Category Archives: The Twin Jinn

The Twin Jinn

Using Magic on Humans

I was amused Saturday when Amazon noted The Twin Jinn and the Alchemy Machine was No. 1 in Alchemy. Well, that was unexpected. But turning metal into gold is one of the talents of the magical beings I created for this series for middle grade readers.

Jute and Fina Jinn can fly, be invisible, shrink, and cast spells. But sometimes the best magic they do is to help humans change for the better. That’s what happens when they attend school in a small town in The Twin Jinn and the Alchemy Machine.

In the first, The Twin Jinn at Happy Jack’s Carnival of Mysteries, the twins and their parents perform a magic act in a traveling carnival after escaping from their power-hungry master. In that book, Jute and Fina help a new friend, Jonathan, overcome his shyness.

In The Twin Jinn and the Alchemy Machine, their parents, Elwin and Mira, move to a small town where hopefully they will not be discovered. They live in an apple orchard and the twins attend fifth grade in a local school. Elwin and Mira also feel it’s a good way for their children to learn more about humans although they are supposed to keep their magic hidden. (Good luck with that.)

One of their lessons about humans is dealing with a boy named Brian Morgan, a bully who picks on his classmates. He makes fun of the twins because they look and dress differently. He calls them names like Hoot and Greener, Cute and Cleaner,  and Toot and Weiner.

Here’s a scene from the first chapter, when at recess Brian makes fun of the clothes Jute and Fina wear.

Fina jabbed a finger against the boy’s chest so hard and fast he hopped backward.

“Be careful or I will put a spell on you,” she said.

Brian’s eyes locked on Fina’s.“Go ahead and try, Fina. I dare you.”

“Oh, yeah?” she said. “How would you like it if I turned you into a little pink pig? Or a big, hairy bug?”

Fina could make either of those two spells happen. She was thinking about which one would be better when Jute tapped her shoulder.

“No, Fina,” he whispered. “Don’t do it.”

Fina nodded. If she changed Brian into a pig or a bug, she wouldn’t be able to turn him back into a boy. Humans can’t handle that kind of change. Neither can animals. Fina found that out after she shrunk a goat to only a few inches. She thought she was saving the animal from an unhappy life. Fina planned to make the goat full-sized when she found a good home, but her mother told her it was impossible. Resa the goat would be tiny forever. Fina learned a lesson although she loved the goat that was now her pet.

Fina made a low laugh.

“Well, Brian, I guess I will let you go for now. Besides, recess is over.”

Jute and Fina do get into trouble when they use a magic spell to stick Brian to his seat and the floor. No matter what he tries he can’t get himself free. Eventually they let him go. Their teacher suspects they are responsible although he can’t figure out how. Because jinn can’t lie, they admit to doing it. Fina tells him, “We used magic.” That earns them a visit to the principal’s office.

Then there is the scene in which they are waiting outside the principal’s office when their class walks past them to the library.

Brian was in back of the line. He mouthed the words, “Crook and Steamer.”

Fina stuck out her tongue, but Jute had a better idea. He made a spider appear on the back of the boy’s shirt. The spider was as large as a stone good for throwing. It wasn’t poisonous, and it wouldn’t bite. But the spider would give the boy a scare. Jute watched Brian follow the others to the library. So far, the boy hadn’t noticed, but Fina did. She covered her mouth as she squealed.

“Oh, Jute, good one,” she whispered.

“I wonder when Brian will see the spider,” Jute whispered back.

“I think we’ll hear all about it, don’t you?” Fina said.

“Uh-huh.”

But after their parents are called to the school, they insist the twins find another way to help Brian be a better human than the ways they were using. They succeed, but I will let readers find that out for themselves.

By the way, Brian never knows the family’s true identities as jinn or genies. But there are two humans who do — Alice, who owns the orchard where the family lives, and Winston Moody, who has a farm next door and cleans their school —  naturally with good reason. More about them soon.

Here are the links to The Twin Jinn at Happy Jack’s Carnival of Mysteries and The Twin Jinn and the Alchemy Machine.

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The Twin Jinn

The Twin Jinn and the Alchemy Machine Is Live

Sometimes I love my characters so much they deserve more than one book. I did that for my Isabel Long Mystery Seriesfor adults. And for a totally different writing and reading experience, I created the Twin Jinn Series for middle grade readers.

And exciting news: The Twin Jinn and the Alchemy Machine, the second book in the series, has a Feb. 26 release in Kindle and paperback on Amazon. Here’s the link.

I began writing the series when I lived in Taos, New Mexico, which is a magical place for many people. As a child, I got so much enjoyment going to our town’s library and choosing books to read. For a while, I was fixated on the Wizard of OzSeries. The author, L. Frank Baum, wrote fourteen, and as I recall, I got through many of them. Then there was the Mary Poppins Series by P. L. Travers. A book that caught my interest was The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.And as a parent and a grandparent, I got to read many, many more.

So, I channeled that book-loving girl to create The Twin Jinn books.

In writing my own, I wanted to create magic beings who live among humans, which led me to genies or jinn, as I call them. I wanted the main characters to be twins — alas, in real life I wasn’t one. Jute and Fina Jinn, brother and sister, are 11 jinn years but 111 by human. They have special powers that include the ability to fly, cast spells, shrink and be invisible. They are at the age where it is time for their parents Elwin and Mira to intensify their training.

Oh, I should back up here to say like most jinn, the family had a master, in this case, a power-hungry man. Elwin and Mira found a way to escape, but he is desperate to get the family back. (My theory for this series is that every powerful and/or rich person has a jinni making that possible.)

I pictured Jute and Fina as kind beings. Being twin siblings, they are also competitive, especially when they play games like Finder. That’s when one invisible jinni tries to find another. (Wouldn’t that be fun?) The twins are curious, especially about the human world, and mischievous. Typically, Fina is the instigator like casting a spell on a mean boy, so he is stuck to the seat and floor in their classroom. They are supposed to keep their powers hidden. Tell that to the kids.

I loved the Jinn family so much that I wanted to plunk them into different situations.

In the first, The Twin Jinn at Happy Jack’s Carnival of Mysteries, the family hides in a traveling carnival’s show, where they put their magical powers to good use for an act.

In the second, The Twin Jinn and the Alchemy Machine, the family lives in a small town where Jute and Fina attend school. They create a machine that turns metal into gold for their science fair project. That book has a Feb. 26 release on Amazon.

In the third, The Twin Jinn in the Land of Enchantment, the family moves to a ranch in the Southwest. I hope to release that one perhaps this summer.

(For those wondering, yes I tried to entice publishers to take on the series. I even had an agent pitching it at one time. But like Fina, I became impatient to take that route anymore.)

And I am fortunate to have the artistic talents of my son Ezra Livingston, who created the illustrations for the books. They capture the books’ magic.

Again, here is the link for The Twin Jinn and the Alchemy Machine. Thank you if you come along for the next adventure.

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The Twin Jinn

Feb. 26 Release: The Twin Jinn and the Alchemy Machine 

Ta-da! The Twin Jinn and the Alchemy Machine, second in my Twin Jinn Series will be released Wednesday, Feb. 26 in paperback and Kindle. It’s technically a book for middle grade readers, but I believe those who like magical realism involving a family of jinn or genies, will enjoy it no matter their age. The series features Jute and Fina Jinn, brother and sister who are twins, and their parents Elwin and Mira Jinn.

As I’ve mentioned before, I have been fascinated about the possibility of having magical powers. As a child, I longed to be invisible, fly, walk through walls, shrink, and cast spells. Alas, that wasn’t meant to be although I certainly had fun pretending.

And this obsession inspired writing a book about a family that can do such things.

As Mira once explained to her children, “Humans don’t understand us. Most don’t think we’re real.”

In some stories, jinn are made of fire and smoke or they are evil. But my jinn are good beings, actually better than most humans. They age differently than humans. For instance, Jute and Fina are 11 by jinn years but 111 by human

Unless they’ve been freed, jinn are the servants of humans. In this series, all rich and powerful people have a jinni or more. That includes royalty, U.S. presidents, rich business owners and more.

Some masters are good, many are not. In two instances in my book, the human freed their jinni. Because jinn live much longer than humans, they are typically passed down through families. The twins have had three masters. Their third, Dann, was feeling mighty powerful because he had a family of four jinn in his control. 

But that’s not what Elwin and Mira Jinn wanted for Jute and Fina. So they figure a way to trick Dann and escape. After that, he lost all of his wealth and power so he is desperate to find them. 

So, that propels the Jinn family into finding ways to live among humans. The twins are supposed to keep their powers a secret but being children they sometimes get carried away. They are of age to do jinn training with their parents and their Uncle Jeffer, a freed jinni who is Elwin’s twin. 

In The Twin Jinn at Happy Jack’s Carnival of Mysteries, the first book in the series, the Jinn family hides out at a traveling carnival, where they do a magic act. People believe they are doing tricks, but it’s real magic. But the fun ends when Dann discovers their whereabouts, so the family must flee with the help of human friends. (A few weeks ago, I gave away the book in its Kindle format for free.)

In The Twin Jinn and the Alchemy Machine, the family moves to a small rural town where they live and work in an apple orchard. Jute and Fina attend the local school where their parents hope the twins will learn more about the human world. Ah, but Jute and Fina are mischievous and a bit naïve. They create an alchemy machine that actually produces gold for their science fair project. I will be telling you more as we lead up to the Feb. 26 release.

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The Twin Jinn

Two Days of Magic

THE TWIN JINN AT HAPPY JACK’S CARNIVAL OF MYSTERIES FREE ON KINDLE

Alas, I don’t have magical powers although I truly wish I did. So, instead I created magical characters in a book for middle-grade readers — The Twin Jinn at Happy Jack’s Carnival of Mysteries. And I want to cast a little magic on young readers by making the Kindle version free Feb. 1 and 2. Just click on the link above. No tricks. Just magic.

By the way, the second in the series — The Twin Jinn and the Alchemy Machine — will be out next month. Two more are in the works. I’ll tell you more in the near future.

My own childhood was filled by imaginative play with my sister. One of us would think up a fantasy to play with the start: “Let’s pretend.…” Another outlet was reading — spending hours and hours lost in those words. 

When I became a mother, I enjoyed watching my children do the same. (My son, Ezra, created the illustration for the cover, which I believe captures the playfulness of the characters.

Actually, the words “let’s pretend” is the motivation behind my fiction. I sit in front of my laptop and let my imagination take over whether I am writing for adult or young readers. 

My genies or jinn, as I prefer to call them, don’t live in lamps. In The Twin Jinn at Happy Jack’s Carnival of Mysteries, they perform a magic act in a traveling carnival. People may think they are doing tricks like human magicians, but jinn have many powers such as being invisible, flying, casting spells, oh, the list goes on. 

The twins are Jute and Fina, brother and sister who are 11 by human age but 111 by jinn age. They are sweet but mischievous and like so many siblings, competitive. Their parents, Jeffer and Mira, are protective, but that’s because they tricked their evil master into letting them go. Yes, he’s searching for them.

This series has a lot of what entertained me as a book-reading child: genies, magic, and family. Now I offer it to middle-grade readers, those who read to children, and perhaps adults who want a little magical realism in their lives.

Here’s the link again: The Twin Jinn at Happy Jack’s Carnival of Mysteries.

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The Twin Jinn

Free Magic from The Twin Jinn

I am not a magician and, sadly, I don’t have magical powers although I wish I did. So, instead I created magical characters in a book for middle-grade readers — The Twin Jinn at Happy Jack’s Carnival of Mysteries. And to spread that magic to young readers, I am making the Kindle version free for two days March 2 and 3.

My own childhood was steeped in imaginative play. This was out of necessity as I lived a rather sheltered life. My parents, the children of immigrants, didn’t get the concept that we could play at a friend’s house. That’s what family is for. And so that’s what happened.

My chief playmate was my sister, Christine. One of us would think up a fantasy to play with the invitation: “Let’s pretend …” I don’t remember all of the scenarios we or our dolls acted, but that doesn’t matter. What I do remember is that during those hours we spent together, we were delightfully in another world.

Another outlet was reading. I spent hours and hours — in the summer staying up late — lost in those words.

And when I became a mother, I enjoyed watching my children do the same.

Now the words “let’s pretend” is the motivation behind my writing fiction. I sit in front of my laptop and let my imagination take over whether it’s written for adult or young readers. For this book, I circled back to those times in the backyard when my sister and I played, or upstairs in my bedroom reading a book I couldn’t put down.

First, I’ve always been fascinated by genies. Yes, there’s that Aladdin story. But my genies or jinn, as I prefer to call them, don’t live in lamps. In the first book — The Twin Jinn at Happy Jack’s Carnival of Mysteries — they live and have a magic act in a traveling carnival. Of course, their magic is just one of their many powers such as being invisible, flying, casting spells, oh, the list goes on. 

The twins are Jute and Fina, brother and sister who are 11 by human age. They are sweet but mischievous and like so many siblings, competitive. Their parents, Jeffer and Mira, are protective, but that’s because they tricked their evil master into letting them go. Yes, he’s trying to find them.

Pretending with The Jinn family is so much fun that I completed two more books, and a third is halfway done. I plan to continue publishing them, because I want to inspire young readers and anyone else who loves magical realism.

Currently, I am recording The Twin Jinn at Happy Jack’s Carnival of Mysteries for an audiobook at my son, Nate’s Mudroom Sound Studio. By the way, my son, Ezra, created the illustration for the cover, which I believe captures the playfulness of the characters. Look for The Twin Jinn and the Alchemy Machine, second in the series, soon.

Curious? Here’s the link: The Twin Jinn at Happy Jack’s Carnival of Mysteries

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