March, 2025 - The Word Guardians

March 30, 2025March 30, 2025

Who is the mysterious Penn? Self-centered? Misunderstood?

I’ve written about the lead protagonist in a previous blog, Who is Yas, so I wanted to turn the spotlight this week to one of my other favourite characters; the mysterious Penn. Who is he really?

The aloof Penn

We meet Penn in the bookshop in The Battle for the Peacekeepers. He’s well-dressed, wearing a long, tailored, overcoat along with gloves. He is a little theatrical and also brandishes a cane. His manner and aloofness set a particular tone. It leaves you thinking that he’s displaying all the early signs of a bad guy.

Later, we learn that he’s the head of a media empire, he’s come from money and clearly wants to keep it that way. We start to think he’s the privileged antagonist who will make decisions based on protecting his interests. That is true, but there’s much more to him than meets the eye.

Penn out for himself?

Skipping ahead into The Twisting Tales, the start of the story sees Penn as ‘not quite himself’. I can’t say more otherwise it would plot spoil. How he’s portrayed though does provide a clue as to his big background reveal in The Shadow Readers, when we understand him more. In The Twisting Tales though, we see an uneasy marriage of convenience between The Word Guardians, trying to get off the back foot, and Penn. Rightfully so, the Guardians are suspicious. What are Penn’s real motives?

Penn’s honour and values

In The Shadow Readers, Penn and Sam are thrown together early on in a time of need and it makes for an entertaining dynamic. The guardedness and banter between the two characters was something I enjoyed writing immensely and is one of my favourite threads in the book.

Later in the book, we learn that Penn is really a mixture of several archetypes but acting under a banner of honour, even if that banner is considered by some to be a little tarnished. He’s guarded, but even if his actions seem to be more ‘out for himself’, there’s a surprising set of values that he’s loyal to. There are only a few trusted others that he shows his true self to, and lucky or not, Sam happens to be one.

I can’t say more, or it would spoil the adventure of reading the series. To delve more into the journey of Penn, you’re going to have to read the first three books of the series. His story continues in The Lost Beginnings also and I have plans that bring in his background more into Book 5, The Story Thief.

Buy the The Battle for the Peacekeepers today to start the adventure!

The Word Guardians book series

March 15, 2025March 15, 2025

Book 4, The Lost Beginnings, is now available on Amazon

I’m excited to share that book 4, The Word Guardians and the Lost Beginnings is now available on Amazon.

It’s been a work in progress for the past year and I’m really happy with the result.

It’s another multi-layered story, set in the familiar (if you’ve read the other books in the series) setting of the magical realms.

Yas and Sam feature in this book, along with some other memorable characters from previous books. There are some new faces too.

I’d like to thank my wife, Angela, for helping me through the editing stages and Larch Gallagher for the wonderful cover design and cover revisions for the other books in the series.

A different take

I wanted the story to be a slightly different take on magic and realms. Whereas previous books have seen the characters move between a number of realms, book 4 is a tale of just two realms, the outer world (set in Vancouver, Canada) and an inner realm, ostensibly also the same city.

The inner realm is hidden though, the doorways are locked and only accessible to a few. There are reports of missing people in the outer world, and flashing lights that resemble portals. Yas and Sam become interested and do some investigation of their own.

If you could conjure anything you wanted, would you be happy?

Yas and Sam find a realm in which magic is an everyday commodity. You would think that in place where anyone can conjure anything they desire, life would be rosy. Yet, most don’t and everyone seems miserable. People seem trapped, having forgotten how they came to be there. Something or someone is at play behind the scenes.

New characters and relationships

This all sets the scene for new characters, a man that Yas and Sam find in the outer world who knows about the realm, the boy he’s kidnapping, a police officer, and more. In order to escape back to the outer world, Yas and Sam have to help the police officer discover her lost beginnings, uncover the identity of the mysterious Controller and foil whatever plot he or she has in mind.

Where to buy book 4

Book 4 is available to buy on Amazon using either of the buttons below. I hope you enjoy reading it.

Book 4, Lost Beginnings, on Amazon

The Word Guardians series on Amazon

March 3, 2025March 3, 2025

Delving deeper into the magic of the Word Guardians

The magic of the Word Guardians is word based and doesn’t need wands or specific incantations to wield. It made sense to be that way because, just as readers create worlds in their mind’s eye, the magic is imagination forming reality.

In worlds powered by magical ink, words are wielded as magic and the created objects have strands of the words visibly embedded.

But that’s not all the magic…

Delving deeper into the magic of the Word Guardians, all the stories have multiple layers. There’s additional storylines that play out which portray the development of the characters and their relationships and this is also key. I feel it is important to portray people who are believable and different.

For Yas, there’s her story of discovery of the realms, magic and the Word Guardians in The Battle for the Peacekeepers and that then leads onto questioning who is an ally and who is not. There’s the Controllers, (bad guys who my wife claims are misunderstood) who readers want to understand their motivations. Then in the mix also is the mysterious Penn whose motivations seem to be obvious initially but then leave the reader questioning (you’ll have to read through into The Shadow Readers to answer these).

Stronger together

I particularly enjoyed writing characters that seem to blend well together, like Raelinn and Wheeler. Both are struggling in life from previous circumstances but find that they can help each other to be stronger together.

The upcoming Book 4, The Lost Beginnings, is another example of how multiple story layers come together. I’ll leave this as a teaser for now, you’ll have to wait and see how this plays out for the lead characters there, Mira and Sunyal.

What is the magic of the Word Guardians for you?

Part of the joy for me in reading is finding those parts of characters that I relate to (or feel abhorred by) in some way. It’s a window of discovery into yourself and something that I find also helps me become invested in learning how the story ends for that person. So, I’d like to ask you ‘where’s the magic for you?’ Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments, and check out the series on Amazon using the link below.

The Word Guardians book series