books just slightly out of this world
We took Silver!
And it’s all because of YOU!
Into the City of Light won the Silver Medal for Best Visionary Fiction at the COVR Awards last night. Thank you for slogging through that looooong ballot and voting for it.
The Coalition of Visionary Resources (COVR) is the trade association for the Mind Body Spirit marketplace. Check them out at https://covr.org/
May 1st is upon us, the time everything is greening up in the Northern Hemisphere, even in the mile-hi city. As the Sufi poet and mystic Rumi put it, “The green ones have come from the other world, tipsy like the breeze up to some new foolishness.”
On this day, the fae ride out on the Wild Hunt. It is a day of fertility, celebrated by dancing around the May Pole, men and women weaving colorful ribbons as they move sun-wise and widdershins around the pole. The May Queen is crowned and in the old days, people made love in the fields to ensure good crops and fertility among themselves and animals.
I celebrated this holiday in Beneath the Hallowed Hill by imagining a Wild Hunt that started ages ago, a faery lost in time returning at last to the flower maiden, Blodeuwedd. Michael also returns to Anne and in their union, an old promise is quickened—a child and the return of the king.
What’s the news? I’m working on the second in the Mystic Assassin series. I’d planned to take her to Russia, but remember the man who was head on one of the right-wing militias who was an FBI informant? That and Stephen gave me wild ideas. Rainey gets pulled away from her usual missions to investigate domestic terrorist groups. But she might end up in Russia after all.
Next comes the fifth in the Power Places series. This one will be set in Cambodia at Angkor Wat. A mine-sniffing rat discovers a lost artifact deep in the jungle unleashing a force everyone thought was just legend. Cambodia still has mine left over from the war decades past. They use specially trained rats with an amazing sense of smell to find them. Check out this site to read more about them. This guy below won a Gold Medal for his work.
My Shopify store is on pause, but you can still get my books anywhere else—eBook sites, bookstores, and libraries.
Into the City of Light is now out in audiobook form, narrated by J. Bruce McRell, the same man who read Into the Hallowed Hill. Click the image to purchase.
And ~ drumroll please ~ new covers are coming for the first three books of the Power Places series. FrinaArts Design did such a breath-taking job on Assassin Awakens that I asked her to do one for Into the City of Light. Wow! I’ll be trotting out some new covers very soon. You’ll be the first to see them.
In Light,
Theresa
Great news! The wonderful narrator of Beneath the Hallowed Hill, J. Bruce McRell, agreed to read Into the City of Light!
And he’s wrapped it up. He has such a smooth, yet dramatic voice! We’re so excited.
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Spanish? Easy peasy. We had fun trying to figure out the pronunciation of Tibetan, Quechua, and Aymara words. We did our best.
When can you get your paws on it? We still have some sound checking to do. Then we upload it to Audible and they do their quality control thing. So, soon….ish.
We’ll let you know and we’ll have some download coupons to give away, too!
In the meantime, if you haven’t read it yet, head on over to my bookstore and enter SAVE20 at checkout for a 20% discount on anything in the store. We feel like celebrating.
Halfway down the Nile in a sleepy little town originally called Nubt is the temple of Kom Ombo dedicated to the crocodile neter Sobek and the hawk Horus. Here is where we face our fears. I wrote about this temple in Under the Stone Paw.
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There’s a tunnel that runs from the holy of holies niche under the paving stones and comes out near the wall to the east. It is said in the old days that the area was flooded and the crocodiles would sun themselves around this pool. Initates had to swim through this tunnel and emerge without becoming any reptiles’ next meal.
Talk about scary (except Stephen and Hakim always said the crocodiles were well fed).
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The tunnel is closed now, but when I first visited this temple when Hakim was still leading tours, it was open and we all got to experience the initiation — sans the water and crocodiles. I crawled in and about halfway through, a huge bolt of energy hit me right in my sacrum and ran up my spine to my head. Wow! I felt like a crocodile for a moment and I was filled with energy the rest of the day.
The fourth book in the Power Places series is out now!
These legendary mystics want a peaceful life. But with the fate of humanity hanging in the balance, a new mission brings them too close to darkness.
Anne Le Clair and Michael Levy prefer the mundane joys of parenthood to any more world-saving. But when all the crystal key holders are summoned to Peru, they must once more answer the call of duty. For there in the Andes lies a mystical doorway that can usher in a new golden age.
Preparing for an ancient ritual to open the gate for the Old Ones to return, the couple is trailed by a sinister magician. And after the dark sorcerer steals all the known crystals for himself, Anne and Michael must prevent him from sealing the portal forever and seizing control of humankind’s consciousness.
Can the Anne and Michael rescue Earth’s future one more time?
Into the City of Light is the extraordinary fourth book in the Power Places urban fantasy series. If you like archaeological adventures, spiritual teachings, and international exploration, then you’ll love Theresa Crater’s visionary tale.
Buy Into the City of Light to delve into Incan mysteries today!
Want a print copy? Just click here.
Happy Halloween – or Samhain if you’re into the old European traditions.
On the Celtic calendar, this is the first day of winter. The end of the harvest season. A day when the veils are thin, and we can see into the other worlds.
Which I know you like to do since in all my books we get to see beyond the ordinary everyday reality. Ghosts haunting crystals. Illuminati masters bent on evil. Egyptian statues that come to life and lead our heroes on journeys through other worlds. Crystal skulls pronouncing the fate of a character.
And this year we get a full moon to boot! Plus all the other regular craziness of a pandemic. Typhons, wildfires, hurricanes. Not to mention the U.S. election! There’s a polar vortex in the southern hemisphere, which happens when things heat up too fast – I think. Also, down under it should be Beltane and the beginning of summer according to the Celtic calendar if we followed nature.
NEWS! I’ve got a new bookstore. Hope you check it out here. Use NEWSLETTER20 at checkout for a 20% discount (good for two weeks).
I know a lot of you have read all my books and I am so grateful. I love hearing your thoughts and reactions. Another Power Places mystery soon! I’m finishing the grand finale on the Peru novel. I’ll let you know as soon as it’s available.
Introducing the Mystic Assassin Series
A spin-off from the Power Places Series
What if you knew what was on the other side?
Meet Rainey
Left for dead on the battlefields of Afghanistan, she rose again
with a divine lethal mission and an otherworldly agenda.
But her latest target isn’t on the hit list—he’s in the White House.
Army veteran Rainey has a lot of blood to shed before her work is done. Warned not to make a martyr of a corrupt president, she must stop a world-class rival assassin so she can create the illusion of a natural death. But to get close to the villain-in-chief, she’ll have to elude the evil soldiers who once made her life a living hell.
Can Rainey execute her assignment before she becomes a monster’s next victim?
Assassin Awakens is the first book in the gripping Mystic Assassin thriller series. If you like powerful heroines, fast-paced action, and surprising twists and turns, then you’ll love this eye-opening novel.
John Matthews has given us a new addition to Arthurian literature, The Sword of Ice and Fire, the first novel in a promised series. It is a delightful read, told in a fairytale, mythic voice, suitable for children and adults alike.
John Matthews is one of the world’s experts in all things Arthurian. He says he’s been studying the tradition half his life, but I think he’s being modest. In his Author’s Note, he says the impetus for this story was to restore a part of the tale lost to us—Arthur’s childhood. He also weaves in characters and creatures from other tales, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Mabinogion, to name two.
Matthews creates a magical, mystical atmosphere with the child Arthur living in an ethereal castle guarded by the Nine, known as priestesses of Avalon, but here more ancient, powerful, and mysterious. They have that detached curiosity the immortal ones show toward mere humans, yet realize they guard a treasure in Arthur, the son of the Dragon, the future king.
Arthur grows, protected by Hector and Elaine, fighting with his almost sibling Cai, later taught by the Green Knight and Merlin. Matthews brings in an assortment of magical creatures to both aid and oppose Arthur as he gradually learns of his ancestry, the prophecies about him, and his fate to bring back the Four Hallows of Britain—the sword, the cauldron, the spear, and the chessboard.
I kept remembering when our fifth-grade teacher read The Odyssey aloud to us. We had story time for half an hour each day. She’d pick someone to summarize what we’d read last time, then let us relax and listen as she wove the tale of the great warrior trying to get home. I imagined myself reading Matthews’ novel to children of that age, then picking other foundational myths for the great cultures of the world to read to them, steeping them in the spiritual lessons behind all these tales. This should be a vital part of each child’s education around the world, helping them dream and develop a mythic imagination.
I recommend this book highly. You will be entertained, educated, and uplifted.