Blurb:
Everything changed for Simon Falke the first time he fell through the
fire.Just beneath the surface of our world, a war between Light and Dark magic has been waging for centuries. Wielded by Morgana, the Dark is growing in power. But a long foretold prophecy, The Prophecy of Three, could change everything.
Not many teenagers can say they are the subject of an ancient prophecy. Fewer still can say they have inherited the powers of a wizard and a responsibility for the fate of the world. Simon, Evelyn and James are three who can. From the moment they learn of the Prophecy of Three, they are thrown into the war against Morgana, whom prophecy states they will destroy.
Immersed in a dangerous new world of ancient magic, power hungry witches, insidious creatures and limitless power, Simon, Evelyn and James must hunt down the Keys of Time. For with the Keys Morgana would be unstoppable…
Not exactly the life of your average teenager.
Excerpt: Beginning of book
Everything changed for Simon Falke the first time he fell through the fire.
Hot wind forced his clamped eyelids
open and he recoiled as flames grew up like desperate fingers from the
darkness. Through stinging tears Simon saw that he was standing in thin air.
The growing fire rose, swirling high and closing in on him. Then, with no more
warning than a lurching sensation in his stomach, Simon was pitched backwards,
and the space that had once felt solid beneath his feet, gave way.
A yell escaped him, muffled by the
roaring wind. The flames stretched away, flickering back into the gloom, taking
the heat with them. An excruciating chill took its place, thickening in the air
and erupting Simon’s entire body in goosebumps. He grappled desperately as he
fell, but his scrabbling fingers met only cold air and darkness. He was turning
and rolling, eyes shut again for fear of what he might see. Then all of a
sudden the gushing wind ended. Had he stopped? Daring only now to open his
eyes, he found himself floating inches above a rough stone floor that had
appeared out of the nothingness beneath him. The musty smell of earth filled
his nostrils as he hovered for a moment, quite unable to move. Then voices,
rendered into echoes, sounded somewhere behind him and in his distraction Simon
hardly noticed as he dropped to a gentle rest on the ground.
“Are the rumours true? She has
vanished?” The voice trembled with the onset of panic.
“I am afraid so.” The second voice
was hoarse, as if the speaker was suffering from some illness.
“How did she manage to evade
capture? Surely the Elders have power enough to contain her.”
Laughter, devoid of any humour, was
the reply before the second voice spoke again. “I think you underestimate her,
my friend. The Elders did, and it was their undoing.”
“And what of her book?”
“We need not worry about that.”
Simon rose from his spread eagled position,
dusting off the grit coating his sweaty palms. Nausea struck him and he clamped
his eyes shut until it passed. As he blinked away the dancing spots of white
light from his vision, he glanced around. He could see no people, no sign of
the speakers he’d heard. From what he could make out, he was in a long tunnel
that stretched away from him on both sides. A dim light was gradually vanishing
in the distance to his left, as though coming from a candle or lantern being
carried away. But whoever was bearing the light was too far into the darkness
to see.
Despite the trembling in his legs
and the threat of another pang of nausea, Simon relented to his curiosity and
broke into a run. He wanted to catch up with the figures who were taking the
last tendrils of light with them, before he was left in darkness. He couldn’t
explain his curiosity. He just knew that whatever the speakers were discussing
was important.
The air grew chillier with every
step he took, so Simon pulled the hood of his jumper up and shoved his hands
into his jean’s pockets. As he moved further along the tunnel, the light grew
brighter again, revealing more of the tunnel. The place looked to once have
been grand. High stone walls veered up on either side of him, cracked and
crumbling in places and leading up to an elegant, vaulted ceiling. The floor
beneath his feet looked to have once been paved, but dust and dirt obscured all
but a few of the cracked and broken slabs. Unlit torches rested in rusted
brackets on the walls. Overhead, cobweb-engulfed candelabras hung from the
ceiling on ancient chains, creaking in the cold breeze gusting down the tunnel.
That unexplainable curiosity still
urged him to keep up with the figures and another burst of speed later he
smiled as the light ahead became much brighter. The sound of the voices drifted
out of the soft whining of the wind. Simon slowed down as he approached a branch
in the tunnel.
“Master, what do you wish me to
do?” Simon heard the younger voice say.
“I ask of you only one thing... you
know that my passing is imminent,” the old voice said, “and that with every
minute I grow weaker, she grows stronger. I ask you to find them. There will be
three... yes three I am sure. Find them and train them. They are our only
hope.”
What
inspired you to write this book?
Ever since I was small, I was fascinated by myths and legends. Arthurian legend (Merlin, round table etc) always held some sort of lure for me. It was always somewhere between fact and fiction and so I thought it would be cool to explore it.
Can
you give us an interesting fact about your book that isn't in the blurb?
It has a talking ferret called Puck, who has the voice of a middle aged man.
How
did you choose your title?
I played around for a while with titles and decided on The prophecy of Three for the entire series because that is the central focus of all four books. For the sub-title, The Keys of Time I chose that because it is the focus of book 1. I originally had the series titled Merlin’s Three, but when I asked people if they liked it, they said they preferred the Prophecy of Three. And so I went with what the readers wanted.
Tell
us about the cover and how it came to be.
The cover was the result of hours of struggling to figure out how to use Photoshop and Gimp. I took some photographs and used various tools (largely by accident) to make it look as cool as I could.
What
do you consider the most important part of a good story?
Dragging your reader along for
the ride, making them feel that they are experiencing the adventures of your
characters is a must for me. When I’m reading a book I want to be there, in the
action, in the battle, running from the enemy. I try to do that in my own
writing.
What
is your writing process?
How
long have you been writing?
Ever since I knew that books were
written by people and didn’t spring ready formed from thin air, I was writing
my own stories. I would hand write them and then staple them together and call
them books. They were bad, but I still have them.
How
did you get started writing?
I wanted to create worlds like my
favorite authors. I wanted my own worlds to explore, ones that I had created
and had full control over. It just felt natural to write, there wasn’t any
point in my life that I doubted what I wanted to do. Writing has just always
been there, I’ve always done it.
Are
you a plotter or a pantser?
A mixture of both, I think. With
The Prophecy of Three Quartet I planned out where I wanted the series to go and
I knew how everything would end before I even started writing The Keys of Time.
I have a notebook filled with character profiles, places, family trees, and the
various spells and objects and other things that make up the world of the
series. But sometimes I find that I need to change certain plot lines to get to
another plot line that will come up later in the series. It’s ever changing.
What
part of the writing process is the hardest for you?
Editing. Man, I cannot stand
editing. Most of the time, anyway. I’m always itching to write something fresh.
But I do find editing an insightful process. Sometimes you go back and think,
what made me write that.
What
tips can you give on how to get through writers block?
Write something completely
different. If Prophecy of Three is giving me a hard time I put it aside and
blitz out some flash fiction or a short story, one that I haven’t planned. I
have a load of ideas floating around in my head and so I just pick one of those
and turn it into a short story. In fact, one of those instances ended up
turning into a new fantasy book I’m currently working on.
What kind of music do you like to listen to while you write?
I like silence when I’m writing.
But I do sometimes listen to epic movie soundtracks to get me in the mood. If
I’m writing a battle scene or action I like to listen to anything by Hans Zimmer
or Howard Shore who does the music for The Lord of the Rings.
Who is your favorite author?
J K Rowling. Her world building
is unparalleled.
What
is your favorite book?
Under the Dome by Stephen King is
a brilliant book. As is the Department 19 series by Will Hill, think spies meet
vampires meet Percy Jackson.
What
do you like to do when you're not writing?
Reading is what I do most of the
time when I am not writing, because it fuels my imagination and allows me to
step out of my own world and into another. I also like to watch TV shows such
as LOST, Fringe, CSI, Supernatural, Game of Thrones, The Mentalist and a dozen
more. I like hiking and mountain biking too. It really clears my head.
What
advice would you give an author just starting out?
Write and read. Never stop doing
both of those things. Writing a lot will help you improve, as will reading. You
need to keep the fire of your imagination stoked up all the time.
Have
you had anything else published?
I had a few short stories and flash fiction published in my high-school's writing anthology.
What's
your next project?
To finish up editing book 2 of
the Prophecy of Three, which is due out late December. Then continue writing
book 3 and 4. I also have a sci-fi trilogy I am working on for young adults and
a fantasy novel about Harry Houdini which I have written the prologue and first
chapter for. I think I need to concentrate on the Prophecy of Three at the
moment, though, because at times I don’t know which way I’m going.
It didn't take long for me to know that I wanted
to be a writer. From the moment I understood that books didn't materialize out
of thin air and that people wrote them, I knew that writing was all I wanted to
do. The idea for The Prophecy of Three was born from a love of Arthurian
legends and all the fantasy books I read from the moment I could pick a book
up. Even when I’m not writing I’m more often than not thinking about it. But
when I do have a spare minute I enjoy movies, TV and reading. I’m also a huge
Marvel and Lord of the Rings fan.
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