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Today, we have author Jean Cross inaugurating the blog’s new feature ‘Indie Saturday‘ with her book “The Boots of Saint Felicity” (Available at Amazon). This is a heartwarming fantasy story about a community coming together in the face of great adversity while preparing for their ‘Important Person from Far Away Festival’. Aptly enough for the season, the charge is led by children 🙂

Author Jean Cross writes:

When I sat down to write this book, one thing I was certain of was that whatever happened, everybody would be in it together. I have long believed that we are at our best when we are working as a team, that as a community we are stronger than the sum of our parts. I wanted this principle at the core of my book.

The Boots of Saint Felicity introduces Splickety Village, an easy going, quirky little place nestled at the bottom of Splickety Mountain. Everyone gets along and some children can fly, but only until they are sixteen. No one, almost no one, passes that milestone with this ability intact.

Enter Joxey Brownfeather, the finest flyer the village has seen in many years. Almost sixteen, he seeks out his mentor, friend and local book shop owner Hugh DeGrew. Joxey wants advice. He cannot imagine not being able to fly and his trepidation grows as his birthday nears. But Hugh is missing and instead Joxey finds two mysterious photographs in the book shop. One is an aerial picture of the valley. The second is of his mother who died five years previously while on an archaeological expedition in the local mountain.

Joxey turns immediately to his thirteen year old sister, Bernie. This was a relationship I wanted to explore. Bernie can fly too, but is far more cautious and circumspect about it. She invents ‘safety protocols’ and never rises higher than thirty feet or so. She would never dream of soaring and diving as her brother does, just for the sheer exhilaration of it. Outside of the home they share with their young brother, Billy and their grandmother, they lead fairly separate lives in the village. But as they start to investigate they begin a journey that binds them together as they rely on each other’s strengths and come to understand each other’s vulnerabilities.

The enemies of the village are formidable and cruelly indifferent. I have always enjoyed a story where the stakes are high and there can be no victory without sacrifice. The best villains are the ones we understand, the ones we may even have some sympathy for. My chief baddie is Ruba. When she steps out of the shadow we find that she is ancient and that her history with the mountain goes back through many ages and is entwined in the lives of the villagers’ ancestors, even their legends. But one or two villagers step into the light too. They were never who they seemed to be and are in fact contemporaries of Ruba and set against her. Battle is joined. Initially overwhelmed, the villagers must fight back against the organised and armed strength of an invading army. Meanwhile, now privy to the secrets of the ancients, the Brownfeathers engage in a desperate race to outwit Ruba and are drawn to a hidden chamber deep under the mountain, beneath the lowest of the low caves, were the final secret lies.

I wanted to write a ripping good story. One that I would love to read myself and could recommend to everyone who can read English young and older alike. I am content.

Jean Cross is an Irish Indie writer who, at fifty two, still loves the world.

The Boots of Saint Felicity by Jean Cross is available on Amazon as a Kindle edition (with a free sample). Also check out her Facebook for more information!

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Read an embedded sample of “The Boots of Saint Felicity” after the jump!

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