I’m having so much fun writing the third book (am in Chapter 10). If you have half the fun when you read it, you’ll find it very enjoyable. While I’m not introducing any new characters (other than monsters), Calen is going to meet his worst nemeses yet. He’s going to be in peril for most of this book.

Here’s a tantalizing tidbit:

I hear crackling noises, so I open one eye and look around. Fortunately, my metal face mask is up. I’m in a room with a low ceiling from which small white things, tied with string, hang. My vision is still blurry, so I can’t tell what they are. The room smells acrid, like old garbage or well-worn tennis shoes.

Where am I? I ask the Creator. And how’d I get here?

You’re in the home of the worst kind of evil, he responds. Be very careful. She used magic to transport you here.

I try to remember what happened. Then I recognize the back of the lovely girl I saw in the Stagthorn, and the memories come flooding back. She zapped me with my own conjured lightning.

She whistles a lively tune as she stands in front of a roaring fire surrounded by a river-rock hearth, while she stirs something in a small cauldron. A much larger cauldron sits on the floor next to the fire.

I’m lying flat on my back on some kind of cot, close to one of the walls. My hands are bound behind my back. She didn’t search me, however, while I was unconscious because I still feel the purple pouch of royal fairy dust pressing against my skin.

I tilt my chin down, which causes a thumping headache, to find that my sword sheaths are empty, and I see why I can’t move my feet. They’re tied together. I twitch the muscles in my arms and legs a little to see if they still function, and they do. Nothing else seems to hurt. I rub my fingers over the bindings behind my back and feel rough rope.

Crisa suggested I hide a small knife under my wrist armor, in case my swords were taken from me. If I can just reach that knife, I can start sawing through my restraints. I don’t wear gauntlets, so I squiggle my fingers around, trying to get under my vambrace. My fingertip rubs across the end of the knife’s handle as it rests in a small sheath. I latch onto it with my thumb and forefinger and start to inch it out from under the armor.

The lovely girl sets down her ladle, turns, and says with a broad smile, “Ah, Calen, so nice you could join me. I have plans for you.”

My heart pounds as I say with as much courage as I can muster, “I’m afraid I won’t be staying long.”

She chuckles. “Always the optimist. When will you learn that evil is so much stronger? You really need to get on the winning side of this war.”

I grin. “I already am.” My comment makes her cackle, like an old crone, which contradicts her appearance.

Just to let all of you know that I”m running a sale on the digital copy of Book 1 (Fairy Wars: The Dark Ones) on December 27th on Amazon. It will be reduced to $2.99 for one day only.  If you have friends or family who received Amazon gift cards for Christmas, let them know.  Hope you have the best of holiday seasons!

I will have Books 1 and 2  of Fairy Wars available on Wednesday, November 30th from 2-4 p.m. at Awakenings, the coffee shop on Overland and Five Mile (was Moxie Java). They make great stocking stuffers. I will be doing this signing along with two other Idaho authors.  I’d love to see you there!

Hi, everyone,

I’ve been working diligently on Book Three, when I’m not playing with the poodle, reading, doing housework and yardwork, signing books, and doing readings. Ha!

Seriously, I’ve been working on the first few pages of Chapter1, and thought I’d share them with you.  At the end of Book 2, Calen has not yet decided whether to take on the quest charged to him by the fairy king, Aubrey. In Book 3, we start with him rappelling down the mountain from the fairy village, as he’s determined to complete the quest.  Here’s the excerpt (understand this may change slightly as it’s a draft and my wonderful editor hasn’t seen it yet):

Fairy Wars: The Final Battle (Book 3)

Chapter 1 – The Quest

The rope slips a little in my gloved hands, and I choke off a cry.

I swallow hard and continue my rappel down the smooth side of Mount Halston, as the fairies call it. My fairy-augmented hearing detects the rope’s brush against the stone, the creak of my armor, which is easier to wear than carry, and the squeak of my sticky-soled shoes against the rock wall. My thumping heart and sweat-dappled forehead confirm how much I hate heights.

Because of my phobia, I don’t look down.

I don’t look up either, as, somewhere above me, rock slides across rock. Loud scraping sounds reverberate above and around me. My eyes remain glued to the rock’s bumpy face at nose level, even when the stone doors to the beautiful fairy village of Craghollow slam shut over my head, which causes the rope I desperately dangle from to vibrate.

My heart thumps harder.

I will the rope to slide through my gloves, little by little, and take deep breaths to slow my heart. I lean back and continue my climb downward, knowing that solid ground welcomes me below. What that ground holds, however, seems scarier than this rappel.

What nightmarish monsters and unknown trials lie in wait for me on this quest I’ve begun?

For those of you who haven’t met me, I’m Calen, with a long “a,” Bartholomew Ambrose, son of Mortimer. I was an ordinary clock repairman and avid fisherman, until I accidentally stepped on a royal fairy, Prince Enlil, the king’s son. His royal touch gave me “special sight” to view the world called Fairyland, hidden from you, and full of strange creatures and incredible magic powers.

At the prince’s touch, my senses were heightened, and my healing ability increased exponentially, along with my longevity, to where I’m nearly impossible to kill. With the Creator’s help, I can also control the weather. Now I’m Fairyland’s human champion, which means I must fight to save the creatures of light from the dark ones in this realm.

For the last two weeks, I’ve lived inside this mountain I’m hanging from, wherein lies Craghollow, a serene and ethereal place, full of warm, hospitable fairies. Craghollow is cut off from the outside world, practically inaccessible, its location a well-kept secret because the supreme fairy monarch, King Aubrey, lives there.

So, for a time, I’ve been able to stuff my role as human champion into my back pocket and remove myself from the horrible war that threatens us all, even my fellow humans. I’ve learned in my time here that, throughout history, whatever happens in Fairyland directly determines the course of human events.

The king has requested I embark on this dangerous journey in order to end this awful war that has ebbed and flowed for centuries. But even the king doesn’t know my final destination, although he says he’s pointed me in the right direction. He tells me the Creator and my swords will do the rest.

After conferring with Crisa, I’ve agreed to this quest because the Creator showed the king a horrible vision. The dark side of Fairyland is plotting to totally annihilate the light side. And, for the first time in history, as the Creator prophesied to King Aubrey, they will succeed, if I can’t stop them.

I believe the dark ones hope to accomplish this destruction by building a bogle army. Bogles are evil, ghostlike creatures, formed when a fairy or an evil goblin, who was once a fairy, commits a heinous act against an innocent, like a child. Goblins have already attacked a couple of gnome and pixie villages and murdered little ones in their beds, turning those goblins into bogles.

Given goblins’ cravings for power, we fear that they will continue such atrocities, until the evil sorcerer Galdo reaches the size army he wants. Even though Galdo’s magic was neutralized by Crisa, he still seems to be the dark side’s leader, although there are rumors of another, more powerful sorcerer emerging in his place.

The creatures who escaped Galdo’s prison with me, including mermen, oreads, tomtes, and a giant, have decided to gather their comrades to seek out and destroy any and all goblins to prevent further infanticide, that is, except for those who wear white armbands to signal their alliance with us.

The really scary part is that, once a bogle is formed, it can’t be killed by anything, except a werewolf. So, even with all the battle training I’ve provided, the light creatures don’t stand a chance against such an army, which is why I too believe the dark ones will slaughter the light ones, unless I can complete this quest.

King Aubrey explained to me that the first fairy king, centuries ago, established a sort of “insurance policy” against the dark side ever attaining absolute power. That first king hid four balance stones, two black and two white, somewhere in the realm, stones that would fit neatly into the human champion’s swords. Manufactured by ground gnomes, my swords Noblesse and Nobliege, have repositories on their hilts for those stones. It’s unclear whether the gnomes understand why, throughout history, they’ve made the champion’s swords with these depressions in them.

When properly placed, the balance stones will somehow neutralize the dark side, at least that’s what the king believes. I have my doubts. As I’ve learned in my months in Fairyland, things are not always what they seem.

Why am I skeptical, you might ask? First of all, in the history of Fairyland, no one has ever attempted to find these balance stones. Who knows if they even exist after hundreds of years?

And if they do exist and I can find them, no one’s yet proven how or if they will truly usher in peace and goodness permanently in Fairyland, as the king proposes. Is the magic in them still active after all this time? Perhaps, as pretty stones, they’ll simply decorate my swords.

And, according to the king, I have to strike out on my own. No Crisa, no Rampart, aka my werewolf companion, and no Grog, my bugbear bodyguard. Anyone else, besides the human champion, who attempts this journey, will be killed by deadly traps along the way that will test my mettle before I ever reach the stones.

And, if the traps don’t incapacitate me or at least slow me down for a while, the king tells me that the dark side of this war, which has spies everywhere, will hear of my attempt to find the stones. Then they will probably send whole squads of assassins after me.

Because of the fairy’s touch, I can’t die, except by a silver weapon piercing my heart. That doesn’t lessen my dread, and, I have to admit, fear at what lies ahead. Not just a fear of the unknown, but a fear of my own inability to complete this quest. Not only is my destination unsure, but my own human frailties stand in my way.  I fear spiders, heights, dark places, and evil spirits. Some champion, huh?

Do I have what it takes to overcome whatever dangers and tests come my way?

I’ve asked the Creator for his input in this matter, and his only reply is, “I’m with you.”  That has given me reassurance and purpose because he has more power than Crisa, Zamir, Natas, and Galdo put together.

While the sun has started to warm my back, the sleepy morning hasn’t yet kicked up a wind against my body. I’m grateful that the rope is steady.

After what seems like hours, but is probably less than an hour, the rock in front of me becomes jagged and harsher, and I scramble down and over a pile of scree, still holding the rope, although I probably only have another fifteen feet or so of rope left.

I breathe a sigh of relief when my right foot touches something solid and stable.

Yeah, I’ve made it without gryphons or dragons attacking me. Maybe the dark side doesn’t yet know that I’ve left the mountain.

I look down to see that I’m standing on a layer of shale. I turn to see the moraine behind me stretching out for miles. Since I’m above the tree line, I’ll have to descend before I can be again covered by the comfortable coolness of the forest. I feel vulnerable out here in the open but glad I don’t have to rappel anymore.

I let go of the end of the rope, shift the weight of my backpack on my shoulders, and thread my way over the loose rock, my armor clanging, the gentle slap of my swords against my sides since I’ve crisscrossed them over my shoulders, out of my way for now. In my pack, I have clothes, sleeping and climbing gear, and food for at least a week. In the two weeks I lived at Craghollow, Crisa, my mentor and sorceress extraordinaire, was able to help me decide what I should take and what I could leave behind and give me a crash course in rock climbing.  I’m not close to her level of expertise, but I can get up or down a mountain if I need to. While she has magic at her disposal whenever she needs it, sometimes she has to behave just like a human to preserve her magical strength and reserve it for fighting evil.

I hear the flutter of wings and look up but don’t see anything except nearly a nearly clear blue sky. What’s following me?

Just to let you know that the second book is up and available digitally and in print on Amazon. I will be doing a book signing on October 8th at the Boise Public Library all day, where I will have the books available for sale (1st and 2nd). Also will be doing book signings at Awakenings on Overland and Five Mile on November 17 and December 15 (both Thursdays) from 2-4 p.m. I’m negotiating with the Meridian Library for a book signing date, and it will be sometime near the end of October or early November.

I’m excited about this new book. When I got my editor’s comments back, I discovered that the middle of the book needed a major overhaul. I beefed up the danger Calen is in, and also made him more dynamic. I really like the plot twists in this book, and I developed the characters a little more. You have new participants too, in Calen’s escape, and we get to know some mermen, oreads, tomtes, a frost giant and a big black dragon named Maldina. Calen will rescue dragon babies (a wild and dangerous prospect), and Galdo is finally killed off (or is he?).  And then there’s the fairy village of Craghollow where the fairy king Aubrey lives. Torture, more dark dangers, and a strange man named Leo are all a part of this story. Hope you enjoy this! If you read it and like it, I’d love for you to write me a favorable review on Amazon. You will have my eternal gratitude.

Fairy Wars: Spies Among Us was sent last week to the editor. I anticipate a launch for it of July 1st. I plan on doing a couple of book signings this summer in the Idaho area in conjunction with its release. Check this website for updates about those signings. In the meantime, here’s a teaser from the preface.

Preface—Brutus’s (the Wolf’s) Story

Since our human champion Calen has been captured and imprisoned by the evil sorcerer Galdo, I’ll have to be the one to tell you of the events that transpired before and during our hero’s incarceration.

It wasn’t by chance that Zamir, my supposed former owner, and I were standing on a street corner that day in the village of Lambert when Calen came shopping for a dog. By word of King Aubrey, head of the fairies, who is Prince Enlil’s father and Zamir’s employer, the Creator commissioned me to become Calen’s protector. There I sat, looking all cute, tail wagging. I was sure to lick Calen’s cheek with my wet tongue to seal the deal. I can be very persuasive when I want to.

You see, Zamir is actually a powerful magician, not as powerful as the sorceress Crisa, who can shapeshift into animals and communicate telepathically with the animal kingdom, but mighty nonetheless, although he made himself appear old and feeble that day. He’s the one who made me look like a German Shepherd puppy, although that’s not my true form.

Calen may have thought himself lucky to find a puppy for protection against the dark ones, right when he needed one. If you know the Creator though, you know there are no coincidences, only carefully laid plans.

As you may have guessed, I’m not just a doggone beautiful dog. I told Crisa my secret when she first read my mind. Her response? “Your secret’s safe with me.”
Okay, so are you ready to hear my secret? Drum roll, please. Da, da, da, dat, da. I’m a lycanthrope or werewolf. That’s right, a hybrid that is both human and animal.

Unlike the rest of Fairyland, my race is visible to humans, even without the aid of the Omniweed (a magical plant that allows visual entrance into Fairyland for brief periods), and many tales are told in your non-lupine world of werewolves. Those tales are exaggerated. Silver is not lethal to us; a regular old bullet will kill us, just like you. We don’t change with the full moon into brutish, uncontrollable beasts, but instead transform from wolves to humans and back again with just a bit of concentration. We’re as gentle as they come to anyone with a kind heart, although be assured, I will use the full extent of my teeth and claws to kill anyone who tries to harm Calen.

While I appeared to Calen as a German Shepherd puppy, thanks to Zamir, Crisa later changed me into a wolf to protect Calen’s new identity as a centaur to keep him safe, since the dark ones had seen me with Calen. Ironic that, as a canid, I’m normally a wolf, so she pretended to wave her wand to transition me, but actually she just removed Zamir’s spell.
Without Calen’s knowledge, I’ve protected him all along, as I’m able to “sniff” out darkness in all its forms. Unfortunately, I haven’t always been able to fulfill my duties, like when Calen ordered me out of the house as the basilisk attacked, which the Creator told me Calen needed to battle by himself, and when Calen told me to “stay” outside after Crisa’s cottage was ransacked. Being the “good dog” I am when in wolf form, I do have to obey my master, which Calen has become because of the Creator’s commission.

I learned to wriggle out of my leashed collar early on and followed Calen several times in the first book of his Fairyland adventures. I shadowed him in hooded human form into Lambert where he purchased training supplies and later escaped my leash to be by his side when Galdo, that most evil and powerful sorcerer, appeared in Equis, the centaur village, with his dragons. Unknown to Calen, I’ve also protected him several times from rogue bogle attacks in his training journeys across the kingdom.

A bogle is an extremely dark creature, formed when a fairy, who is a light creature, allows the dark side of him to commit a heinous act, like killing an innocent. That fairy then becomes a larger, evil shadow of its former self. A bogle has a formidable skill set – no corporeal form, a scythe that can cut through bone, and the speed of a cheetah. To keep bogles from taking over the world, the Creator gave us, werewolves and even other wolves, the power to kill these wraiths, and we’re the only animals and numinals, or magical beings, that can. The Creator also made our barks sound like high-pitched squeals to bogle ears, which causes them intense pain. I’d love to sink my teeth into one of those darklings, but I’d have to be fast.

Okay, so now you’re thinking, if I’m such a good bodyguard who has the power to kill bogles, why didn’t I protect Calen from capture?

The day of his capture I traveled with him to Equis, the centaur village, returned with him to Crisa’s cottage and then was commanded to remain outside her gaping front door while he went in to investigate. Being the good “dog” I am, at least from Calen’s perspective, I obeyed. I thought the dark ones were long gone, as I didn’t smell them nearby, although there was a faint, lingering odor of darkness.
Calen was absent for about 10 minutes when I decided to follow him, cutting my pads on some broken glass. I discovered an escape tunnel in Crisa’s basement and followed it into her back yard, but Calen was nowhere to be found. There the recent scent of dark creatures was strong.

So I guess I’m not the hot protector the Creator thought I would be. The Creator tells me He has a purpose for Calen’s imprisonment, which makes me feel a little better, but I still feel like I’ve failed both the Creator and Calen. I must make up for my blunder and find Calen ASAP.

I am on Chapter 5 of the new book.  Sorry it’s taken me so long to add a blog to my site, but we moved in May, then had a bunch of work done on our new (to us) house, and got two new puppies, one in August that died from complications after spaying and another that arrived from New Mexico in October.   I’ve been sleep-deprived for months now, but I’m learning to take naps when the puppy takes naps.

I just had a successful book signing at the Vineyard Christmas Bazaar last weekend, and I hope all of you in new possession of my first book are enjoying the story.

To catch you up where Book 2 starts, Calen is in prison with what looks like little chance of escape (spoiler alert — he does escape. What a boring book this would be if he didn’t :)). The first chapter is narrated by a “non-human” character that you met in the first book, who you’ll be surprised to learn is not what you thought he was.  My plan is to have the second book full of twists and turns to where you don’t know who is on which side of the age-old Fairyland war.  Dark will be come light, and light, dark.

We’ll see Jade growing up; Crisa shapeshifting, and you’ll be meet a few new characters along the way from the same tribes you met in in Book 1, like mermen, tomtes, and oreads.  Galdo will continue his reign of terror, and he’ll succeed in becoming even more powerful through his evil science experiments.

There’ll be battles, narrow escapes, and a strengthening of the fairy and other light ones’ armies.  Book 3: Fairy Wars – The Final Battle will determine the fate of Fairyland, and just a clue, some characters won’t make it to the end of Book 3.  Stay tuned.

I just finished a short story for the fiction contest I entered. It’s entitled “War of the Weeds.” If it doesn’t win, I still really like the story, and I’ll post here under my writing samples some time after the winner is announced in July (must be a previously unpublished story). I don’t know whether or not they’d consider posting it to my website as published, but I don’t want to take any chances. Wish me luck!

P.S. Although I didn’t win, I did come in as a finalist and received a very nice, customized letter from the editor.

While I have about 10 pages written for Fairy Wars novel #2 right now, I’ve stopped working on it to focus on entering a short story writing contest. I’m hoping to meet the deadline of early March and get back to the book at that time.

Had a dream last night about Calen. Galdo was experimenting on him, and he was losing his powers. You know a character’s gotten under your skin when you start dreaming about him.