WHAM! Timewalker Book 1 AUDIOBOOK is NOW AVAILABLE

We are very excited to announce that Wham! Timewalker Book 1 audiobook is NOW AVAILABLE on Audible.com, Amazon.com and iTines.

And you can get the audiobook of WHAM! absolutely FREE with a NO RISK 30-Day FREE TRIAL on AUDIBLE.

They took her world. They took her family. They said it was for the greater good. They lied.

From husband and wife writing team, Carol Marrs Phipps and Tom Phipps, WHAM is an imaginative and original dystopian fantasy where technology and magic stand side by side.

“Rarely have I seen fantasy and science fiction married so successfully.”

When Children and Family Assistance police drag her mom, her dad and her beautiful sister out the door into the night and beat her senseless, Tess Greenwood finds herself alone, her every move watched by the hidden World Alliance. Almost blind after her beating, she flees to the forbidden Broadstreet compound and a troll named Maxi.

So begins Tess’s journey from quiet teen at home to fierce young woman, determined to get back her family any way she can. Even if she must travel time itself.

But time is one thing she has little of. Those arrested in the night seldom live for long, and beautiful young women are destined to become toys for the elite.

Frantic, Tess tries to pull herself together to save her loved ones and her world… and the clock is ticking.

Get your copy and enter the world of the Timewalkers.

“At first, I thought this was your typical dystopian story, but I quickly learned it is so much more. Layer upon layer was peeled back as I read, revealing themes of corruption, power, and greed as well as familial love and loyalty that spans the ages.”

You may have had the pleasure of listening to our amazing narrator’s mesmerizing voice as she read “Time Does Not Exist”, the intro to WHAM!

NOW listen to the enchanting voice of SKY WILDMIST, www.avalonstudiovo.com, as she narrates excerpts for our new WHAM! Timewalker Book 1 audiobook trailer.

Abaddon Meets Longbark

Abaddon went quite speechless as he studied the looming tree, only looking down here and there as he stepped along behind Lance in the thick dry grass. Like some spreading burr oak in a pasture, Longbark was scarcely fifty feet tall with great long horizontal limbs reaching out from a trunk that was better than twelve feet thick above the buttressing roots. “But Lance, it’s got its leaves in the middle of winter.”

“Some kinds of oak are like that. The mothers told me that evergreen oaks used to be right common in the Forest Primeval…”

“Lance!” he whispered frantically. “They’re mad! They’re crazy! They’re petting it like it was a dog or a cow or something.”

“You’ll see,” said Lance with a grin and a shake of his head as he took him by the hand and led him forth to stand before Celeste.

“Ther be no thyng heere at al for to fere, yonge Abaddon,” said Celeste with a kindly smile. “This beth Longbark, and she the moost eld of yere and wyseste beynge a-lyve in Glan Da ybe. Hit nis ne evene possible hir for to harme thee in the leste.” She took him by the hand and drew him up to a branch that stuck down from a limb low enough for him to walk up to. “Come. Takest hold of this heere lowe braunche and lette hir thee yfele.”

“Why, this is frightening him,” thought Lance, as Abaddon turned to him with wide eyes. “You can manage all right, Abby,” he said with a smile and a nod of reassurance. “Celeste would never, ever do anything to hurt you, and that old tree won’t even give you a rash.” He watched Abaddon give in and reach for the branch. “Ah, for all his meanness, he’s just a little boy after all,” he thought.

“So what?” said Abaddon with his customary brashness. “It’s just a plain ol’ stupid tree…”

“Juste myndest that thou halt fast for a tyme if thou wouldest,” said Celeste as she keenly eyed the branch.

Without warning, Abaddon felt as though someone who did not approve was looking all through him. At the very same time, each glossy green leaf in turn folded shut like a book, as its respective petiole went utterly limp, collapsing like a row of dominoes, all the way up and all the way down the branch away from his hand, except for the leaves on one small twig, which remained open and up. “Not fair!” he shouted. “That was no fun at all!” He yanked off a twig with a loud snap, flung it at Lance, picked up a stone the size of a grapefruit and heaved it at Longbark to bounce off with a deep resonant thud. “It’s just a stupid ol’ tree! Why are you idiots all staring at me? You think you’re smart? You’re going to die for trying to make a fool of me by having me touch it! It’s just a dumb stupid tree!” With that, he dashed away through the weeds and vanished into the lava tube.

Ch.7, The Burgeoning

Carol Marrs Phipps and Tom Phipps

Teeuh the Winged Fairy Hatches

Celeste scooped her up and set out for Longbark. Alvita and Nacea were already there with two great baskets of silk. Before long, Nastea the Damned Baby was hanging from one of Longbark’s great limbs in a snug cocoon covered over with leaves. And so began the long communion between the oldest and wisest magical tree and the three most powerful mother Fairies alive. After seven days and seven nights they went to their beds.
There was nothing more for to done. The unmaking of Nasteuh had begun.

Ch. 28, The Reaper Witch

Snow melted, trickling everywhere in the bright February sun. Far above, a raven croaked. Jays and chickadees called. Bound to one of Longbark’s great branches, a leafy cocoon larger than any hornet’s nest began having twitches. Soon, it was rocking from side to side as a lime green split suddenly ran down its side. A pair of titmice flit away to a nearby tree, as a young woman pushed out of the cocoon like a wad of wet lettuce.

She climbed onto the outside and held fast throughout the afternoon as her wings unfolded and her thigh length cascades of dark green hair dried and fell free to stir in the hushed air. As the sun westered to the far rim of the crater, her great luna moth wings now felt flat and firm and she opened her emerald eyes and slipped to the ground.

Celeste, Nacea, Alvita and Rodon were sitting at the board having salsify soup when she appeared. Celeste looked up with a gasp at the only winged Fairy she had ever seen and dropped her spoon into her soup. “A!” chorused everyone, “the Dampned Babi!”

The gorgeous Fairy held out her arms. “Mamas,” she said with her smile of wee shark teeth.

Ch. 31, The Reaper Witch

***

Teeuh is a character from our Heart of the Staff, epic fantasy series, which takes place in medieval times. Since fairies are eternal beings, this is no problem. Wham! is set in the same fictional world the Heart of the Staff series inhabited, albeit in the 21^st century. The above excerpt was taken from The Reaper Witch, Book 5, Heart of the Staff series.

In Wham! Teeuh travels the fairy paths with Daniel, the young elf wizard, to take Tess Greenwood back into the past at the request of her grandfather, Meri Greenwood. Teeuh and Daniel both become major supporting characters from this time onward, and aid Tess in her quest to save the future of her world.

Who is Longbark?

Longbark is a female everwaking oak who was the oldest known tree in the Forest Primeval, possibly as old as Meri Greenwood himself. The evil sorcerer Razzorbauch feared her power, and so uprooted her and transplanted her in Bedd Chwiorydd Tair, or Tomb of the Three Sisters (Towmb of þe Three Susters), an extinct volcano with two craters in the southern Pitmaster’s Kettles, when he imprisoned the three Fairy sisters there at the time that he turned the forest into the Chokewoods in Good Sister, Bad Sister. The very Great Staff of Power was made from one of her branches as was the powerful stick given to Ocker the raven by Meri Greenwood. It is Longbark to whom the Fairies turn for advice on Abaddon in The Burgeoning and the Damned Baby in The Reaper Witch.

everwaking oak – Quercus claudo-ilex R., derwin hollol effro (Old Niarg Standard) (wide awake oak), a dioecious evergreen oak with holly-like elliptical 1″ x 2″ leaves with spiny toothed margins, glossy dark green above and whitish green below, which suddenly fold along the midrib and collapse at each end of the petiole when exposed to certain thigmatic and electromagnetic stimuli in a manner reminiscent of the mimosa’s response to touch. The narrowly oblong 1/4th” x 3/4th” acorns are enclosed by a shallow scaly cap, and are born singly on the end of a stalk. The trees are much the same stature as burr oaks, being thirty to fifty feet tall with a spreading crown somewhat broader than the tree is tall. They are indigenous to very restricted parts of the thinly forested, savanna-like rolling uplands of the Forest Primeval flanking the great Fairy Valley. A number of them, particularly the female known as Longbark, are claimed to possess a magical intelligence which the Fairies regard highly. A number of wizard’s staves and rods have been made from Longbark’s branches, including the Great Staff of Power. The Fairies make a slightly bitter tea from their leaves which is similar to yerba mate, except that its alkaloid concentration is four to five times as strong as that of mate and must be drunk with milk. The Fairies also make bread which can be kneaded from a glutinous flour made from their acorns.

Lance Communes with Longbark

“Wait, Lance!” hollered Celeste. “Ther nis no poynt! Hee can nat nowher ga, and hee wolden out heere a vexynge distourbaunce ybe. We need with Longbark for to speken, and quyet hit most ybe. Thou needist with us for to sytte.”

Lance jogged right back. “But, Mothers, Longbark has never spoken with me. Wouldn’t it be better for me to keep Abaddon out of mischief while the three of you find out what she has to say?”

“Na,” said Celeste. “Longbark spekith to thos who konnen heere. Perchaunce now thou kanst if with us thou sittest and as weo do soo doeth. And if thou trewly to heere hir wysshest, in tyme thou certeynly shal.”

“Truly?” said Lance with wonder in his voice. He had always been awed by their speaking with the trees.

Celeste and Alvita took his hands as Nacea took Celeste’s other hand and all of them stood in silence for a very long spell, facing Longbark’s trunk. Presently, Celeste bowed her head as she rested the palm of her hand on her bark. Lance also rested his hand against her trunk the moment he saw Alvita and Nacea doing likewise. Celeste slowly kneeled, dragging her hand down the trunk, followed by the rest of them. There they stayed for a very long time. Once in a while one of the mothers would rest her forehead against the trunk. “Na i drio ateb eich cwestiwn…” said Celeste in Old Niarg, and then fell silent for a very, very long time. Much later, Lance heard her say: “Bydd angen cywiro’r camgymeriadau…”

For a much longer spell all was silent. Lance noticed that his legs, which had fallen asleep long ago, felt that they had somehow taken root into the earth and it felt quite good. Suddenly he was aware that a kindly and comforting presence had been within him for some time. One by one, various perplexing matters that had been taxing him were resolved and set aside at last. Far, far away he could hear Celeste murmuring: “Oes gynnoch chi rywbeth arbennig mewn golwg?” and after a long while: “Oedd y syniad ynun da, neu a fedrwch chi feddwl am un gwell?”

He had felt chilly for quite some time and was suddenly aware of Celeste taking him by the hand and slowly rising with him as he struggled to get onto his feet. Still holding hands, the four of them made their way without a word through the weeds back to the lava tube. Lance had the queer sensation that the sun was in the wrong place. “I swear it seems earlier than when we brought Abby out here,” he said, just before they entered the tunnel.

“Wel, thou canst righte certeyn be that hit trewly lattir than hit was erlyer ybe,” said Nacea.

“Longbark is so profoundly wise and understanding,” he said as he paused to have a last bewildered look at the sun.