At A Glance: Victoria: A Tale of Spain and Ryan and Essie

This post has summaries—a sort of glance at the book’s content more than a selling blurb—for two books. I’ve enjoyed working on both of these stories--Victoria: A Tale of Spain and Ryan and Essie, and both of them add some interesting characters to my work.

​Victoria: A Tale of Spain takes a teenage duchess on a whirlwind visit to the King’s palace after she learns he is targeting her family. Her father, Duke Carlos, is a strong leader, but he’s slipping into lies told him by others. Unwelcome visitors flock to the castle constantly. Victoria’s sister Julia has run away to France and her other sisters are at loose ends and keeping secrets. Once Victoria learns that one of those secrets is a nearby assassin, she can hardly keep up with everything that’s thrown at her. A duke showing up to court her sister, a party of incredibly stupid English tourists who attack anyone in sight, a prince who’s either her greatest ally or worse irritant. And, of course, King Felipe, the cause of all this confusion. She might not know him well, but that doesn’t mean he's not to be reckoned with. 
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Historical Fiction 218 pages. No content warnings.

Ryan and Essie is set on a distant planet that two children come to accidentally when they launch into space and snag a wormhole. Afterwards, they split up and head into the heart of the planet. Huge symbolic castles made of jewels are slowly dying over time, in fact several of them are already dead and are fortresses for some villains. Ryan runs into a girl named Lyssia in a cave and she tricks him into joining the dark side, while Essie comes to this serene, splendid place where a lovely girl who is growing out of a flower is good friends with a prince, Alavtar. Essie interrupts their quasi-romantic friendship and takes them far from home in a new direction.

Children's Fiction. 215 pages. Death of two characters affects the protagonists and is central to their journey.

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