It’s #BookQW and Fern needs ‘room’ for adventure!
More from Chapter 1:
It looked ordinary enough, but their bathroom held a secret. That secret allowed Fern to keep two promises this weekend—to Mom that she’d be safe at home and to Gran that she’d be on the isle for their inspection.
Pulling out the pouch, Fern removed a glass piece on a fine chain. She’d found the long teardrop among her mom’s things and had taken it for dress-up when she’d been little, but she didn’t think Mom had made this piece. The color-flecked glass wasn’t one Mom used. And it did something no other glasswork of Mom’s did.
As she always did, Fern held the glass on her flat hand. “I wish to go to Gran’s.”
The glass glowed bright green and warmed her palm. A wind rose, circling her hand and then her, whipping her loose hair around her face. Light from the teardrop rose into the air, changing as it did. Bright green, to sage, yellow green, rusty brown, chestnut brown and back to bright green again. She braced her legs against the current until the light settled on the wall, swirling round and round in a perfect doughnut. The doughnut grew, nearly touching the floor and not quite reaching above her head.
Portal? Gateway? Wormhole? Fern called it her rabbit hole. Secret passages like this were supposed to be in wardrobes, forgotten attics, the study—or was it the library?—with Colonel Mustard. But the bathroom? This was where she first discovered what the teardrop did, and because it was the only magic Fern could do in her otherwise mundane life, she used it there.
Ducking, she stepped one foot over the glow in their bathroom in Colorado’s Front Range, through the rabbit hole and into Gran’s bathroom on the Isle of Giuthas in the Irish Sea.
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Plant yourself in the delightful coming-of-age story that begins The Windborne series.
Buy The Witch of the Meadows on my Payhip store and everywhere ebooks are sold.
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On a personal note:
I feel like I’m popping in to give an update that I’m still here and still writing on The Windborne series. We’re coming up on 8 years since I published The Witch of the Meadows and 11 since I published my first book. (The Unraveling, free ebook on many platforms!) I kind of cringe that I didn’t have a 10 year anniversary celebration post last June. But that seems to be where I am these days.
As I’ve aged, many ‘real life’ things have stepped in to claim the attention I used to spend on writing. Two aging houses to care for, family members deserving attention, and accumulated stuff we need to make decisions on–the infamous clutter clearing cropping up in every conversation we have with out peer group. I’ve been missing from my ‘author life’ much of the last two years, and also stopped posting on my nature blog. We’re spending more time traveling, and with family. And I’m dedicating more time to a passion project: genealogy.
I’ve been interested in family history since I was a teenager. Back when my historical fantasy trilogy of The Unraveling, The Twisting and The Binding were published, I wrote several blog posts about my love of family stories and how details from my grandfather’s steam engine business played a part in my imagining my story world. Well, as other family genealogists have aged and passed on, I have found myself in the position of family genealogist for both my parents’ lines, and several of my husband’s family lines. I have their photos, written notes and many oral histories. In what feels like a race against time, I’m publishing photos on digital genealogy sites and pulling together the stories. I’m also seeking homes for these at historical museums where the ancestors lived.
So, I’m nearing the end of first draft editing on the 5th book in The Windborne series, but it’s happening at a much slower pace than the previous books. Please bear with me!
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