Toronto authors tell FLDS sister wives’ story in new book

A Toronto mother-and-daughter writing team will publish a book on Nov. 30 about two sisters who grew up in the Short Creek polygamous community on the Arizona-Utah border, according to a release from Sasha Stoltz Publicity.

Press release. The following was issued by Sasha Stoltz Publicity and is published as received. Canada News Media did not write or edit it.

The Real Lives of Short Creek Wives
By Zehra and Kinza Mahoon
“Is freedom really freedom?”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Toronto, On. “The Real Lives of Short Creek Wives” is Canadian mother/daughter writing team Zehra and Kinza Mahoon’s first book, due out November 30th, 2026, on Amazon. “The Real Lives of Short Creek Wives” is the true story of Marona and Shandra Johnson, real life sisters who became sister wives (child marriage was banned in 2008 amongst FLDS) of Samuel Bateman, the self-proclaimed successor to FLDS prophet Warren Jeffs (who is serving prison time). Bateman practiced polygamy with twenty-four women and girls, ten of them underage. His crimes made national headlines and ultimately lead to a fifty-year federal prison sentence. Samuel was ostracized by the FLDS community because he broke the rule established by current FLDS leader Warren Jeffs (who is in prison) that there would be no marriages at all in the community, but the headlines tell only one part of the story.

Authors Zehra and Kinza Mahoon collaborated with the sisters to bring readers the true story and the lasting effects of the aftermath. The sisters grew up in Short Creek, on the Arizona and Utah border in an isolated fundamentalist Mormon community notoriously closed off to the outside world. Laws of their religion took precedence over “law of the land.” Polygamy and child marriage were acceptable. The girls loved deeply, believed sincerely, prayed and obeyed, and built lives inside a world that could feel both loving and dangerously controlling. Federal agents raided the family home on Sep 14, 2022, changing their lives. Family was scattered across foster care, courtrooms, prisons, probation restrictions and unfamiliar cities. The question left… were they really free? Zehra and Kinza Mahoon’s intimate access takes you on a terrifying and emotionally charged journey that will challenge your definition of freedom. “The Real Lives of Short Creek Wives” pulls back the curtain on assumptions and where the truth lies.

Zehra and Kinza Mahoon tell the story through the eyes of Marona and Shandra who lived, believed, and loved during, and after the marriages that tore their lives apart. The Story goes beyond the men that wielded power, outsiders who were appalled by them and the law that brought them to justice. “The Real Lives of Short Creek Wives” lets you, the reader decides. The sisters learned to navigate the world and put their family back together. But the beliefs that once held their world together begin to break and with that came a terrifying and dangerous question, what if the people who taught you right from wrong misled you? “The Real Lives of Short Creek Wives” begin inside the lives of two women who deeply believed their childhood was not a continuous nightmare. They were not waiting for someone to save them. Bateman could be attentive, charismatic, spiritual, and reassuring. The boundaries between faith, marriage, family loyalty, and obedience began to disappear. They learned sacrifice could be holy, that obedience brought protection, and that a righteous woman placed the needs of family and faith ahead of herself. That obvious contradiction sits at the heart of “The Real Lives of Short Creek Wives.” Authors Zehra and Kinza Mahoon ask readers to inhabit the contradiction rather than erase it. The sisters’ experience of government intervention was deeply traumatic, even though the intervention disrupted serious harm. That tension is not resolved neatly in the book; both realities are allowed to exist. What follows is not simply a story of escape. It is the story of what happens when the structure that explained your entire life disappears before you have built anything to replace it? Can you trust yourself enough to decide what comes next? Passionately written, “The Real Lives of Short Creek Wives” unfolds a story that will resonate, particularly with women who have allowed families, relationships, traditions, expectations, or other people to define what their lives should look like…The journey belongs to you.

“The circumstances that shaped your past do not have to determine your future. Rather than allowing others to decide who you are, find your own voice and tell your own story.”
Zehra and Kinza Mahoon, Authors

Joint bio on the Authors:

Zehra and Kinza Mahoon are a mother-daughter writing team whose different backgrounds in coaching, non-fiction, linguistics, and storytelling come together in “The Real Lives of Short Creek Wives.”

Zehra Mahoon is an author, TEDx speaker, and transformational coach with twenty-six non-fiction books in print. Through her coaching practice, she has spent years helping women move beyond painful experiences, challenge the beliefs that keep them stuck, and build lives with greater confidence and possibility. For more than two and a half years, Zehra has worked closely with Marona and Shandra Johnson, spending over 200 hours in coaching sessions and conversations with the sisters. That relationship gave her an unusually intimate understanding not only of the events that shaped their lives, but of the beliefs, relationships, contradictions, and emotional realities behind them.

Kinza Mahoon holds a master’s degree in linguistics and is a TEDx speaker and experienced fiction writer who has published under multiple pen names for the past five years. Her background in language and fiction brings the narrative craft to the collaboration: transforming hundreds of hours of interviews, memories, transcripts, and research into an immersive story while preserving the perspectives of the women who lived it.

Connect With Zehra & Kinza Mahoon:
instagram.com/shortcreekwives
facebook.com/zehra.mahoon
linkedin.com/in/zehra-mahoon

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Media Contact: For review copies, interview requests, or media inquiries, please contact: Sasha Stoltz Publicity, [email protected], 416-579-4804

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