“A unique world told with a lyrical voice.” – amazon review
Mark Wallace Maguire’s YA fantasy novel, ‘In Pursuit of The Pale Prince’ is published and available on amazon.com.
Below is an article by Damon Poirer published in the Marietta Daily Journal.
Mark Wallace Maguire recently announced the release of his Young Adult Fantasy novel, “In Pursuit of The Pale Prince.”
“It’s technically a Young Adult Fantasy novel,” Maguire said, “but it is for readers five to 105.”
The novel is told through the eyes of 12-year-old Arestus of The Wood, a young boy setting out on a quest to deliver the lost crown of Ellesund to The Pale Prince in order to unite the scattered and outnumbered Southwen against the northern kingdoms.
Maguire states that while the novel is fantasy, there isn’t magic involved.
“It has some real vivid grit and visceral-ness to it,” he said. “I also incorporated the ideas of language into the book. I had been studying Old English and Old Norse, and enjoyed coining a slightly different vernacular.”
He is also the author of the action-adventure and alternative history series, the Alexandria Rising Chronicles.
When asked how different it was to write a fantasy novel versus his previous trilogy, Maguire stated that writing action-adventure was a joy. However, a significant amount of his time went into research for the series.
“I’ve always believed that if you are going to weave a fictional tale into a non-fictional world, you have to make sure your details are correct. So everything from flight patterns to climate to skeletal structure must be precise,” he said. “While I enjoyed the research to a degree, creating an entire new world takes time, but it is much more freeing because, as the author, you make the rules. You get to name the seas and the hills and create your own histories of places. It is very enjoyable.”
Maguire notes that he has had some early reviews that have compared the novel to J.R.R. Tolkien, Bernard Cromwell and Lloyd Alexander.
“But, I don’t want to box it in as I think it stands alone in its uniqueness,” he said. “It is post-magic fantasy so, it is in another world, but all the wizards have left and the issues that the characters grapple with are more tangible and less esoteric.”
As a preacher’s son, Maguire spent his childhood crisscrossing the South. After a brief career in music, he became a reporter at the Marietta Daily Journal in 1998, and has spent the last 20 years in metro Atlanta as a columnist and editor.
He is a 2017 Independent Author of the Year finalist and a 2017 Georgia Author of the Year nominee.
“In Pursuit of The Pale Prince” and the Alexandria Rising Chronicles are available online through amazon.com.
Mark Wallace Maguire • Author, Creative Collaborator 