.com.

Abigail was eager to share her recent work with peers. “It’s pretty big,” she said. “I think the first one was like 88 pages. This one’s like 164.”

Her mother and agent Bobrea Haughton praised Abigail’s ability to balance school, writing, and typical kid activities.

“I’m just so proud of how she’s doing this and still keeping up with life,” Haughton said. “She does other things: she plays the violin; she’s in the orchestra at El Roble; she kept up on her schoolwork … I’m so blown away of how she kept up on doing these books and then still kept up on her schoolwork. She has at 4.0 GPA right now, so I’m so, so, so proud of that. She’s involved in church. She dances … It’s just amazing. I think it’s just the grace of God that kept this going, kept her going. And she sees that there is no laziness here. If you want something, you go for it.”

Abigail explained how she manages to stay focused.

“I basically just live life each day, one step at a time,” she said. “I put a little bit of time away for writing and then homework and video games and everything.”

Work on the new novel’s audiobook is nearly complete. When it’s done, it will join her first book at awesound.com.

As she prepares for her freshman year at Claremont High School, Abigail is at work on the third volume of her “Treacherous Waters” series. “It’s basically two years later” and will explore “a couple of mysteries around the ending of the second book.”

Copies of “Treacherous Waters: The Rouge Voyage — April 10-12, 1912” are available to check out at CUSD and LA County libraries.