Michael Liddle and Alowyn face more than one set-back in their quest to find the Ideema Gift. It appears that no matter what they discover, the real truth seems to be something else entirely. They had located the Bastion, which had led them to another world where the trail of the Gift was picked up once more, but the clues uncovered there pointed them back to Earth. But where is the Gift? The means to find it fail and Michael believes the search is now hopeless. Despite these difficulties,...

"As long as she lives, may she turn uglier each day…be less fair, less desirable and that it continue until her death."Black, evil, merciless words spoken by one whom Ilena, in all of her innocence, believed loved her: a curse founded upon envy and desire but chiefly uttered in an appeal for justice seasoned with revenge. Or so did Marta convince herself.But that is only one type of curse, for there are others.Some would believe that they are born under a curse and ...

Nothing could be more idyllic than growing up in a small Oklahoman town. That was as true for me as for everyone else in my neighbourhood until I began the third grade. Then things changed and not for the better. But perhaps the worst of all that happened to me was the end of my friendship with the girl three doors down from my home, a relationship I had imagined, even in that prepubescence age, would last forever.But the warm sunshine of that effervescent childhood was over—dead. ...

King Sylvian Jolivet slowly rose from his prostrated position before the icons of his faith. Despite the past hour of baring his soul before his Lord, he felt little peace. He had allowed no priest to accompany him or to act to intercede on his behalf. There were secrets, no, not of the kingdom, that he wished no clergy, no wife, no man or trusted advisor to be privy to. These were to be kept within his own heart and shared only with God.The king stood staring at the sacred emblems...

What if you discovered that your own past is not what you thought? In fact like no other on Earth? That you alone have no common ancestry with the human race? And that your destiny had been set out for you from choices made by others who existed eons ago? What if you were eleven year old Michael Liddle?None of these questions ever occurred to Michael to ask of himself. When he walked alone into Cantonville Junior High on the first day of school, all he wondered about was if he woul...

Michael Liddle wants to yank the hair right out of his head!It’s bad enough that he and Alowyn, the Tylani princess, are included in the Ideema prophecy. Now the Procifi are naming him the “Arribahur” — “the one who opens the bridge” to their home world. All Michael and Alowyn really know is that they are expected to find the “Gift of the Ideema,” a device that will save the worlds of the Tylani. It’s a lot of pressure for a seventh-grader.In the last year alone, Michael ha...

"Cralnywni dor raca! Now meet your death!"These words were not spoken to Michael Liddle but the possibility of death draws ever nearer due to the machinations of the Eldest of the Eldest and the continuing plotting of Rogdul.Though stymied in his latest attempt to kill Michael and prevent him from obtaining the second component to the Ideema Gift, the First of Cru's thirst for revenge remains unabated and he conspires to thwart Michael's on-going efforts to recover the last t...

Broderick knew who he was: a peasant, a commoner, a nobody, at best a stable boy. Why couldn't everyone else see him for who he truly was? Especially her! Ever since Princess Charlotte had ordered him to ride with her to the old mill, his life had been turned upside down with no one granting him the right to choose his own future. With every new situation that befell him with the princess, Broderick only felt the chains tightening about him, the cell door in the castle dungeon looming that...

It is often said the past is an unstoppable current, flowing relentlessly into the present and forever shifting the contours of the shores that might have once constituted the future. This is no less true in small villages where memories are long and the effects of both good and evil dwell in the minds and hearts of its residents for generation after generation.David Hutchings and Clare Edwards arrive at the Tudor Arms in the village of St. Milborn-Under-the-Hill for ostensibly dif...

"Once this place had a name. A place dear to all of the Yeddura. They called it G'yerrap. There was a sea nearby. It was lush, full of life, verdant, more than anywhere else on this planet. I still live with the decision of which I played a part to turn this world and its sisters into a ruin. You see, young one, terrible powers require terrible responses and create terrible consequences. One of these is before you even now. And I would not wish you to have to live with the consequences of ...

Broderick knew who he was: a peasant, a commoner, a nobody, at best a stable boy. Why couldn’t everyone else see him for who he truly was? Especially her! Ever since Princess Charlotte had ordered him to ride with her to the old mill, his life had been turned upside down with no one granting him the right to choose his own future. With every new situation that befell him with the princess, Broderick only felt the chains tightening about him, the cell door in the castle dungeon looming that...

Michael Liddle wants to yank the hair right out of his head!It's bad enough that he and Alowyn, the Tylani princess, are included in the Ideema prophecy. Now the Procifi are naming him the "Arribahur"—"the one who opens the bridge" to their home world. All Michael and Alowyn know is that they are expected to find the "Gift of the Ideema," a device that will save the worlds of the Tylani. It's a lot of pressure for a seventh-grader.In the last year alone, Michael has discove...