Category: Magic

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Excerpt from book 1 – Escape from Alexandria

I thought for this week blog I would share an excerpt from my first book The Battle for the Peacekeepers, Escape from Alexandria.

It’s just a small taster to whet your appetite.

Feel free to check out the other excerpts on this site too: When Yas discovers magic and A visit to Victorian London.

Escape from Ancient Alexandria

There was a ‘whoomph’ ahead of them and the doorway appeared. The creatures behind them had also spotted it.

“Sam,” urged Yas, looking behind her and seeing the creatures approaching. She threw another word ball, but this time the creatures just continued towards them, unimpeded.

Sam grabbed Yas and pulled her through the doorway just behind him. He made it through and landed on the carpet in the library but was jerked and pulled backwards. She stopped in mid-air, half in and half out of the portal. She screamed. One of the creatures had grabbed the back of her jacket in its mouth. The other, was trying to get its serpent head through the portal.

“Sam!” Yas screamed. She could see him moving about and trying to brace himself against the edges of the doorway, but her view kept switching between the two worlds.

“I’ve got you,” he shouted back. He grabbed her tightly, kicking the serpent head with one of his feet while pulling Yas as hard as he could. “Hold on!”

Yas kicked behind her, while also reaching her other hand for a better hold on Sam. She was able to push herself up on the sphinx’s head, and in return it lessened its grip. She felt the jacket rip.

“You little. . .!” she shouted angrily behind her, kicking furiously. She heard the creature whimper and then roar. Not wanting to see what it might do next; she looked forwards into the library.

“Sam!” she shouted again in alarm.

Sam continued to kick the other creature, while also defending them both against paw grabs from the first. It was tight for space, but he was able to pull Yas forwards a little at a time. If anything, her kicking against the creatures gave her the better leverage.

Suddenly, surprising them both, an arm appeared behind Sam. The creatures were pushed back sharply out of the doorway and Yas was pulled through. She fell onto the floor while Sam rolled to the side and stood up to see who had helped.

“Close the book!” said Janine Vickers sternly. She stood still, holding her hand out, palm up, uttering words that sounded foreign.

What happens next?

What a roller coaster of a ride! Well, you’ll have to buy the book to find out who Janine Vickers is and why she helped them escape.  Do Sam and Yas leap from the frying pan into the fire? Or not? Buy Book 1 The Battle for the Peacekeepers on Amazon and find out.

The Word Guardians book series

Psst… it’s available in both paperback and kindle editions.

Ciao for now!

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Trying to put together your puzzle of life?

Do you ever have questions in your life that you just can’t seem to answer?

You’re desperately looking for a solution and everything you try leaves you feeling as though there’s still missing pieces in your puzzle of life?

You’re not alone. That was Yas, in Book 1 The Battle for the Peacekeepers.

Yas’s puzzle of life

At the start of Book 1, Yas’s grandfather and adopted brother have been missing for two years and nobody seems to be looking for them. Worse, her parents won’t talk to her about it. She finds this frustrating and weird, but she figures you just get on with life. You graduate from school, go to college, get a job and live a life.

In Book 3 The Shadow Readers, we also learn that her father is dissatisfied with his work, and she thinks this is the way it’s supposed to be. What she’s learned is that life is not for living your dreams and that along the way, bad things can happen to anyone. She’s quite skeptical of life’s opportunities as a result and not surprisingly critical of her best friend‘s ideas about magical realms.

Yas also feels she’s being pulled by something, and she can’t figure out what. Deep down she knows there’s more, but her conditioning won’t let her see it. She’s curious about life, preferring to spend an afternoon in her passion of reading novels and learning about history from books.

They say opportunities arrive for those that attract them

Deep down, the opportunities that Yas attracts are focussed to the pieces of her life puzzle that she can’t yet put together. She works at a bookstore which gives her the opportunity to indulge in her passion. If asked she would probably tell you that she’d rather read history by those who have written it and put it up for review by the masses, than listen to schoolyard gossip and people’s opinions. Ultimately though, there’s more to her interests in stories.

Her best friend Sam is also not ‘popular’ at school, and is a bit weird, but that’s okay. He likes talking about magical realms and how his dad is lost in one. She wonders why she attracts the ‘odd’ ones. Then she literally falls into a realm, and it feels as though her life puzzle has exploded and sent all the pieces up into the air.

Direct experience is irrefutable

If you’ve ever experienced something deeply touching or moving, the paranormal maybe, you know that once you’ve experienced it there’s no going back. Your viewpoint on whatever it is has shifted forever and your puzzle of life now incorporates that.

This is what happens to Yas once she’s met the Great Oak and Red in the Forest Realm. After some convincing that it’s real, her puzzle of life shifts. She eventually realises that her grandfather and brother went missing because of a war between the Word Guardians and Controllers. Her parents refused to talk about it because they wanted to protect her. But only by seeing that picture could she fit all the pieces of her life’s puzzle together.

Listening to the deeper knowing’s

Finally, Yas could recognise the deeper feelings that she’d had all along as ‘knowing’s’. And she could see that her puzzle of life had shifted. Instead of getting on with life, now, for her and Sam, it was about finding a job that honoured your dreams, embracing stories and standing up for the freedom of readers’ imaginations. And more opportunities were about to come their way (see Book 3 The Shadow Readers) that would enable this.

So, if you have questions you can’t answer, try to honour those deeper feelings and ‘knowing’s’. Find time to embrace your passions, even if a small amount here and there in your week. And if you want to learn more how life unfolds for Yas and Sam, read the books in the series. Buy Book 1 The Battle for the Peacekeepers using the link below.

The Word Guardians book series

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Why can some characters wield magic in the outer world?

Is it a plot hole, if some characters can wield magic in the outer world?

Readers of the series might be wondering why some characters can wield magic in the outer world. After all, if magic is fueled by the imaginations of readers, then how is this possible? So, is this a plot hole in the Word Guardians series?

Who can wield word magic in the outer word?

In Book 1 The Battle for the Peacekeepers, Janine Vickers first demonstrates the ability when she saves Yas and Sam from mythological lions with human heads attacking them in Ancient Alexandria. She’s able to tidy up the magic that’s dropped onto the library floor and push it back into the book that the words came from. There are other examples too, but for those of you who have not read all the books yet (please do 😊), I don’t want to spoil the fun. It will be worth your time!

How can word magic be wielded in the outer world?

The next question I hear you asking is how can magic be wielded in the outer world? Well, we know that when we read, we imagine the scene happening in our mind’s eye. And as I’ve written about in The Worlds of the Word Guardians, the imagination powers the magical ink that enables the creation of the realm, in which the reader then views the story playing out in their mind’s eye. But the magic doesn’t just stop there.

We know when we tell other people about a good book we’re reading, we see that book play out in our mind’s eye again. So, in the same way, the Word Guardians characters can ‘pull’ on the same magic in the outer world. It takes much more focus and effort, but for those practiced in wielding word magic in the realms, it’s possible and boy do they do it well.

So, is it a plot hole, or a twist then?

Well, yes, you got me, it’s not a plot hole. It was an intentional twist that I wanted to include because it’s unexpected. Magic should stay where it’s created right? In a realm. But is the magic there to be drawn on by the reader’s imagination or does the reader’s imagination create the magic? Ultimately, it’s both.

To see what I mean, you’re just going to have to read the books in the series. Buy Book 1 The Battle for the Peacekeepers using the link below and start watching for the characters that can wield word magic in the outer world. It might surprise you who can and who can’t. Happy reading!

The Word Guardians book series

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Introducing the Controllers, the Word Guardians ‘bad guys’

In previous blogs, I’ve talked about the main protagonist characters of the Word Guardians, so I thought it’s about time I did the same for the ‘bad guys’, the Controllers.

Who are the Controllers? I hear you ask

In a nutshell, the ‘bad guys’ of the Word Guardians series who just want power. Their goal is to ultimately build the empire that they want, and their motivations are many.  In Book 4, Lost Beginnings, this includes righting something the main antagonist sees as a previous wrong. In the first trilogy of books, one of the antagonists wants to be seen, recognised and acknowledged. To reach their goal they will go to extremes and twist reality to suit the storyline to get what they want.

How do Controllers control?

Remember that readers form the realms from their mind’s eye, from the words on the page. Well, it turns out that there are other influences that can help form the realms and storylines too. Controllers hang out in the realms, to influence what readers see in their mind’s eye. In Book 1 excerpt, A visit to Victorian London, McVale tells Yas that readers typically ignore things that don’t make sense to the story that they are reading. And that’s true. But Controllers are clever. They tweak storylines and influence ideas just enough that it serves their agenda while not tripping this sense of what might be expected in the story.

And that’s not all. There’s Shadow Readers, telepaths and Controllers masquerading as Guardians too.

Enter the Shadow Readers

In Book 3, The Shadow Readers, Yas and Sam find the Police Commissioner acting under the influence of something magical. Created by a Controller and inserted into a reader’s imagination while reading, the Controllers found an additional way to assert control over people in authority, to shape the world to serve them and their desire for power.

The telepaths

The telepaths are impacted a little differently. In Book 2 The Twisting Tales and Book 3 The Shadow Readers, there’s Akoni, Yas’s adopted brother, who is urged by Controllers to go and influence others to cause civic unrest. He joins protests and encourages others to action so that the Police Commissioner can then stamp down and restore order. In Book 4 The Lost Beginnings, the main antagonist has a link to the minds of individuals through which he can influence others in the outer world, to create chaos that then he can swoop in and control.

Masquerading Controllers

The masquerading Controllers are a little difficult to spot. Yas, Sam and other Word Guardians must constantly question who they can trust, as I touched on in the blog How do Word Guardians determine the truth. As well as operating in the Shadows, Controllers operate in plain sight, playing games to earn trust and then seeking to gain what they want through that relationship.

Ultimately, Controllers must show their hand at some point and are unmasked. The question (as Vickers pointed out in Book 1 The Battle for the Peacekeepers) is you must determine how much you trust someone until you really know who they are.

So, who are the Controllers you’ll meet in the series?

You’ll meet Controllers who primarily operate from the shadows, through telepaths and those that are masquerading in plain sight and some who are a mixture of all three. Whichever mode they use, the motivation is the same: power and control. So, buy book 1 using the link below and watch for the red flags as to who might be a Controller or not.

The Word Guardians book series

I’d love to hear about your thoughts on Controllers in the series too, either by sending a comment below or by using the contact form. 

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Who can visit the realms of the Word Guardians series?

In my last blog, An excerpt from book 1 A Visit to Victorian London, Yas and her mentor McVale travelled to a realm that portrayed storylines and scenes from a period of history featured in many fictional books. You’ll have the read the book to see who opens the portal to the realm and how they did it, but I wanted to answer a question I’ve been asked a few times – can anyone travel to a realm?

Here’s my answer…

Through the tales of the Word Guardians series, there are three things that people must have to open doorways (or portals) into realms. First, they have to believe, second, they must have some magical ability and lastly, they need to have a key.

Belief is important

A visitor to a realm must believe that it’s possible. Think Alice in Wonderland and doing six impossible things before breakfast.

We see this in Book 1, The Battle for the Peacekeepers. Yas can’t open a portal to a realm until the idea is seeded in her mind. She’s closed minded and dismissive of the idea because of her upbringing and what she’s learnt in the world around her – ultimately her conditioning. Gradually though through her friendship with Sam, she becomes a little more open-minded, starts questioning things around her and that helps her discover a doorway to a realm.

Magical ability is a must have

The second part of visiting a realm is having the ability to open the magical doorway into a realm. What we learn from the books is that the magical ability can either be innate or learned. Ultimately, like anything, if it’s not practiced then it becomes harder to do. Again, we see this in, Excerpt from Book 1 When Yas discovers magic, Yas has an innate ability and with curiosity, a doorway opens for her.

Finally, a key is important

In Book 1, The Battle for the Peacekeepers, the keys are the individual dice pendants of Yas and Sam’s necklaces. Like runes, individual faces of the die open specific locks, hidden in books. To find a doorway relevant to a specific realm they must solve clues and find the book and page for the doorway to open. In later books of the series there are some variations but always along the same theme.

All together, visitors to the realms are like a secret club

You can think of visitors to realms being a secret club. First, these people have to be readers, because otherwise they can’t relate to what they see in their mind’s eye when they read. Books are key because without them readers wouldn’t be able to co-create realms, and finally the visitor has to possess magic and believe.

Want to learn more?

To learn more, please visit the link below to buy book 1 and start reading the series.

The Word Guardians book series

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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

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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

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Excerpt from Book 1: When Yas discovers magic

This week I’d like to share an excerpt from the first book, The Battle for the Peacekeepers, when Yas discovers magic.

As you’ll see, she literally falls through a portal and it’s a key discovery point for Yas. She starts to realise that not everything in the world as is normal and mundane as she thought…

Excerpt: When Yas discovers magic is real

Yas remembered the book McVale (her employer) had mentioned, the gift from her grandpa. She wanted to have a look and now was the perfect opportunity.

She walked to the back of the shop and grabbed the kick-step. She moved it and nonchalantly stepped up on top of it. As she did so, she felt something brush past her leg, like a draft of air, yet more substantial. It startled her and made her step one foot back down.

There was no bell tinkle, so she knew it wasn’t the front door. She looked around her. There on the floor near her foot was a yellow leaf, about three inches long. It looked too large to have been tracked in on the bottom of someone’s shoe, yet too far from the door to have been blown in. No matter, she figured. It wasn’t important. She’d put it away in a moment.

She took a step back up and reached for the top shelf. Immediately, her head felt a little light and she could have sworn she heard someone call out “Psst.” She stopped still, reaching out to the shelves to steady herself.

 “Hello?” she called nervously, looking left and right around her. Had someone sneaked in without her being aware?

She strained her ears to hear. Nothing. Only the electric buzzing of the lights overhead. Odd, but not overly suspicious, she returned her mind and eyes to the task. She reached up, to grab the book. Her hand on the shelf should have given her more stability, but it started to vibrate under her touch. The original sense of movement also returned, this time for longer. She glanced down. Her light headedness made the floor seem much further away.

The shelves too started to move, and her hold was more akin to a sponge than a solid piece of wood. The intensity increased, vibrating, much like a truck passing outside, except deeper and stronger. The bookshelves started to wobble in front of her eyes, and she swayed backwards and forwards in response. Yas moved her right hand to gain a solid grasp of the book, but in doing so, her left hand was absorbed inwards to the shelf. It pulled her forwards and off balance. She cried out in alarm, and then stopped and tried to regain her composure. Perhaps this was another mild earthquake she figured, but the sponge like shelves indicated that this was something more. She wasn’t sure whether to try and step down or stay put.

The vibration increased in intensity. Now a deep roar, it was accompanied by more movement of the shelves. In her head, the sound was like a swarm of angry bees, but deeper, and which vibrated through every fibre of her being. A headache appeared behind her eyes, with flashing lights. It was the type she remembered from her younger years. That worried her. She wasn’t sure if what she was seeing around her was the result of distorted vision or really there. The bookshelves now also seemed to be swaying back and forth. They were fluid, instead of fixed, the shapes changing. The books were sliding backwards and forwards and taking on this sponge like fluidity, also. She felt nauseous and was going to hurl at any moment.

She made a move to step down. As she did so, there was a new sound, like a ‘whoomph’, and the air changed around her. Whether related to the migraine she thought was arriving she did not know, but ultimately, the floor was not where her foot expected it to be. That coupled with her left hand not finding the solid purchase she was looking for, she lost her balance. The top half of her body wanted to fall further forwards, so she leaned backwards to counteract that, hoping to find the floor. The floor wasn’t anywhere close, so she started to fall backwards, flailing with her hands for some other grip. She shrieked out in alarm, both bracing herself for a hard landing while also looking around herself in desperation for something to grab onto. She had a split-second image of herself landing heavily on one foot and then limping around the shop the rest of the day. To her surprise, there was no such landing.

Instead, where there should have been a dark blue carpet with small orange diamond motif pattern, she seemed to fall much further. Into what, she did not know. The world around her turned darker and the air smelled different, an outside smell. She heard and felt herself smashing through leaves and slender branches, until two limbs caught and held her, firm but not rough. The limbs creaked and cracked as she was lowered gently to touch the mossy ground below. Then they let go slowly. She realised that her fall had ended, and she was laying on her back, on damp, cold grass.

What happens after Yas discovers magic?

Hopefully, I’ve whetted your appetite and you want to read more. To see how the story continues, please check out the link below to view and buy book 1 (The Battle for the Peacekeepers) on Amazon.

The Word Guardians book series

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How do the Word Guardians determine the truth?

Determining the truth of a situation (and what to take on trust) is a reoccurring theme in the Word Guardians series. In What are the Worlds of the Word Guardians I mentioned that the Word Guardians employ something akin to Star Trek’s Prime directive to determine how to act without influencing readers’ thoughts.

I thought I’d delve into this a little more in this week’s post.

What is truth?

Truth is a very interesting word, it turns out. According to the Mirriam Webster dictionary definition, it relates to determining the facts of a situation, what’s real. But if we think about our own lives, it’s hard to figure this out.

How do we determine the truth of a situation?

We see reports in the news, accusations from someone and then opposing stories that come out over time, courtroom coverage and more. And as bystanders, we know we’re hearing differing viewpoints but what is the objective truth here? We can only typically understand this from the bigger picture, other viewpoints and understanding something about the behavioural patterns of the persons involved. Often, we can’t see this because we’re basing what we believe on what we’ve been told or what’s been reported. We trust that those parties are acting ethically, morally and fairly in how they deliver the news. But how can we verify that too?

Why is the truth important to Word Guardians?

In the Word Guardians books, the Controllers manipulate imaginations. They sow ideas and use those who have been disadvantaged in some way. They’ll pose as someone they are not in order to gain trust and ultimately ask something in return. They’ll encourage others to action by constantly pulling at a wound of disillusionment, inciting them to action. The Word Guardians have to second guess, strive for the bigger picture and rely on their own instincts to figure out what action to take. Yas in particular is good at this (but even she can be fooled).

So… how do Word Guardians determine the truth?

The stories are in magical fantasy worlds (realms), but it’s not so different to what we experience in life. Like the Word Guardians, we should question where information has come from, why it’s been presented a particular way and who it might benefit or impact. It can be overwhelming, but we shouldn’t always just take things on trust.

This answers how the Word Guardians determine the truth but, when taking any action, how do they know that they’re not just being controlling, or manipulating, just like Controllers? Well, you’ll just have to read the Word Guardians series to find out. 🙂

The Word Guardians book series

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What are the Worlds of the Word Guardians?

Where the worlds came from

Where I started from with the Worlds of the Word Guardians was thinking about what I saw in my mind’s eye when I read. I picture the scenes and the story plays out as if I’m watching my own personal movie. It made me wonder… what if these places were real? How could you visit them? and the worlds (or realms) of the Word Guardians were born.

In the Word Guardians series the realms are absolutely real.  Think of them as magical other worlds, accessible through doorways. Readers co-create these other worlds as they imagine the scenes and the result is stages on which different storylines play out.

How the worlds of the Word Guardians are created

With readers unwittingly creating and shaping these realms, I realised that visitors could essentially gain access to readers’ imagination and if they so desired, they could influence them, for good or bad. The antagonists, the Controllers, were born and in turn this defined the protagonists’ goals, the Word Guardians. I feel that this is very relevant to today where there are so many influences for what we think and do and we’re not fully aware of all of these biases.

So, what actually powers the realms, I hear you cry. Imagination yes, but it has to take form and become physical. In the first book, The Battle for the Peacekeepers, I describe this as Yas discovers a realm for the first time.  Imagination fuels ‘magical ink’ and that creates physical structures, actors, landscapes and more. A storyline plays out and then the magical ink is fueled by the imagination of another reader, and the scene recycles to play out another storyline.

Why the realms are important in the book series

Visitors to realms can wield and interact with this magical ink, influencing and changing the scene and the storylines playing out around them (and I’ll touch on why magic is always word based in a later blog). This then has consequences as I mentioned above and is something that is played out in the series. The Word Guardians effectively need to employ something akin to Star Trek’s Prime Directive (Trekkies will know what I mean by this) to protect the freedom of the imagination of readers, and it becomes clear (as in Star Trek) that the best action to take isn’t always cut and dry.

So, that’s a summary (and introduction to potential readers of the series) of what the Worlds of the Word Guardians are, why I decided to write them this way and how it created the main dynamic between protagonists and the Controllers. To learn more about the book series, please click the button below.

The Word Guardians book series

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