Prince in Hiding - PUBLISHED

I now have more than one book out there in the world. Having been through this publishing process once before has only prepared me for the excitement, it hasn't dampened the excitement one whit.

In the super wee hours of the day today, Prince in Hiding made it to pre-order status. Available until June 1 through Bucks Country Publishing for $16.00. After that, it will be available through Amazon for $17.95, and like my other book, King by Right of Blood and Might, it will be available directly from me through my website for $20.00 as soon as I get some out here. The mark-up is to pay for postage. But it will be signed. Keep an eye out; I will be announcing it all over Facebook as soon as that happens.

But enough about the business. Now on about the book:

Isn't that an awesome cover? And the greatest part about it is the colors. You see there are six types of magic: Red magic is fire, Green magic is earth, Pale Blue magic is air, and Dark Blue magic is water. But I did say there were six. White magic and Black magic are both internal and physical. White magic is primarily healing, but it can also be seeing places and people somewhere else. Black magic is harsher; it involves controlling some person or creature, or causing pain or even death. Red or fire magic involves the control of fire or heat. Green or earth magic involves controlling or altering objects, or touching something within a seeing. Pale Blue or air magic, of course controls air, which can mean hearing something out of range, but also teleportation. And Dark Blue or water magic, bringing on a storm or calling water in a desert.

One of Sean's ancestors discovered that certain stones can focus certain of the magics. These stones, of course matched the magic they augmented and at some point, likely to facilitate carrying them around, he or she shaped them into circular wedges not unlike sections of an orange. All six stones put together made a fist-sized ball, just the right size for holding in the hand. Just right for using to magnify all the magics, creating a very powerful weapon. There must have been a need for such a weapon once upon a time, but what it was, was lost to a time before recorded history. The stones could be used individually too, to augment a particular field of magic the holder happened to be weak in.

Over the centuries, as people mixed and matched during the course of their lives, the magics became diluted. Few of the major families tried to maintain any strength in magic. The royal family was the strongest, but even they were only strong in black, red and green magic. There was another powerful royal family who leaned heavily in the other direction, being relatively strong in white, light and dark blue magic. The White House of Healers, in the hopes of balancing the magics within the royal family once again, encouraged the royal house of Barleduc to marry into the ruling family of Ruhin. They had high hopes that a child born of such a union would be strong in all the magics and therefore capable of wielding the stones the way they were intended, to protect the country and it's people.

Not long after the wedding between the crown prince and the young Barleduc lady, disaster struck and the very pregnant crown princess was forced to flee with only a few trusted friends and protectors. Prince in Hiding begins seventeen years later. They had been found. It was time to go back and reclaim the throne. It was time for retribution. Is the son of the Ruhin/Barleduc union the mage the White House of Healers was striving for? Will he be the savior they so desperately need? Only time will tell. You'll have to read to find out. I will tell you one thing; he gets the girl. But can he retain his sanity long enough to see to the next generation? You'll have to read the book to find out. The hard part might be waiting for the next book to come out. Due out about this time next year, The White Star, Book 2 in the Making of a Mage-King series.