I have always been fascinated by the progression of time. We wait for some event in anticipation—a vacation, a birth, a wedding, a holiday. Time creeps as the date slowly approaches. Then, the date arrives. It’s here! We can hardly believe it! The events we have been so anticipating flow around us. Often, it…
The Fifth Book of Unexpected Enlightenment is now live! We are celebrating Rachel Griffin's birthday (March 30th) with the release of the next Book of Unexpected Enlightenment. Rachel Griffin Knows a Secret Everyone Else Has Forgotten… …She has discovered she has an older sister named Amber, who was stolen-away as a baby. Nobody but Rachel…
Yule Eve brought their yearly journey into the forest behind Gryphon Park Manor to find next year’s Yule Log. This was followed by smearing butter on the outer lintels for the returning sun to melt—so the sun would have the sustenance it needed to burn more brightly again—and the moonlit Yule Buck procession, as…
You have all been asking! Here it is: The Fourth Book of Unexpected Enlightenment What she knows, she dare not tell. Rachel Griffin should be having an amazing freshman year. She has the Princess of Magical Australia and crazy orphan Sigfried the Dragonslayer for friends and a handsome sorcerer boyfriend romancing her with charms magical…
Last day to get a FREE copy of The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin. Here is one last excerpt. First Kiss “Now, um…I guess I should get back to practicing,” sighed Rachel Griffin. “Would you like to practice on an animate person?” asked Gaius Valiant. He spoke with a casual laid-back drawl, as if he…
An excerpt from The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin — which is FREE through today. “Are you going to study?” Rachel asked Sigfried, whom she found romping with Lucky in the ferns behind Dare Hall. “Study? What’s that?” Sigfried snorted. “Certainly not. I’m going exploring.” “Oh! Me, too!” Rachel cried, delighted. She pulled a Cadbury’s bar…
One of the hardest problems I had when I started the Books of Unexpected Enlightenment was: What age should Rachel be? This issue turned out to be extraordinarily difficult. To this day, some readers are not happy with the solution. Here are some of the issues that went into the decision: Rachel must be young:…
First book, FREE today! You think this would be an easy question…but it's not. Let me ask you: What age are fairytales for? What age are Grimm's fairytales for? What age is Ursula LeGuin's A Wizard of Earthsea for? When I was young, books were categorized much differently than they are now. Fantasy was closer…
Before we start our post for today, I am overjoyed to announce: Rachel and the Many-Splendored Dreamland *** Six years ago, just about this time of the year, a couple of my closest friends decided to start a new roleplaying game. I wasn't really interested. I had young kids. I felt played out. Most of the…
Occasionally, I come upon a review (there has been more than one) of The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin where the reader threw the book across the room and stopped reading at the scene in Chapter Four where crazy orphan boy Sigfried Smith encounters a young woman deliberately wearing too-tight clothing to flaunt her curves and uses the word (brace yourselves, my dear…