Saturday, October 13, 2018

Author Interview: Aldrea Johnson {The Battle for the Four Realms: Dragon Bone}

The Battle for the Four Realms: Dragon Bone
By Aldrea Johnson
Genre: Fantasy/Young Adult/Fiction

Brief Description

Siblings Aliedori and Maldar, heirs to the throne of the Southern Realm are attacked by an unseen assailant while camping in The Sacred Forest. Aliedori's brother Maldar and his golden dragon, Keidrop, are trapped by a powerful binding spell; a spell that leaves Aliedori strangely unaffected. In an attempt to track down their unseen attacker Aliedori uses her natural gifts and casts a "Seeker" charm enabling her to pursue a chase to a shadowy figure through the dark woods until he mysteriously disappears without a trace...and the adventure begins!

As the trio sets off in the direction the mysterious figure disappeared they encounter mysterious creatures formed from dark magic, a mage powerful enough to incapacitate dragons and other threats only ever spoken of by the Chronicler.

As they journey East more of the Chronicler's prediction come true, Aliedori's destiny lay ahead along with ... the battle for the four realms!



Interview with the Author

What inspired you to write The Battle for the Four Realms?
I had this story in my head for a very long time; it feels very different from the story that first took hold of my sixteen year old imagination all those years ago. The main protagonist was always female, the prettified forest, old gnarled and cursed was also always there, and there was a prince to be rescued. I completed the first chapter at sixteen in an old school exercise book, and kept the rest in my head for a very long time.  What inspired me to write The Battle for the Four RealmsMy sixteen year old self, who loved to read, but could never find books that reflected or represented how I or my friends looked.

How long did it take you to write your book?
A very long time; as I’ve said the story has been going around my head in one form or another for a very long time.  In actually it took me about two years to write, about six months to pluck up the courage to get it edited and about six to eight months to agree to send it to Imzadi Publishers

How long have you been publishing your work?
The Battle for the Four Realms is my first work to be published

What does your writing environment look like?
I usually sit in my living room, with my laptop on my lap and write; sometimes I sit at the kitchen table. A lot of Battle was written at my kitchen table, and my kitchen and garden even makes an appearance in the book.

Do you have any routines to help you write?
I don’t have a routine; I am very undisciplined and can go for weeks without writing a single word. At other times I often sit up until 2/3am writing because ideas are flowing and I know if I go to sleep all my creative juices will sleep also.

About the Author

I was brought up on stories, tales of adventures of far off places, of princesses in peril and their princes rescuing them, they filled my head and sparked my imagination from an early age. I have very fond memories of “Lloyd Brown” or “Lloydy” as he was known to us children, telling the most wonderful stories. The only time he didn’t stutter was when he was telling stories, I would travel with him to those far off places from the Grimm fairy tales and just around the corner of the “Anansi” stories of Jamaican fables, these were amongst my favourites. By the time I had to swap the Jamaican sunshine for the winter “watery” sun of England at the age of almost eleven years old. My head was already crammed full of stories to accompany me on my very own adventure to far off England.

I may have spent my formative years in the Jamaican country side with the wild green woods and perfectly clear rivers but I grew up in London. Long winter days and darkened evenings would find me with my head in a book, the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Arabian Nights and closer to home Enid Blyton’s Famous Five were later replaced but not forgotten by Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast, and Sterling E Lanier’s Hiero’s Journey.

I was a shy introverted child but while at school I was regarded as one of the “cool” kids; I was a real Jamaican with the accent to prove it.  Libraries became my playground; they helped to fuel my imagination where adventure after adventure played out again and again in my head.  I could be anywhere, any place, anytime from my little corner of the local library. I lived in my head; my stories gave me  a sense of belonging, they sustained me and now somehow one of my adventures found its way onto the page and is about the be shared with others.

Website: www.imzadipublishing.com


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