The fantasy thriller The Last Changeling, which sees a breed of malevolent fairies battle for world domination, came out first as an e-book last year.
But after having sold around 1,000 Kindle copies, it
has now been produced as a paperback version and its Llangollen-based author Fiona Maher hosted a special launch event at the Vintage Rose
tearoom in the town on Thursday evening.
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| * Author Fiona Maher reads from The Last Changeling at its paperback launch in the Vintage Rose tearoom. |
Fiona, who writes under
the name of F R Maher, explained how the idea for the book came to her in a
dream.
She said: “We’ve had
wizards and vampires, and I wondered what other supernatural beings would appeal
to readers.
“After a dream, I came up
with the idea that it would be fairies - not the cutesy pink confections
of modern cartoons, but the ancient malign creatures that haunted the forests,
and stole children.
“I called them metahominids - literally 'other men'
- and I ask what if population pressure meant they started moving out of the
country, and began invading our city spaces, like urban foxes?
“What if we've been at
war with them for centuries and the evidence was all around us?
“If myxamatosis hadn't
been developed for rabbits, but to spray on the barrows, the metahominid
strongholds?”
Hero of the book is a
young policeman named Watkin who gets caught up in a battle between a secret government department and
metahominids in Kew Gardens.
In
the melee, he is injured, and believes he has been involved in a UFO
incident.
However
much he tries to find out what really happened, the government organisation,
D9, evades all of his investigations.
Dispirited,
he gives up that line of research, and returns to his interest in UFOs.
Watkin
travels up from London to investigate the Beings of Bodfari, a legend that has
been linked to UFO activity.
En
route, he stops off in Llangollen of which the author gives a vivid description
taking in a number of well-known local sights and businesses such as Dinas Bran
Castle, the Corn Mill, the railway station, the florists in Oak
Street and the Watkin & Williams store in Regent Street.
Coincidentally
in Llangollen at the same time as Watkin is a D9 operative, travelling under
the name of Sarah Deakin.
Her
weapon of choice is a meaty survival knife, which she has brought to Llangollen
to have its edges laced with silver - a lethal metal to all metahominids – at a
local jewellers shop.
Fiona
added: “The e-book has been fanastically well received, so I thought it was
time I also produced it as a paperback.
“The
e-book has sold very well all over the world, including Germany, Russia, America
and China.
“I
now plan to write a number of short stories and combine them into one book.”
The
paperback version of The Last Changeling is available, priced £11.99,
from Amazon.
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