Readers, thank you for taking the time to read about my new novel THE JUMPER CHRONICLES: QUEST FOR MERLIN'S MAP, the first in a series of books that follows the life of a boy and his friends as they explore their world of wondrous creatures hidden from the view of most poor mortals - a world created by the Nordic Gods Thor and Odin - a world of witches, hairy beasts and adventure. 



All my life I wanted to contribute to the fantasy world that Lewis, Tolkien and Rowling built, a world where talking lions protected me, where the fate of the world rested on the shoulders of a Hobbit, and more recently where a young boy scared by fate must find his footing in the world. This world of realistic fantasy has brought into our dimension the power to sweep the reader off. I was not content to simply read about these dimensions. I wanted to create my own. I had been writing about Charlie since I was in the sixth grade. He had special powers that allow him to do extraordinary things.  As the years went by, Charlie got swept under the rug as I pursued more "grownup" endeavors like college, law school and teaching high school. It wasn’t until the fates graced me with two little girls and the world of the stay-at-home dad that my old chest was reopened in the attic and out came the dusty composition books in which Charlie had been hibernating for so many years.

I dusted off them off and reintroduced to my stories to my own children after almost fifteen years. It was so exciting to sit down and write once again, watching the story coalesce and take flight.  I kept the shell of the original characters, but have infused them with new life over a multi-volume story. This is the first volumn.

Charlie Burrows, an ordinary twelve-year-old, lives with his mother in a small, seaside New England town. He never realized that he was imbued with a most incredible power, passed to him by the Norse Gods through the Druids of Brittony, enabling him to jump between dimensions into other parallel worlds: He is, in other words, a Jumper.  He discovers this when he is carried off, with his friend Bailey, by a mysterious stranger who transports them instantaneously on a beam of light to a castle in the northlands. The stranger, Lord Grayson, is a shape-shifting Manserian, a master of all the elements, and headmaster of the Thornfield School, an elite academy for children with extraordinary powers. It just so happens that Thornfield is also run by a secret society called the Order, built over the ruins of the wizard Merlin’s castle.

Thus begins the magical adventures of Charlie and Bailey, who meet up with Mick and Tillie, also students with exceptional powers, and a werecat named Joelle, who can change from a cute Siamese house-cat into a ferocious tiger. The friends, each with unique paranormal powers, must unravel the mystery of Merlin’s three-dimensional map and its links to magic rings, power crystals, and other dimensions, other worlds.

The story is an enchanting mixture of Arthurian legend, Druidic lore, and contemporary fantasy-hero exploits, set against the forces of darkness that are always waiting, waiting, waiting for another chance to take control. In the midst of this, Charlie, must also meet the challenge of finding a father he has never known and thought to be dead, caught within a trans-dimensional rift.

I hope that you enjoy reading about Charlie as much as I have enjoyed writing this story over the last twenty years.

The book is available now from the Savant Bookstore and on Amazon.com. 

Sincerely,
W. C. Peever
Author of THE JUMPER CHRONICLES: QUEST FOR MERLIN'S MAP