The Wanderers of the Water-Realm

by Alan Lawton

A young man's long and dangerous journey across the breadth of the Water Realm to discover a way back home.Hetty Littlewood is one of the last of the Wise Women, practitioners of an old magic that has no place in the gritty, cold-blooded Victorian city of Manchester. But when her son, Daryl, a canal boat captain and part-time prizefighter, runs afoul of a group of menacing gamblers and suddenly finds himself accused of murder, she must act.

Hetty uses her formidable occult powers to spirit her son and daughter, Myra, along with their faithful friend, George, to the Water Realm, a distant reality filled with peril and wonder. As they traverse the Realm in search of the portal home, the trio outwit the frighteningly non-human Hix, navigate a river that flows in both directions and battle in an arena for the pleasure of the cruel Kaa-Rom. All the while, the unfathomable legacy of an extinct powerful
race known as the ‘Ancient Dead’ looms over the future of the travellers. Every step toward safety is also a step closer to doom.

Meanwhile, Hetty infiltrates the city’s dangerous underworld of gin palaces and bordellos as well as the more dangerous mansions of the rich and powerful, joining the household of a brilliant but fearfully dangerous millionaire in every attempt to clear her son’s name ready for his return. But will the family finally be reunited and will the reunion bring happiness or grief?

Genres: Fantasy

486 pages, Paperback

First published March 7, 2011

About the author

Alan Lawton was born in 1938 in the Pennine village of Micklehurst. He was educated in a small secondary modern school and left without qualifications of any sort. As a youth he worked in the farming and textile industries before serving in the RAF Regiment.

Alan moved to the Isle of Man in 1962 and was largely engaged in agriculture until the early 1970’s when he entered the construction industry as a common labourer and began a long programme of self improvement. He subsequently qualified as a bricklayer and graduated from the Open University with a good honours degree. He later undertook research for a Liverpool University history project and also compiled family histories. He became interested in creative writing at an early age and won the Olive Lamming short story competition for 1979.

The author of The Wanderers of the Water Realm now lives in quiet retirement with Hilary his long time partner and occupies himself with writing, light gardening and doing the cooking.