egdE.Grace started devouring folklore and fairytale anthologies at a very early age, and her folktale habit has only gotten worse with the propagation of online collections.  She often used world folklore in English translation as a teaching tool when she taught high school ESL (English as a second language) in Japan.  Her bachelor of arts degree was in Musical Theatre, and in the course of her studies she played the parts of fairies, damsels in distress, and even the odd toad.  She is currently working on an MFA in Asian Performance and can add the Chinese folktale heroine White Snake to the list.  Naturally, folk and faerie tales have so strong a foothold in her that they can’t help but come out in the stories that escape her pen.  Her other literary influences include William Shakespeare, Dr. Seuss, and Niel Gaiman.  Kinlea Keeper is the first in a series of mixed-folklore fantasy stories about Keepers and Haneth’s End.  The series community can be found at http://kinleakeeper.com and the author’s personal homepage (which details her other writing and acting work) can be found at http://worldsofwords.org.

Kinlea Keeper

kinleaLR2Kinlea Waltham has spent his entire life being told he’s dying. He’s never left his house or made a single friend. Everything changes when his parents send him to stay with family friends in the country (to “die in cleaner air”), and his hosts tell him that he is not actually ill. Instead, he discovers that he has been cursed with a powerful enchantment.

Born to be the Keeper of Haneth’s End, a small but pivotal corner of the world’s magical realm, he must stand up to enemies he can’t understand in order to protect everything he loves. His enemies want something besides Kinlea’s death, but he’s not sure what. Their perplexing actions endanger his Keep, the world, and even magic itself. It’s his job to stop them, for without Kinlea to stand in the way, everything might fold in upon itself, and the world might have to learn the true meaning of the words “the end.”

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Curse

This full-length novel continues the adventures of the keepers, including Kinlea Keeper, first introduced in the book by the same name. The original, well-loved characters are all grown up, new characters are introduced, and the stakes are much, much higher.

Young Curtis “Curse” is the new keeper of Barren Hollow, but he’s also captive of the Witch of Barren Hollow, and all his guardians, magical humans given the duty of protecting a Keeper, are missing, scattered and broken by the Witch. Curtis is only 7, and a bit of a magical prodigy. He’s also lonely, afraid, and far from home. Kinlea agrees to help him find his missing guardians, and in doing so, save Curtis’s baby sister from a curse. They travel from England all the way to the Swiss alps, meeting a dizzying array of magical creatures and discovering how magic works in different places. This series is a treat for Diehl’s handling of magic and magical creatures from different cultures, as well as her deft weaving of old ballads, poetic prose, traditional magical creatures, and great characters with a compelling plot.

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