The Traitor's Trap

[Brendan]

I am a traditionally published author of YA fantasy novels (and a non-fiction work on the history of football). I was raised in Yorkshire, but now live in Melbourne (much warmer, rubbish beer). I am the author of the Celtic fantasy series, Sebastian and the Hibernauts.

Book I, Beyond The Gloaming (98,000 words), was published October 2104:
http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Gloaming...

Book II, The Traitor's Trap (75,000 words), will be published December 2015. Both are published by Phantasm Books, an imprint of Assent Publishing, USA.

The Traitor's Trap will be available as hardback, paperback or ebook, and available at the usual stores including Amazon.

Sebastian and the Hibernauts, is a true multi-media experience with an accompanying trailer by R'Ha director Kaleb Lechowski https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjPwH..., a score by Welsh composer Samuel Redfern, and a logo designed by 2012 Fantasy Artist of the Year, John Coulthart. Not only that, in a world first, Sebastian and the Hibernauts is to be choreographed for ballet. Ex-Northern Ballet Theatre ballerina and choreographer Rose Murphy is to adapt the book for stage.

The reason I am writing is to I enquire about the possibility of a review of one or both books. Either myself or the publisher would be happy to deal with the request.

Would you prefer kindle or pdf? Let me know or feel free to pass, no worries.

Best wishes,

Brendan Murphy

Synopsis Beyond The Gloaming
It is Easter, 1973 and twelve year old Sebastian Duffy has some serious self-esteem issues. He is beaten by his parents, bullied at school, steals from his friends and still mourning the death of his brother. To cap it all, strange things have begun happening around him and he is finding it hard to distinguish dreams from reality. After a nightmarish assault, he wakes in the Gloaming, a shadow world inhabited by ghosts. There to greet him is Porrig, a creature from Hibercadia, a magical realm crafted from Celtic dreams. Inhabited by Fir Bolg, Tuath and Milesians, it has been overthrown by brother gods from another dreamworld. One brother, Phobitor, is a tyrant and even the Tuath, who took to their underground sidhe millennia ago, are concerned. Sebastian discovers that he alone can save Hibercadia by finding an enchanted spear. Teaming up with the Hibernauts–a mercurial sorceress, an orphaned druidess, a taciturn warrior, a snuff-sniffing leprechaun and a lovelorn poet–he embarks on a fantastical quest, but can he succeed when he is yet to find his magical potential or even his courage, and half the realm is bent on his destruction?

Excerpt
For the next ninety minutes, they followed a medieval packhorse route across the heather-strewn moors. It was a moonless night with plenty of cloud cover, ideal for concealment though not for negotiating harsh landscape and there was many a stumble and curse. They made their way up Houndkirk Moor and down the lower tip of Burbage Moor, the gritstone scarp of Burbage Edge a ribbon of blackness on the horizon. Fording Burbage Brook over steppingstones, they skirted the southern border of Carl Wark, an Iron Age fort that loomed like the hull of a colossal ship. They paused to rest there, keeping low to the rocky promontory. The silence was soon broken by distant shouting, carried down the northerly wind. Everyone crouched instinctively, flattening themselves against the rocks.
“They’ll be above us at Higger Tor, it’s a perfect lookout,” hissed Porrig. “Luckily, we’re south of Carl Wark and hidden from view. The wind’s also with us, so the battle swine will be hard put to sniff us out. We should stay a while and let them pass on. Not a sound, and don’t emerge till I give the word. Shroud your luminosity well, Ivo.”
Sebastian concealed himself amongst the boulders and bracken, the only noise a low breeze that fluttered through the fernery. Though he knew his friends were close, he suddenly felt quite alone. As he peered at the ebony sky, thinking he had never seen such darkness, he noticed a faint blue light. He took it for a star until it grew steadily brighter and he realized it was an aiia. The nervous excitement he had initially felt—long since dispelled by the irritation of staggering across moors—returned as icy fear. He pushed back against a rock, desperate to meld into it. Unsure where his friends had hidden, he contemplated calling to them, but stopped himself for fear of the aiia overhearing. He felt an irresistible urge to up and flee, to take his chances and try to outdistance it, not to stay there like a helpless animal, easy pickings for the monstrous creature. The longer he stayed, the greater he worried he was losing his head start, yet as the light advanced pitilessly he found himself unable to move. Now he could see her outline, the floating body no bigger than his thumb, the silhouetted head darting this way and that. He tried to dive for cover, but his body froze, unwilling to move despite his exhortations. It was not until the aiia steadied forty feet from the ground and began to pass back and forth, scanning the moors, that his body finally heeded him. He slid to the ground and pressed his face to the earth, screwing his eyes shut and covering his ears, desperate to zone out.
“Sebastian!” she cried, the hills echoing to her lamentation.
Never had he heard anything so alluring. He removed his hands and raised his head. As she flew overhead, he turned to her and was transfixed by her beauty, surrendering fully to the uncontrollable passion that hurtled into him, possessed his entire being, and vanquished all fear. All he wished was to behold her forever.
“Sebastian!” she repeated, desperately, achingly.
Such pain. Such yearning. His love-addled mind had an epiphany. He would return to her, for surely it was she, the one eternal love that each renewed life was a quest for. They had finally found each other. How she craved him. How she missed him. Seized with a violent desire, his arms reached out to her, but the tall fernery conspired to conceal him.
“Sebastian!” she wept in heartrending tones, sweeping directly above. As she sang his name, a metallic liquid issued from her mouth, carried on the breeze this way and that. A chain of drops descended to him, pouring into his ears, filling him with ecstasy.
“I’m here,” he gasped, yet his love-parched throat would brook no words.

The desire was so intense it became agonizing. He struggled to find his feet, yet his leaden limbs betrayed him, as if his mortal frame were jealous of the pending reunion of souls. With a Herculean effort, he sprang up and began to wave his arms wildly. Too late. She was some way off and did not look back. Finding his lungs, he released a plaintive howl.

Synopsis The Traitor’s Trap
It’s tough being a thirteen-year old schoolboy, especially when you’re a coward and the big brother who stuck up for you is dead. Oh, and you’ve been thrust into a magical realm you’re expected to save single-handedly. Sebastian Duffy has to learn an awful lot of skills in a hurry if he is to defeat Phobitor by stealing the Spear of Lugh from the peace-loving Tuath. He’s been given some help of course–a mercurial sorceress, an orphaned druidess, a taciturn warrior, a snuff-sniffing leprechaun and a lovelorn poet– an outfit known as the Hibernauts, but can he really overcome a psychopathic, warmongering god when half the realm is bent on his destruction? If he is to have the remotest chance he will have to do deal with aiia, cluricaun, brigands, woodwose, undead warriors, speckled bats, spies, hunkypunks, traitors, skeletons and battle-swine first. And are those Tuath really so peaceable? If only he could find his courage.

Excerpt
They descended into the hubbub. Tuathans swarmed the thoroughfares, some in shimmering robes, others in simple garments. Many appeared to be heading home, eager to make the most of the big day ahead. Sebastian was sure they would be spotted, not least on account of Porrig and Quilliog’s shortness, yet no one paid them the slightest bit of notice, except to apologise when they bumped into them. Crazily happy to be there, his eyes darted joyously about the festooned streets. Ribbons of tinsel flew of their own accord, vying for attention with the countless floating baubles that glowed different colours, expanding and contracting like bubbles. Elsewhere, paper lanterns drifted about, folding into different shapes at will, first one was a dragon, then it was a ship, now it was a castle. Adults cheered and children squealed as minstrels jostled them, tumbling and juggling, and musicians wove through the crowds playing ethereal music on instruments Sebastian had never seen before, bell cymbals and fairy fifes, bodhrán and hand-harps. He was enthralled to see stately white stags drawing slowly progressing carriages, their happy occupants leaning out to greet strangers and wave hats.
Ladies in fineries rode upon fallow deer with reticulated bridles of silver, while children sat upon prickets and fawns. Hawkers sold red ale from huge barrels off the back of carts drawn by wooden-yoked oxen and street vendors bawled out their wares. Some sold warblers—blackcaps and chiffchaffs—that trilled exquisitely as they perched tamely or flew above the crowds, always returning to their stall, others sold the rarest herbs, virtually unobtainable in Hibercadia—wintersweet and maidenhair, featherfoil and foxtail—and the other Hibernauts had to peel Roisin from the stalls. Sebastian was so enthralled by all that he saw that he hardly noticed his littlest fingers beginning to pulsate.

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