This whole series started out as one short story to a contest at an online group I frequented at the time. That contest called for a story written to the trigger "hot." The story that came out of it then was "Steamy Realities." That story went onto be published at the now defunct "Sword Review" online magazine back toward the end of 2006.
That started me thinking of subsequent stories in that world, based on the concepts of "faith, hope, and love." So I wrote three more short stories based on those themes. Those also ran at The Sword Review as well. By then, the head of the magazine thought those would be a good series of stories to put in a novella and published by his larger group, "Double-Edged Publishing." It was titled, "Infinite Realities." To give some bonus material for the new print version, I wrote another short story featuring Josh, Sisko's wizard-in-trainning friend, who became an important part of the whole series at it went along.
That small novella did well, one of his first to earn out. The biggest complaint I got, however, was that everyone wanted more. It was too short. Well, by this point I had started to work on a full novel following the events in that book. That became "Transforming Realities." That particular book has been a hit with the middle-grade readers, much to my surprise, because I was writing them for young adults. But the fairy tale nature of the book, with its multiple side-stories to the main plot, appealed especially to that group as well as a few adults.
By the time that book was published, I had been working on a more traditional formatted novel. Still thinking my readers of this series would be young adults, this story took more of a darker theme and more "adult" type topics. I aimed at older young adults with this one. Still a fairy tale feel, but more important themes and topics that older young adults (and unfortunatly, younger ones as well) dealt with.
But I ended up returning to Infinite Realities to expand it, a lot. I wrote in a flurry in a couple of months and once done, I had added ten new short stories to the original five for a total of fifteen. Only problem by then was that my publisher had decided to get out of the publishing business. But he was kind enough to willing give the rights back to me to publish them elsewhere. So, after a little searching, I signed a contact with Grace Bridges at Splashdown Books. She decided to put new covers and retitle the books, so the expanded Infinite Realities became "Reality's Dawn." Transforming Realities turned into "Reality's Ascent." The new third and final novel in the series was named "Reality's Fire." Those were all published in 2011.
That was the end of the story, but not necessarily the world. I've written a couple of other books in this world which happen after this story. Maybe someday I'll get back to writing and editing them. In the meantime, enjoy this series. It was the first success I've ever had as a writer, and these stories will always hold a special place in my heart for that reason.
Click on the links to the left to find out more about each individual novel, read sample chapters, and buy the books at an online store of your choosing.