My fantasy novel Far From Mortal Realms comes out on September 15th. The Kindle edition should be available that day, and with a little luck, the paperback will be as well. (As for other ebook formats, I haven't yet decided whether to put the book in Kindle Unlimited, which would at least temporarily prevent me from offering them.) Over the three weeks between now and that release date, I'll be posting some excerpts from the book. In a way, this is one of them.
The photo I've chosen for the book's Dedication is a cropped version of my father's official Army portrait. I'm not sure I ever, in the sixty-one years I knew him, saw him looking this stern. Nevertheless, his expression doesn't really surprise me. Dad and his immediate family had escaped Nazi Germany shortly before Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass), which marked the transition between "few German Jews can find a way to escape the Nazis" and "escape is essentially impossible." He was fifteen at that time. Years later, after a year or so in Palestine (as it was then known) and another three or so in New York, he and one of his brothers went back to Europe with the U.S. Army. From what he and others have told me, he saw himself as a sort of avenging angel. This portrait shows as much.
The text of the Dedication doesn't refer directly to this time in Dad's life, but to his later life as a father. It reads:
"To my father, who always strove to protect and rescue his children."
Abe, one of the two protagonists of Far From Mortal Realms, is much older when the book starts than my father was in this portrait. But the strength and determination in the photo strike me as appropriate to illustrate the qualities of a father resolved to do whatever he must, whatever the dangers to be incurred and the obstacles to be overcome, to rescue his daughter.
To learn more about the book, see the incredible cover (designed by Rebecacovers), and if you care to, preorder the Kindle edition, follow the link.
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