Children of Light and Darkness Secrets

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Children of Light and Darkness
   

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The first cut of this novel is complete.  I'm working on the second cut.

I think you will be delighted with this novel.  It really hits a lot of fun points.  There is a huge twist at the end that should come as a fantastic surprise, but you'll say was evident all the way along.  There is still room for another book.  The whole issue of Lumier'e and Aleksandr is not resolved yet.  There are a lot of positively fine loose ends that need to be gathered up.  I know you will like the new Kathrin character--James too.

 

Sveta found the tablet in the British Museum, and Kathrin's sister came to live in Rosewood. Christmas time at Hastings. I have enough material that I may make another book. I'm up to chapter 16 and I have not fully resolved the setup.


You might ask yourself about Kathrin. Why would she know what to do about Sveta and Klava? Why was she so successful at getting them to come back with her? What does her father know?
How do you raise twin goddesses? Especially when one could turn out to be evil. This is the premise of Sisters. What happens when you put them in school? What kind of problems and excitement might they cause? One of my favorite chapters, so far, is the big fight. No magic allowed, but Sveta sure tries. What else can Klava do when her sister starts to blow her cover.
 

Sisters is moving along. The sisters are Lumie're and Aleksandr's children, Sveta and Klava. Their parents had an accident in China, across the border from Burma, and never returned to camp. Their children have been living in the wild ever since. Kathrin and James meet the children because a village in Burma has adopted them as their goddesses, the goddess of light and the goddess of darkness. Now the questions are: how are James and Kathrin going to get close enough to verify they are Lumie're and Aleksandr's children? How will they encourage them to leave Burma? How will they get them out of Burma? And the most difficult question, why did Lumie're and Aleksandr bring their children with them on such a dangerous mission, and why didn't "the organization" know their children were missing?
 

One of my readers just finished with The Goddess of Darkness, The Shadow of Darkness, and The Shadow of Light. I know a book is a keeper when this particular reader doesn't put the book down--she didn't. She read the books straight through one by one. She gave me some notes, and I will incorporate them. Since I had such a great response, I decided to explore writing another book and an idea fell into place. You can see the working title--Sisters as number 18 below.
 

Kathrin McClellan and James Calloway are the initial characters in the book. They are an MI19 (the organization) operative and agent. We met Kathrin in The Shadow of Light she interrogated both Lumie're and Aleksandr for the British government. The year is now 1970 and Kathrin and James are investigating the loss of Lumie're and Aleksandr while on a mission/vacation in Burma on the Chinese border. That is Kathrin and James' cover too--an adventure vacation.  They aren't married, but they are romantically involved--kind of. .

 

 

Research:

The purpose of each of the Aegypt novels is to allow you, the reader, to live the life and times portrayed in the novel.  This requires intensive research and study.  Many of the points are ancillary, and may be unnoticed by the reader, but to me they are critical.  Here is how carefully I have detailed these works: in The Goddess of Darkness, I needed the name of the Greek ambassador to England in 1940.  I couldn't find this information anywhere--I wrote to the Greek embassy in London England, and in about two weeks, I had the answer.  This was an unnecessary detail, but this represents how detailed the historical research was for these books. 

The Question: 

The Aegypt novels are moving in a beautiful and controlled direction.  Their purpose is to let the reader live during a period and place in history.  Specifically, they march through time, hitting the high points where evil has touched the world.  Children is a setup novel.  It is a transition between The Shadow of Light and the next big point in time.  Below, I outline the question that originally drove Aegypt.  There is much more here. 

The primary question I asked when I wrote Children was:  what happens when I introduce two real immature goddesses into the world of Western Civilization and specifically--British society.  One may be evil and one may be good.  What is their mother, any mother to do.  I especially wanted to depict the school adventures of these girls.

When the world was young, people believed in all kinds of gods and goddesses.  In the novel The Goddess of Light, I expand the question I asked in Aegypt, what would happen if modern people came face to face with a real goddess.  Leora, the goddess of light, interacts with the modern world--sometimes that world is more cruel to those who have a power beyond our expectations.  Also, I added to my original question and ask a new one about prejudice.  Explicitly, the question in The Goddess of Light is what is the reaction of the goddess of darkness against her sister, Leora.

The Characters: 

These characters are generally new to Aegypt.  We met Kathrin in The Shadow of Light.  Her character and purpose flows from this inauspicious beginning.  The girls, Sveta and Klava come from the last bit of The Shadow of Light.  You could have guessed at what might happen to their parents.  Lumie're is absolutely rogue.  You thought motherhood would change her, how could that be.  The real surprise is Kathrin.  This is her novel, but the following will likely be hers too.

The Theme: 

The children of Lumie're and Aleksandr are found alive after many years.  One may be the goddess of darkness and bring great evil into the world.  What happens when they are introduced into the civilized world.  There is much more to this novel's theme that I won't reveal.  I will tell you, it is a theme of place, that is, taking one's appropriate place in the world.  

Teaser:

The Children of Light and Darkness shows what happens when perceptions are not reality and reality is not what we understand at all.

 

 
Aegypt is only the beginning...

 

 

 

 

 

 

ISBN: 1602900132

ISBN-13: 9781602900134

Format: Paperback, 232pp

Publisher: OakTara Publishing Group LLC

Pub. Date: January 2008

 

 

 

 

An unspeakable evil and an unbelievable power is about to be released into the world...

 
In the Tomb of Darkness and Light
   
If someone from the ancient world walked suddenly on the earth, what would they tell us about their times, and what changes would they observe in ours?  What if that person was revered as a goddess in the ancient world and evidenced a power beyond modern human understanding?  What if she were malevolent?
    
Fort Saint stands on a plateau between the salt deserts of the Chott Djerid and Chott Melrhir.  Four thousand years ago the chotts were filled–one salt and one fresh.  The fort coincidentally guards an ancient foundation where once stood a temple.  
 
The commander of Fort Saint, Lieutenant Paul Bolang discovered the foundation and unearthed Egyptian hieroglyphics on it.  His letter brought an archeological party to explore it.  And when the archeologists unearthed a tomb beneath, Paul was the only one who noticed a keen foreboding in the find.  Death followed the opening of the tomb and led Paul to uncover alone the existence of two other hidden tombs: the tombs of the Goddess of Darkness and the Goddess of Light.

Paul was present when the archeologists opened the tomb of the Goddess of Light and someone or something escaped.  Paul chased the being out onto the desert and captured a naked woman who spoke only ancient Egyptian.  

Paul struggled to communicate with woman who called herself Leora.  She claimed to come from the tomb, and she claimed to be the Goddess of Light—a claim she backed up with inexplicable powers.  Leora seemed benevolent, but she alerted Paul that her sister, Leila, the Goddess of Darkness wanted to also escape her tomb.  Leora warned that if Leila were released, she would visit only evil and suffering on mankind—that was her nature.

Now the archeologists have discovered the second tomb, the Tomb of the Goddess of Darkness, and they want to open it.    

Aegypt is only the beginning...

          The Goddess of Light (Contracted to OakTara)

          The Goddess of Darkness

           The Shadow of Darkness

           The Shadow of Light

 

           Children of Light and Darkness

 

 

 

Meet the Author
 

Photo by Tim Davis Photography

   
 
The finest escape in literature is an escape into a real and inviting culture—so asserts L. D. Alford a novelist who explores with originality those cultures and societies we think we already know.  He builds tales that make ancient people and times real to us.  His stories uniquely explore the connections between events close and familiar and events of the past—he cleaves them together with threads of reality that bring the past alive.  L. D. Alford is familiar with technology and cultures—he earned a B.S. in Chemistry from Pacific Lutheran University, an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Boston University, and is a Ph.D. candidate in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Dayton. He is a graduate of Air War College, Air Command and Staff College, and the US Air Force Test Pilot School.  He is widely traveled and has spent long periods in Europe and Central America.  His writing includes over 40 technical articles and a historical fiction novel The Second Mission published by Xulon.  L. D. Alford is an author who combines intimate scientific and cultural knowledge into fiction worlds that breathe reality.

 

 

 

  Novels by this Author
   
       The Second Mission (Available now)
       Centurion   (Available now published by OakTara)
       Aegypt            (Available now published by OakTara)
 

  

The Dragon and the Fox

 

                     (Available now published by OakTara)

 

                                                                         

The End of Honor       The Fox’s Honor       A Season of Honor 

 

 

 

  L.D. Alford is the author of 41 technical papers published in international journals on flight test, military policy, flight safety, space, and cyberwar.  Technical Writing
   
  L.D. Alford has been a professional aviator for 28 years.  Aviation Writing
   

L.D. Alford Aviation Writing Technical Writing Unpublished Novels Writing Links Engineer

 

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