FANTASY

Leprechauns are real. So are fairies. But leprechauns aren’t always jovial, fairies are neither tiny nor weak… And assumptions are dangerous in a world where keeping bargains is not optional.

When eleven-year-old Bommer’s cousin Laura disappears with a fairy, a thrilling adventure through Fairy Lakes begins.

With the help of a friendly leprechaun, Bommer and his two best friends step through a portal to rescue Laura from the Fairy Lakes, where the fairies are neither tiny nor weak and the fairy queen has no sense of humor.

But does she actually need rescuing?

Away with the Fairies is a funny, fast-moving fantasy adventure rooted in Celtic mythology and 1970s Ireland, where friends matter but family is everything and the hardest part of a rescue may be admitting your assumptions could make you fail them both.

With themes of friendship, family, feeling invisible, and finding the place you truly belong, this is a book both adults and children will love.

About the Fairy Roads Series

Eleven-year-old Bommer’s life changes forever when he learns both leprechauns and fairies are not only real but leprechauns still visit our world regularly. More than that, ancient heroes and villains straight out of Celtic legend walk the Fairy Roads between our world and others. But the truth doesn’t always match the legends. And sometimes even mythical beings need help only a human can provide.

Annals of Fyrnlosing

A thousand years after a cataclysm sundered the old continent into far-flung islands, destroying most of its technology, cat-like Erissa only half-believes in the improbable prophecy of invasion that has her team of five scouring the Isles of Fyrnlosing for a flaming weapon.

Then an atonal but compelling song leads her half-human daughter, would-be master singer Rowan, to a battle-injured soldier with no battle damage around him. The same song heralds the girl’s vivid dreams of a dying world and a forgotten gateway, seen through the eyes of its leader, a mechanically-enhanced warrior named Dante.

With Dante and his cyborg army apparently poised to lay claim to her peaceful world, and still missing the elusive weapon prophesied to stop them, Erissa must convince the more numerous humans of Fyrnlosing to join her forest race in holding the invaders back—and keep fifteen-year-old Rowan from joining the fight. But if the gateway opens before she finds the weapon, her new Protectors will need to rely on swords, magic, and the remaining fragments of pre-cataclysm technology for survival.

Even though Erissa will risk anything, including her life, to protect her daughter and her home, between Rowan’s belief that battle is the perfect experience to bring her fame as a singer and the strength of Dante’s invading force, it may be impossible to save them both.

Despite the unusual setting, I consider this novel women’s fiction because the heart of the story is the journey of a single mother, Erissa, and her fifteen-year-old daughter, Rowan. 

Erissa, a member of a cat-like race with strong magic, the Gesweglin, fears for the safety of her daughter, despite the seeming safety of their island home. More so since the death of her human husband, to whom Rowan was very close. She believes the best way to keep Rowan safe in the face of her mother’s prophecy of an invasion, is to provide discipline and structure, teach her fighting skills, and keep her close to home for as long as possible.

Rowan, who is teased because of her Gesweglin features and chafes under her mother’s strict rules, seeks respect, especially from Erissa. She believes the best way to earn it is to travel the world, seeking out songs from faraway lands and new experiences she can use to write new ones, as Master Singer and accomplished warrior Erissa did when she was young.

Both must learn the art of compromise and the failings in their own beliefs if they are to survive the challenges to come.