The psychological drama is told from the perspective of Colleen King, a street-smart and brutally honest girl who recently quit her job and instead found work with a genius billionaire, Cinder Slade.

While working with Slade, King discovers that her employer has a secret — Slade has paranoid schizophrenia, something he’s kept under wraps due to his fear of how society would react.

“The two of them start to become friends and she sees his environment,” Stemler said. “She tries to protect him from other people and what they’d have to say.”

She started writing the novel during the beginning of her sophomore year at MSU, balancing writing with work and her business management classes. After various revisions, Stemler, who graduated in 2013 with a degree in business management and entrepreneurship, completed her final draft during her senior year.

Stemler’s final draft ended up straying from her original vision of the story. When she first started scribbling notes for the story at lunch and between and during classes, she thought she was writing a murder mystery.

Her dream was where she first saw the female protagonist who would come to be known as King and her cryptic employer, Slade.

It was her vision of Slade’s house that really gave the story its start. She said that, when she first saw the house, it gave her the impression that Slade would be a murderer. However, the idea didn’t stick no matter how much she toyed with it.

“I just thought he probably wasn’t a killer,” she said. “The story formed all on its own — I get ideas for characters, but they tell the story.”

Her story’s new direction helped link her to a cause. Stemler said the story’s focus on mental illness helped give her a sense of what the struggles are for those with mental disorders even outside of schizophrenia.

Her empathy inspired her to donate any funds she received from “The King of the Sun” to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. According to the website, the organization works to fund research, services, treatment and support for those with mental illnesses.

She also wrote another book, entitled “That Freak Kid,” while she was still in high school, and is currently working on a sequel to “The King of the Sun.”

“It gives me a chance to use something I’m good at to help other people,” she said. “It’s something I’m really proud of.”