Tag Archives: middle grade readers

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.

Standard
books

Three Books and an Audiobook Ahead

Winter is full of itself, at least in my part of the world. Snow the other day, howling winds, and more snow last night and today. I will be out shoveling after I post this piece. This has been a good time to concentrate on getting three books ready for their release. Three, really? Yes, and each is a different genre. Throw in an audiobook I narrated. And this doesn’t count the new book I am writing. Yes, I have been a busy author.

Here’s the lowdown.

THE TWIN JINN AND THE ALCHEMY MACHINE

This month, a release date to be announced, I will release the second in my magical realism series for middle grade readers featuring a family of jinn aka genies. My son Ezra created the artwork for the cover you see above.

Jute and Fina Jinn, brother and sister, and their parents, Mira and Elwin, are enchanted beings who move to a small town. They go to a school, where their parents hope they will learn more about people. The twins must pretend to be ordinary 11-year-olds, but they are impatient with the human version of the world. Who could blame them? They have the power to fly, be invisible, and use spells. Humans don’t.

Without their parents knowing, Jute and Fina create an alchemy machine for a science fair project. Their machine does indeed turn any metal into gold, but it also brings unwanted attention, especially from their former master who is desperate to find them.

THE SWANSON SHUFFLE

I began writing The Swanson Shuffle in 1999. Since then, I’ve made numerous revisions and oh-so-many queries. No more begging. It’s time to get this story out there to readers. And that’s what will happen in late March. Here’s a quick look.

Two years out of college, Bia Fernandes leaves a dead-end job to work and live in a psychiatric halfway house, where she learns more than she expects from its ex-patients — just as the Watergate scandal in the U.S. comes to a head in 1974.

Swanson House is a derelict mansion that will be torn down for a highway coming through a dying mill town in Massachusetts. The state, which is clearing out its mental hospitals, hires untrained staff like Bia to help people make the transition. The residents work menial jobs, take meds, and interact like family. The three other staff members at Swanson have their own problems, especially one who gets too close to the people they’re supposed to help.

Bia’s only previous experience was visiting her grandfather in a state mental hospital and talking somebody down from a bad acid trip. But where others have failed, Bia has it in her to help what the staff member she replaced called dented cans. She tries to see the good in them.

FINDING THE SOURCE: EIGHTH IN THE ISABEL LONG MYSTERY SERIES

Isabel Long’s next case comes from yet another unlikely source: a homeless man who approaches her outside a restaurant to say his mother was murdered 43 years ago and the case was never solved. Tom McKenzie was 12 when he found his mother’s body in their home.

Abby McKenzie was a well-liked person, who owned a secondhand bookstore and had a knack of finding valuable books for cheap. Actually, a signed first edition of The Great Gatsby is key to this case. Among the suspects are an avid book collector, a town official prone to stalking women, and her ex-husband’s second wife.

Besides the case’s age, Isabel finds other complications. The murder happened in the small town of Dillard, where Isabel would have to deal once again with a corrupt police chief who openly despises her. And many of the people connected to this case are dead. But Isabel is up to the challenge.

PROFESSOR GROOVY AND OTHER STORIES AUDIOBOOK

This audiobook is a collection of four stories I recorded in my son Nate Livingston’s Mudroom Sound Studio. Lenora Dias, her college hippie friends, and a notorious professor try to make sense of life during the late sixties. This was inspired by my experiment with the counterculture when I was in college. It’s a prequel of sorts to the novel Peace, Love, and You Know What. Just waiting for ACX to review the audiobook. Then I will announce its availability.

Standard
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.

Standard
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

Standard
Magical Realism, The Twin Jinn

My New Series: The Twin Jinn

A bit of news: I am delving into 2021 with a new series, starting with the first book, The Twin Jinn at Happy Jack’s Carnival of Mysteries. I wrote this series for middle-grade readers, but I hope they will appeal to adults who read to and with kids, plus anyone who enjoys magical realism. I expect a February launch.

Right now, Michelle Gutierrez, who designed two of my adult books, has just completed the cover, using an illustration created by my son, Ezra Livingston, and is working on the Kindle and paperback versions.  That’s the cover above.

So, what’s this book about? Here’s a description:

Forget about genies who are fiery spirits or live in lamps. The Twin Jinn at Happy Jack’s Carnival of Mysteries is a story that will make readers believe they are real. 

Jute and Fina Jinn, brother and sister, and their parents are enchanted beings who seek refuge at a traveling carnival after escaping their cruel master. While in hiding, the twins must pretend to be 11-year-old humans, but mischievous and curious, they sometimes get carried away. Who could blame them? The twins have the power to fly, be invisible, and use spells. Thankfully, they have an outlet as carnival kids assisting their parents in a magic act and making friends with their fellow performers, including a shy boy.

Still, amid the fun, there is danger for the Jinn family because their former master, a man with evil intentions, is desperate to get them back, and having a magic act that turns out to be a huge hit could be their undoing.

I’ve tried for a long time to find a publisher, and at one point, even had an agent pitching the series, but, alas, with no luck. So, I’ve decided to do it on my own, with Michelle’s help. Besides I’ve become more savvy about promotion on social media.

So far, I have completed three books in the series  and I’m about a third of the way into the fourth. Stay tuned for news about pre-orders and the launch.

Standard