Title: SHELTER ISLAND
Author: John Paul Tucker
Publisher: Brownridge Publishing
Pages: 224
Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy Adventure
Thirteen-year-old Cary and his sister Clarisse must return home every
day after school to mind their eight year old brother, Gregory. “It’s a
non-negotiable,” insist their work-obsessed parents. There is another
problem. Clarisse and Gregory don’t like Cary much, and Cary doesn’t
much like anything, especially being tagged with his gummy-fingered
little brother. But their troubles are about to grow talons.
While bickering over the contents of a small, intricately embroidered
pouch, the siblings unintentionally summon three mail-clad birds, who
hasten their three young conscripts to Shelter Island, refuge to a long
divided realm hidden from the children’s homeland for hundreds of years.
Spotted above enemy territory, the small company is attacked. Clarisse
and Gregory escape to the caves of Husgard. Cary’s captors dispatch him
to Vangorfold, a centuries old stronghold sworn to Husgard’s
destruction. Entangled in a centuries old conflict, the children’s own
blur of problems comes into sharp focus, hastening the fortunes, for
good or ill, not only of a forgotten civilization of birds, but of the
children’s homeland.
ORDER YOUR COPY:
Amazon
Clarisse hovered over the tiny
artifact the same way
her parents would have
conducted their research. The letters
on the scroll were written in
the same spidery golden
threads of the embroidered
feather on the pouch.
She hesitated to check a word.
Three fair feathers travellers are,
Bearing friends or foes afar.
Bound together, by bearers three,
Summons three bearers to bear ye.
“It’s a riddle,” said Gregory, his eyebrows climbing with
each new revelation.
“Maybe,” said Clarisse, who had recalled a passage
from a story she had read. “It
sounds more like an enchantment.”
Interview with John Paul Tucker
Can you tell us a little bit about
the characters in Shelter Island?
Cary, Clarisse and Gregory are latchkey
siblings who have been pretty much left to manage themselves by a pair of
professional parents who are buried deep in examining artifacts from a recent
dig, which concern the continent’s history on which they live, the Fragile
Lands. The siblings have issues. Cary has withdrawn and argues with just about
everybody and has slowly built up a resentment towards his younger brother.
Gregory is feeling pretty lost for a reason you’ll read more about in the
second book of the series, The Rooster and the Raven King. Their parents
tend to dote on Gregory more than they ever did on Cary and Clarisse – when the
anthropologists are around. Clarisse has been caught in the middle and plays
referee to her two brothers. But their blur of problems is about to come into
sharp focus when, bickering over the contents of a small embroidered pouch,
they accidentally summon three birds of prey, who whisk them away to a secret
island inhabited by a civilization of intelligent birds mired in troubles of
their own. The remainder of the characters, which I will keep
under wraps for now, inhabit Shelter
Island.
Can you tell us a little bit about
your next books or what you have planned for the future?
Happy you asked. Inspired by Lilith and Phantastes, George
MacDonald’s classic fairytales for adults,
my latest work is a Heroic Fantasy for ages 12 and up. Will Flint’s
longing for his missing father ignites a dramatic and fateful quest into a
mythical country in which the unseen things of the world have transformed into
creatures of elemental power, a land in which one impulsive request transforms
one realm and shatters another. The novel is a little
darker than my first middle grade books, but who doesn’t like to feel their
heart thumping once in a while? You can watch the book trailer at my author
website: www.johnpaultucker.com
How long would you say it takes you
to write a book?
The first draft of
approximately 50,000 words — six months. Subsequent edits and rewrites, and further
edits after my publisher took it on, while I was working on other manuscripts —
3 years!
What is your favorite childhood
book?
Jonathan Livingston
Seagull,
a novella by Richard Bach & Green
Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
If you could spend the day with one
of the characters from Shelter Island
who would it be? Please tell us why you chose this particular character, where
you would go and what you would do.
I
would spend the day with Fyrndagas Underdel Dearth, the Third. Dearth is first
into a fray and last to leave a battle. He’s cantankerous and doesn’t do small
talk, but in a pinch he’s the one you would want on your side. I have no idea
where we would go or what we would do. He takes the lead. In all likelihood the
day would involve spying, pilfering of something needed to further the cause of
Fridorfold, and a daring escape. Did I mention Dearth’s a rat? Actually, he’s
an Underdel, not to be mistaken for the talkative, rather skittish and much
rounder Underdens. Just don’t call him a r-a-t to his rather long-toothed,
whiskered face.
What was the hardest scene from Shelter Island to write?
If
I told you how many times I edited the first scene, which happens to be the
entire first chapter, you would be appalled.
What made you want to become a
writer?
I
have always found stories compelling. Books opened up new worlds and introduced
peculiar characters I would have liked to have as friends. Stories taught me
profound truths which I could not grasp any other way. But it was Ernest
Hemmingway’s Old Man and the Sea and Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a novella
by Richard Bach which had the greatest impact on my young and impressionable
imagination. I wept for Hemmingway’s old fisherman. Then, I got angry. I refused
to believe that the old man’s experience, which read like a sad parable, was
all life had to offer. Jonathan Seagull, in contrast, swept alongside a young
artist and promised much, much more than meets the eye. I was astounded that
stories could wield so much power. Perhaps, those novels were the grand impetus,
when I knew there would be no turning back.
Just for fun
(a Favorite book: The
Book of the Dun Cow by Walter Wangerin Jr.
(b Favorite website: So many…too busy! I expend a lot of
energy on two of my own: www.johnpaultucker.com
& www.thewriterslessonbook.com.
My favourite websites when writing are: www.etymonline.com,
www.onelook.com, & www.freelang.net.
Thanks so much for visiting with us today!
John Paul Tucker holds degrees in Theatre
and Theology and has many years experience as an Ontario Certified English
Language Teacher, in addition to teaching mime, puppetry and Drama to teens and
children. His unique journey has furnished him with an eclectic head of ideas.
He is currently celebrating his 50th
article on www.thewriterslessonbook.com,
an educational website he created for writers, featuring writing tips and
techniques harvested from the books we love to read. He has published poems in
the Toronto Sun, Little Trinity Print Magazine and Imago Arts
e-magazine. His poem City Sidewalks won first prize in a Toronto
wide poetry contest. Two of his short stories, The Crooked Tree and The
Debt Collector have each won a prize awarded by The Word Guild and The
Prescott Journal respectively. You will find one of his fantasy
stories recently published in the popular Hot Apple Cider anthology Christmas
with Hot Apple Cider. JP has been busy polishing up The Rooster and the
Raven King & The Rise of the Crimson King, Books II & III of
The Song of Fridorfold trilogy, pursuing Cary, Clarisse and Gregory on
their fantastic adventures.
John Paul is excited to be putting the
final touches to his fourth novel, a YA fantasy inspired by the remarkable
storyteller, George MacDonald. Gather the latest news about JP’s upcoming
novels, enjoy a book trailer, dive into some free stories and poems, contribute
some art work, take a peek at some photos, or for no other reason drop by to
say hello at his official author website www.johnpaultucker.com.
John’s latest book is the middle grade
fantasy adventure, Shelter
Island.
Website Address: https://www.johnpaultucker.com
Facebook Address: https://www.facebook.com/johnpaultucker.author/
0 comments:
Post a Comment