I’ve spent a
lifetime with stories—listening to my father’s wonderful stories when I was a
child, teaching about stories as an English professor, and finally writing
stories for my grandchildren and loving to watch their faces as I read the
stories aloud to them.
My first published
book for middle schoolers is Madelon and Cameron and the Dominions of Time. It starts out almost as a fairy tale,
with a magic ring that can conquer time and space and a boy uncertain of his
parentage. As the story unfolds, the two worlds of time become evident. One is
the real world of science and rationality—the rocket ships on their launching
pads at Cape Canaveral, a New York City brownstone house, the dinosaur hall in
the Museum of Natural History. The other world is the magic world. It shades
from real places like Stonehenge and a Neolithic Irish burial site to the
spectacular imagery of the Bridge of Swords and the brooding terror of the
Castle of Bron.
Twelve-year-old
Madelon and Cameron are the main characters in my story—or as they soon call
themselves Mad and Cam. “Let’s just be Mad and Cam against the world,” Mad
says--and rightly so, as they do battle against the evil wizard Daimastron and
his gnome-like Gorbuc warriors. Mad is the one who does the right thing
impetuously, not always thinking of the consequences she may face. Cam often
holds back, but does the right thing in the end.
Mirrors reflect
the two worlds of the story. And the mirrors ask the question, “What is real?” The
brownstone house has an ordinary mirror on the living room wall. But what about
the mirror that wasn’t really there—the mirror that shows the old-fashioned
grandfather clock, with no numbers on the dial and an evil wizard with an iron
key? Or what about the two-dimensional mirror in the Castle of Bron from which
the sinister, three-dimensional leopard- creatures emerge?
Adventure follows upon
adventure as Mad and Cam do battle with evil wizards, fearsome Gorbucs, and treacherous
knights. Cam is assailed by phantoms and must fight with them. Mad must outwit
the duplicitous Dr. Sargon and save her grandfather’s life by placing a magic
sunstone on his tongue. The place-names of the chapters give some sense of the
way in which the story progresses: the Woods
of Mordremar, the High Walls of Bron,
the Tower of Timbuktion, and also The Council Chamber, where the totally
evil Lord of Tenebris sits at the modern-day computer, wearing an ordinary
business suit.
“You can’t be the Lord of
Tenebris,” Cam splutters, “You’re much too—“
“Ordinary?” said the plump
little man, stroking his neat, plump belly. “But that’s the point, Cameron.
Being ordinary is the best disguise I have. That’s why [evil has] survived so
long.”
To which Madelon
replies that ordinary people fight evil, too. And that perhaps is the theme of
the book—that courage and compassion will win out every time.
Madelon and Cameron and the Dominions of Time is available via amazon.com as an e-book at $3.99 and, if I say so
myself, a very handsome 400-page paperback at $10.99. The cover says that the
book is part of the Two Worlds Chronicles series, and I hope that the reader
response to this book is positive enough for me to publish the other volumes as
well.
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