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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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Isabel Long Mystery Series

A New Book at the Solstice

Today is the Solstice, in which winter takes its turn on the shortest day of the year. It also means the launch of my next book, Missing the Deadline, no. 7 in my Isabel Long Mystery Series.

I began this series with Chasing the Case when we still lived in Taos, New Mexico. That was in late 2016. One day I got it in my head that I wanted to write a mystery. I had already written books for adult and young readers, literary fiction and magical realism, respectively. One is even bilingual.

So, I sat down at my computer and the pieces came together fast for Chasing the Case. Extremely fast. That’s how it works for me.

It made sense that my protagonist, Isabel Long, would tell the story, so I wrote it in first-person, and because I want my readers to feel they’re in the middle of the action, in present tense as well

Here’s Isabel’s back story: she’s just come off a bad year after her husband died and she lost her job as a newspaper’s top editor when it went corporate. She is what the French call une femme d’un certain age. Isabel’s bit of a smart ass but she has a caring heart. Yes, I’ll admit there is quite a lot of me in her.

After a year of properly grieving, Isabel is ready for a new life. And that’s when we first meet her. She decides to solve a 28-year-old mystery of a woman who went missing in her town of a thousand people. It was Isabel’s first big story as a rookie reporter.

Isabel uses the tools she relied on as a journalist to solve this case. And she has a ‘Watson’ — her 92-year-old mystery-loving mother who’s come to live with her. (My late mother inspired this character.) Isabel also takes a part-time job at the local watering hole, the Rooster, where not only does she find clues for her case, but a love interest in its owner, Jack, a local guy.

I had such fun writing Chasing the Case, I quickly went onto the next, Redneck’s Revenge. Hey, I thought, maybe I’ll turn this into a series.

I struck out querying agents and publishers until I found Crooked Cat Books. Here was the message I got from Laurence and Steph Patterson in Fall 2017: “Thank you very much indeed for reaching out to Crooked Cat with your submission recently. We loved what we’ve read so far of Chasing the Case, and would therefore welcome the remainder of the story for our further consideration. Do please be in touch.”

And now Crooked Cat through its imprint darkstroke books has stuck with me through this series as well as publishing two of my hilltown books, The Sacred Dog and Northern Comfort.

Writing a series means I can hold onto the characters I love but let them do something else. That’s what happens in Missing the Deadline. Cyrus Nilsson, the noted poet who was once a suspect in a previous case, becomes a client wanting her to investigate the shooting of his first literary agent.

Gerald Danielson was found shot in the head at his home in Meadows Falls. He survived but isn’t the same successful agent who moved there from New York City. The police ruled it an attempted suicide, but Cyrus has his doubts. Certainly there are people, including a vindictive ex-wife, a jilted local writer, and even an apparently devoted sister, who might have motive. 

I will be telling you more about the characters, themes and settings for Missing the Deadline in future posts.

But for now I want you to know Missing the Deadline is live on Kindle. Paperback readers will have to wait a few months. Thank you to those who continue to read my books. 

Oh, one another announcement: I am well into writing no. 8, Following the Source. Wait ‘til you read what Isabel is up to next.

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