Middle grade books are the best ones for fantasy! Check out an excerpt from this final installment in the Falinnheim Chronicles and then download your own copy of Tales of the Forgotten Founders. And then take a sneak peek into the author's next project! It sounds like another good one! Then follow the tour for even more. Best of luck entering the giveaway!
Zed and Tuesday ought to be living the good life. After all, it’s not every day two kids take down an evil dictator and their mom gets put in charge of an entire dimension. But after moving into Falinnheim’s palace, they learn that life as royalty isn’t as carefree as they’d imagined.
Mysterious hidden passages aren’t the only secrets lurking within the palace walls. When the siblings discover a stash of banned books, they realize everything they’ve been told about Falinnheim’s history might be a lie. And though contact between worlds has been cut off for centuries, returning home might not be as impossible as their parents claim.
Could the adventures of a runaway monk, a reluctant viking, a silent ambassador, and a rebel librarian hold the solutions to both problems? To find the truth, Tuesday and Zed will have to learn the stories of Falinnheim’s forgotten founders.
Read an excerpt:
The tale of Cyril the Librarian begins with a library, a fire, and a daring plan.
This story is not about Cyril. But all stories are connected, just as all people are, so this is where we must begin. We’ll get to Selene in a minute.
Long, long before Cyril’s story began, a man named Alexander ruled the world. At least, that’s what Alexander decided to tell everyone. In reality, he didn't even know about most of the world, let alone run it. But Alexander came from a long line of kings and was the student of a long line of philosophers and generals, each with their own roots in legendary tales of heroism and greatness. The only way young Alexander could see to take his place among their stories was to create one of his own. So when he’d finished taking over all the lands and kingdoms he knew about, he proclaimed those were all the lands that existed.
Alexander was an ambitious man, but not a terribly creative one, so the title he took to celebrate his achievements was simply Alexander the Great. (A better name than Alexander the Adequate, you must admit. But still—not the most original.) He became king of Macedon at the age of twenty, and by the age of thirty he was king of Greece, Babylon, Persia, and Egypt as well. And by the age of thirty-two, he was dead.
He was called Alexander the Great, not Alexander the Healthy and Long-lived.
This story is not about Alexander either.
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What’s Next?
A sneak peek into the world of Otherland
by C.W. Allen
Tales of the Forgotten Founders is the third and final installment in the Falinnheim Chronicles series. I’ve had such a fantastic time exploring the world of Falinnheim and getting to know Zed, Tuesday, and the rest of the crew! Ending a series might seem bittersweet, but in reality I’m so excited to finally spill all the beans about the worldbuilding mysteries I’ve had to hold back in the first two books.
So, what’s next? I’m so glad you asked, because I’m REALLY excited about it. My next project explores an entirely different setting from Falinnheim. Mellie Morton Is Not Imaginary takes characters from international mythology and forces them to live in the same neighborhood. Here’s the plot:
Mellie Morton has enough trouble navigating the foster care system and dodging bullies (kids and adults alike). But when a dare sends her through an empty door frame in a vacant lot, she discovers a whole new world of problems: now she's stranded in Otherland, home to the world's myths and legends, who insist she's made up as well. If she can't find a way to prove she's real, she'll be trapped in Otherland forever. And in Otherland, people only last as long as their stories—once Reality forgets her, she'll disappear entirely.
Mellie enlists the help of a notorious outlaw and a talking fox in her race to find a way home before time runs out. But first, they'll have to talk their way out of jail, complete a fairy's treasure hunt, fulfil an oracle's prophecy, and confront Mellie's nemesis: Santa Claus. In learning what it means to be real, Mellie has a chance to write her own story, and change both worlds in the process.
I had an absolute blast getting to work with an evil tooth fairy, a mischievous Japanese fox-spirit, a West African spider librarian, a legendary Chinese warrior, and fourteen Icelandic Christmas ogres all in the same story. So even though Zed and Tuesday’s adventures are coming to an end, there’s lots of great stuff to look forward to in my next series! Look for Mellie Morton is Not Imaginary, coming from Cinnabar Moth Publishing in summer 2024.
Her debut novel Relatively Normal Secrets is the winner of the Gold Quill Award, being named the best children’s book of the year by a Utah author. The Falinnheim Chronicles series continues with The Secret Benefits of Invisibility (Cinnabar Moth, 2022) and Tales of the Forgotten Founders (Cinnabar Moth, 2023). She also has shorter work published in numerous anthologies. Keep up with her latest projects at cwallenbooks.com.
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C. W. Allen will be awarding a $10 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
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Tales of the Forgotten Founders by C. W. Allen is already on my daughter's birthday book wish list. She's the one that loves to read.
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