The Story Continues

It's so much fun winning something! As book week continues on Transitional-Woman, I'm happy to be writing about an ebook I recently won and thoroughly enjoyed reading.

Reginald's Tale is a novella written by an opossum and typed by A. E. Howard. The suspenseful, engaging story unfolds Reginald's adventures as he seeks help from a grasshopper army to close the rip he inadvertently opened into the Middle Realm.

Reginald was introduced to us in Flight of Blue, the first installment in Howard's Keeper of the Keys trilogy. He is a rather surly, cantankerous opossum, but in this tale, written by his own hand (paw), we see another side of this small fellow and better understand his curmudgeonly ways.

While Flight of Blue follows the adventures of the humans, Kai and Ellie, as they fight the malevolent forces of the Middle Realm, Reginald's Tale explains what happened to Reginald after they returned him to his municipality to recover from his injuries.

Intrigued? Confused? Why not read Flight of Blue and Reginald's Tale and then you can wait impatiently with me as I wait to read the second installment of the trilogy, The Guardians.



Between chasing chickens off the porch and raising her son, A. E. Howard tells tales of the three Realms and the boy who changed it all.

Flight of Blue

I really, really don't like trilogies, whether they be books or movies.  The wait, the anticipation for the next installment kills me (I confess to sometimes reading the end of a book after the first few chapters), which is why I prefer to discover them after they're complete.

But, I've done it again.  I've read the first book of a trilogy while the second is still being written and I'm going to have to wait.  New author A.E. Howard has just published Flight of Blue (to be released July 24)  the first installment from the Keeper of the Keys Chronicles.

I "met" Anna during the A to Z Blog Challenge in April.  She had an excerpt from Flight of Blue on one of her blogs, I read it and was pulled in.  I enjoyed it so much, I asked her if I could review it here.


I've had my Kindle edition copy a couple of weeks, it only took me this long to read it because as usual I've been chasing my tail and running behind (apologies for the mixed metaphor).  My slowness in completion is no reflection on Flight of Blue. 


The title of Chapter 1 is The Last Normal Friday.  Now you know after reading that, you're in for some action and adventure and that is exactly what happens.  Our protagonist is a regular 12-year-old boy living a somewhat regular life, except that his family moves around a lot and you'll find out why.  Only Kai's not so regular and neither are his parents.


Kai is abruptly thrown into circumstances he could never have imagined. He has to transition from being a kid who is moving through life in the usual middle school way into a young man who has to lead a band of friends, accept new responsibilities and make snap decisions not only to survive himself but to save his friends.


Flight of Blue is a book about the value of friendship - with friends old and new, choosing whether or not to accept a strange and uncertain future, facing frightening and confusing situations which defy understanding and trusting strangers to teach and guide you.


I don't know what the genre is, middle grade fantasy maybe?  But I found it great adult reading in the tradition of Madeleine L'Engle and her A Wrinkle in Time series and Austin Family Chronicles.

Want a little sneak peak?


But what I need to know is, Anna, what comes next?!?!?   And how long do I have to wait?


Be sure to stop by on July 27 when A.E. Howard visits Transitional-Woman as one of the stops on her blog tour.

Flight of Blue by A.E. Howard
Elder Tree Books, 2012
Fantasy, Kindle edition

The author proved a Kindle edition at no charge for my review.  All views and opinions expressed are my own.