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.