Seed or Shadow?

by Jan Bozarth

Releasing new Aventurine Series of books, music and games into the wild in 2022!

​In my new book, The Queens of Aventurine, Queen Mileous Fortune ( Miley)  is the keeper of the natural world.  She is in charge of trees, flowers, and seeds among other things.  But everything and everyone is in danger of being wiped out by a dark force called Shadowan.  Shadowan are beings who have allowed themselves to give in completely to their dark side- no empathy, hope or dreams. Their humanness becomes elemental taking ominous forms of weather like a sudden dense fog, extreme storms and long periods of drought. Even ink can be a form of Shadowan trickery.   It's Miley's job to keep this darkness in balance, preserve the magical seeds, and train the young queens who come into power on their eighteenth birthday. She is also charged with keeping them from crossing the portals into the human world.

​As a fantasy writer, I am aware of the common practice of embodying my characters.  They are not exactly me but dimensions of my psyche and expressions of my hopes and dreams and often ideas buried deep within me and far from awareness. That's why I'm still surprised when the real world presents a character or situation exactly like the ones I wrote years ago. I wrote the Queens of Aventurine in 2019 with an eye on tying the story to real world activities for young people like saving trees and seeds. Since then other uncanny similarities have emerged. Young teens, especially girls, are suffering mental health issues thanks to the pandemic shutting down their normal lives as well as the proliferation of social media images burying their sense of self even deeper than ever.  The dark forces that threaten to take over the world in my story have arrived in the real world. It seems the Shadowan have passed through the portals, disguising themselves as  extreme weather and bad ink...false words, extractive and destructive human behaviors.  

Like Miley, I see myself as a trainer of young queens, girls from 8-18 and sometimes adult women who wish they had this when they were young. I learned these things traveling the world and talking to young people when I released the series, The Fairy Godmother Academy (2008-2013). My calling is to bring out the light in young people so that they may create and thrive, teach them to dream again even if the Shadowan prevail. The Queens of Aventurine is an origin story for those who want to know themselves and create a better future. I'll be casting magical Aventurine seeds into the Metaverse in 2022 with new music, NFT's, games and books.