WOI Radio Special: Author Interview with Fiona Ingrahm, Author of the Award-winning Middle-Grade Chronicle of Stone Series

Join Virginia S Grenier and Marsha Casper Cook on Tuesday, February 16th at Noon Eastern - 11 am Central - 10 am Mountain - 9 am Pacific or on demand for the WOI special Author Interview with Fiona Ingrahm, author of the Award-winning Chronicle of Stone Middle-Grade Series.

Author Fiona Ingram is proud to announce the release of her new action-packed adventure novel The Search for the Stone of Excalibur (published by Biblio Publishing) book 2 in the award-winning Chronicle of Stone Series, a thrilling adventure for two young boys, whose fun trip to Egypt turned into a dangerously exciting quest to uncover an ancient and mysterious secret, leading them to Britain, King Arthur, and the Dark Ages.

Book Award Nominations & Wins:

• 2015 Children’s Literary Classics Award Seal of Approval and finalist
• 2015 Children’s Literary Classic Silver Medal (Pre-teen & Tween)

The mission of the World of Ink Network is to share resources, introduce tips, products, and services to help strengthen, support and challenge those who love writing and the written word.
To learn more about the World of Ink Network, visit http://worldofinknetwork.com

Author Fiona Ingrahm's website http://www.fionaingram.com/

Listen to the show live or on demand at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/worldofinknetwork/2016/02/16/woi-special-author-interview-with-fiona-ingrahm

Book Review: The Search for the Stone of Excalibur

This is another book that is impossible to put down. I would suggest reading the books in order to get the full impact of the adventures and their effects on the cousins. 

Continuing the adventure that began in Egypt a few months prior in The Secret of the Sacred Scarab, cousins Adam and Justin Sinclair are hot on the trail of the second Stone of Power, one of seven ancient stones lost centuries ago. This stone might be embedded in the hilt of a newly discovered sword that archaeologists believe belonged to King Arthur: Excalibur.

I loved watching how Adam and Justin began their coming of age in the first volume, and seeing them continue to hone their detection skills and recognize their strengths and fears.

The Search for the Stone of Excalibur is a joy to read and one we highly recommend for relucant readers to avivd readers.

Book Excerpt:

Adam shivered in the chilly air. It was hard to tell if it was early morning or late evening because the moon was still visible, a pale disc hanging in a dark gray sky. Ragged shreds of clouds scudded across the moon’s face, casting strange shadows on the ground in front of him. Mist floated around his ankles and swirled in soft eddies when he moved his feet. In front of him lay an open field, grayish green in the dim light. Farther away, he saw the mound of a huge hill. Adam got the feeling he had fallen through a hole in time—back to the Dark Ages, back to Arthur’s era.
He heard a faint howling noise in the distance. Wolves? Adam froze with fear. He desperately tried to remember whether there had still been wolves in England during the Dark Ages. There must have been because there was no other sound quite like the howl of a wolf. The hairs on his arms rose as he heard the howl again. Although he pinched himself to wake up, it was no good; he remained in the dream. At the sound of distant hoof beats, he shrank back against a large tree trunk. There was no time to run away because suddenly the drumming hooves were all around him. Then came the faint melancholy wail of a battle horn and the tinny sound of chinking metal. He could hear the crisp snap-snap of fluttering pennants and when he turned, he glimpsed banners waving among the trees. The surge of spectral riders halted and one man, seated on a white horse, appeared at the head of the cavalcade.
The eerie figure came closer, the horse lifting its feet carefully, clip-clopping right up to the trembling boy. The horse was huge, its trappings gleaming with pinpoints of metal rosettes, its long tail and mane hanging like ghostly cobwebs in the pale moonlight. The beast snorted and stamped restlessly. Adam saw the burnished glint of a helmet with a dragon-shaped crest topped by a red plume. Although the cheek pieces of the helmet obscured the man’s features, the shadowy figure was looking right at him. A red cloak swirled around the warrior’s body and, as the fabric swung aside, Adam saw the gleam of chain mail and the dark shape of a breastplate on the man’s chest. The warrior’s armor seemed more Roman than he expected. A banner flapped from the spear of a man behind the warrior: a red dragon on a white background. The warrior raised one arm, and a roar erupted as the sounds of cheering burst from what seemed to be thousands of throats. Although Adam heard strange words in another language, somehow he understood what the voices said.
“Hail the Pendragon!”
Adam was so close that he could have reached out and touched the rider. The spectral figure drew his sword from its scabbard and held it aloft. It seemed to Adam that he saw every detail with strangely magnified clarity. It was the same sword from the museum, but it looked so different now. The metal gleamed with a peculiar bluish sheen. Curious characters embossed the length of the blade. At the top, just under the crossguard, was a small circle with a seven-pointed star inside it. Sparkling gems decorated the hilt and pommel, with two dragons’ heads facing inward on the crossguard. The stone between the dragons’ open mouths glowed brilliant red. Suddenly, a fiery, almost blinding light shot from the stone, dazzling him. The white horse reared on its hindquarters. The radiant beam lit up the forest as the warrior whirled the blade around his head several times. Adam fell to his knees, shaking with a mixture of terror and excitement as he realized the second Stone of Power was embedded in the sword of Arthur. But the stone in the museum sword was nothing like this one.

 http://storiesforchildren.tripod.com/worldofinknetwork/fiona-ingram-nov-2015.html

Guest Post: Writing for Children with Fiona Ingram

Why I Chose to Writer for Children

I found this blog post intriguing because I have never been asked this question before: why did I choose to write for children? I have always written, even if it was just plays, which we acted out for my long-suffering parents when I was young. I have four brothers (a great cast) and we would create grandiose plots gleaned from books, dress up, and act it all out. By the way, my parents would also pay for ‘tickets’ to these fantastic performances. I also had a long-running serial to entertain my younger brother and their friends – a ghost story, in weekly installments called Gruesome Gables. This involved monsters, vampires, skeletons, coffins, a haunted house and a dungeon filled with nameless terrors. My parents were really poor while the five (yes, five!) of us were growing up, so we read what was on the bookshelves. Mom had kept all her children’s classics. We cut our teeth on Rudyard Kipling’s Kim and Jungle Book, The Wind in the Willows, Brothers Grimm and other fairy story books, all the Enid Blytons, The Water Babies, Treasure Island, Little Women, Little Men, Paul Gallico, the Anne of Green Gables books, all the Lucy Fitch Perkins Twins books (an amazing mixture of story, geography, history and drama), Narnia books … the list is endless. We entertained ourselves with a fantasy world that we created from the books we read. That world was very special, very poignant, and it was hard to relinquish it and ‘grow up.’ In a way, writing for children is how one can revisit that amazing world.

I began writing for children purely by accident. Being a journalist, I have written loads of articles of course, but a book….? It just ‘happened!’ My mother was the catalyst. Then in her late 60s, she had always wanted to visit Egypt. She also invited my two nephews, then 10 and 12 to accompany us. It was an amazing trip, filled with interesting experiences. It proved to be the inspiration for the book. When I returned, after we’d admired the souvenirs and the photos, I thought I’d write a short story based on our experiences, naturally including myself (a journalist) an intrepid globe-trotting Gran, and two young boys. That was the beginning of it all. The short story became a novel; the novel became a children’s adventure series (Chronicles of the Stone) because at the end of the first book I realized that the story had grown into something quite spectacular.

The book is aimed at middle grade readers, ages 9/10-14, around the real ages of my nephews when we went on the trip. I am not sure if I chose the book or the book chose me because I ended up feeling very comfortable with the workings of the 10-12 year-old mind. I adopted a disadvantaged African child the same year of the trip. She was aged 11 and that also added to my experience with a middle-grade reader. Surprisingly, adults also love the book, and so many people have told me it makes them feel like a child again, open to adventure, and the excitement of something fun and interesting.

Although I have written an historical romance and collaborated on an adventure epic, I love my children’s book series. There is something unique about the world of children’s literature. It is magical, the possibilities are endless, and you’re limited only by your imagination. Imagination … if only we could keep our childlike imagination and beliefs as we step into adulthood.

Fiona Ingram’s earliest story-telling talents came to the fore when, from the age of ten, she entertained her three younger brothers and their friends with serialized tales of children undertaking dangerous and exciting exploits, which they survived through courage and ingenuity. Haunted houses, vampires and skeletons leaping out of coffins were hot favorites in the cast of characters. Although Fiona Ingram has been a journalist for the last fifteen years, writing a children’s book, The Secret of the Sacred Scarab was an unexpected step, inspired by a recent trip to Egypt. Ingram has finished the second book in the Chronicles of the Stone series, The Search for the Stone of Excalibur—a huge treat for young King Arthur fans—which is due to release soon.

Naturally, Ingram is a voracious reader and has been from early childhood. Her interests include literature, art, theatre, collecting antiques, animals, music and films. She loves travel and has been fortunate to have lived in Europe (while studying) and America (for work). She has traveled widely and fulfilled many of her travel goals.

 

Stories for Children Publishing will be touring The Secret of the Sacred Scarab written by Fiona Ingram, which is the first book of the Chronicles of the Stone children’s book series, all month long in September 2011.

You can find out more about Fiona Ingram’s World of Ink Author/Book Tour schedule at http://storiesforchildrenpublishing.com/FionaIngram.aspx. There will be giveaways, reviews, interviews, guest posts and more. Make sure to stop by and interact with Ingram and the hosts at the different stops by leaving comments and/or questions. Ingram will be checking in throughout the tour and is offering an additional giveaway for those who leave comments throughout the tour.

In addition, come listen to Blog Talk Radio’s World of Ink Network show: Stories for Children. The hosts VS Grenier, Kris Quinn Chirstopherson and Irene Roth will be chatting with Fiona Ingram about her children’s book series, writing, the publishing industry, and the trials and tribulations of the writer’s life.

The show will be live September 26, 2011 at 2pm EST. You can tune in at the World of Ink Network site at http://www.blogtalkradion.com/worldofinknetwork.

Book Giveaway Rules:

· Join the Book Lovers Blog Hop. (One entry)

     · Follow the World of Ink Tour and leave a comment per tour blog stop. (must leave a real comment about the author, tour or book. Saying “this is cool” or “I love your book” will not count.) Make sure to include your safe email so we can contact you if you are the winner. Example: vsgrenier AT storiesforchildrenpublishing DOT com. (One bonus entry per blog stop)

· Ask a question per World of Ink Tour blog stop. (One bonus entry per tour blog stop)

  

There will be one (1) winner for this Book Giveaway.  Find out more at  

http://familiesmatter2us.blogspot.com/2011/09/book-lovers-blog-hop-932011.html