Gateway to Gannah Series

Some years back, a little nonfiction book captured my imagination: The Gospel in the Stars, written in 1882 by Joseph A. Seiss, reprinted in 1972. It presented intriguing ideas, but the language was archaic and hard to follow. If only someone would write a story incorporating those concepts, something that would interest a modern reader…

So somebody did.

Going into it, I never expected to create the fantasy world of Gannah (named for the Hebrew word meaning garden), nor new races of humanity, nor anything else so grand. I merely wanted to illustrate some basic truths that apply to everyone, everywhere, no matter what stars they live under.

Funny thing about Gannah, though. Once you’ve breathed the air, drunk the water and tasted the food, you become a part of it. I had to go back. When Risen Books asked for my thoughts about a series, it took no time to come up with ideas for several storylines.

In January, 2011, we signed a three-book contract for the following:

Book #1: The Story in the Stars

Available in print and e-book formats (both Kindle and Nook).

The plague ravages the planet Gannah. By the time help arrives, only one survivor  – Dassa – remains. Pik, the Karkar doctor assigned to her case, hates everything Gannahan and wishes every last one of its people had perished.

Dassa carves out a new life after her world is destroyed. She fights pirates, offends her new acquaintances, and hires an illegal pilot and ship to take her back to Gannah, with the grumbling Pik a continual irritant. On the dead planet they battle vicious animals, suffer food poisoning and survive a plane crash in order to return to Pik’s people the priceless treasure Dassa’s ancestors stole centuries before. Throughout their adventures, Dassa learns about patience and unconditional love, while Pik discovers a treasure that can never be lost.

Read a prequel scene here. Like it? Read a sample of The Story in the Stars.

 

Book #2: Words in the Wind

Can she find her way home? Does she even have a home to return to? Marooned in a desolate canyon half a planet from home, a lone survivor struggles to separate reality from illusion.

Dassa’s landing craft crashes 10,000 kilometers from her intended destination. Taking refuge in a canyon from the blizzard that rages atop the rim, she learns more about her native planet than she ever wanted to know.
Read Chapter 1.

Now available in print and ebook from Amazon, where it’s accumulating five-star reviews.

Book #3: Ransom in the Rock

How much is a life worth? And who will pay the price?

Lileela returns from Karkar a few months before her sixteenth birthday, which, under Gannahan law, is the age of adulthood. She is angry and bitter at what she perceives as her previous abandonment by her parents, and has no desire to ever see them or Gannah again.

Her older brother Adam, on the other hand, is proud to be a Gannahan and shows every indication of becoming a worthy successor to his ancestral (on his mother’s side) throne. He’s also eager to learn more about his paternal heritage from the people on the Karkar ship that transported his sister home. Once he meets them, however, he’s disillusioned when they don’t measure up to his expectations—and neither does Lileela, who seems more Karkar than Gannahan. Then the New Gannahans learn that the Karkar ship’s true mission was to take over the planet and make it a new Karkar, as their own planet is toxic and overpopulated. The tiny settlement has no hope of repelling an attack, except that the Creator of the Universe is on their side.

Read Chapter 1.

 

Book #4: The Promise in the Prism

The title is tentative, but the story line is not. I don’t want to tell you what it is, though. If you’re a Gannah fan, you’ll be surprised!