Bethany Broom is the main character in the King Tree novels, of which there are three, currently: Into the Four Lands, Back to the Four lands and Beyond the Four lands. Each, also, has a sub-title: Altars of Fire and Water, Altars of Earth and Stone and Altars of Wind and Ice, all by Erick T. Rhetts and available through Amazon, both as an ebook and paperback.
Bethany is a fourteen-year-old from Howington, a fictional upstate New York town. She resides with her grandmother Rebecca, an octogenarian who appears to be anything but. And that is a key to the novel’s plot.
A ninth-grader, Bethany deals with the usual issues that concern teens, one of which is her larger than Barbie Doll size. Her neighborhood friends include Scottie-a boy a year older, Dennis-a source of some confusion, and Elena, who lives across the pond.
When only two-years of age, Bethany’s mother, Siobhan, mysteriously disappeared. Her father, a good man, ultimately moves on and remarries. The marriage, to Kim, produces twin boys, Bryan and Reid. While Bethany loves her half-brothers as only an older sister can, she and Kim share no warmth.
Shortly after the birth of the twins, Bethany’s father agrees at Kim’s insistence to move closer to the city, leaving Bethany to live with Rebecca. Nevertheless, Bethany’s relationship with her father remains strong, as does his with Rebecca. His visits back upstate to see Bethany are often and extended. The narratives starts when he and Kim, off on a business trip out of the country, arrive to Howington to drop the twins off for the summer.
No more than a couple of days into the visit, and following some strange events, both Bryan and Reid go missing. The clue to their disappearance is strange footprints leading to and from an old majestic tree in the middle of the woods behind Rebecca’s house–the King Tree.
Not as alarmed as she should be at the boys disappearance and failure to return, Rebecca reveals to Bethany secrets she has kept to herself since she came to Howington those many years past, one of which is that she is from a land apart and the King Tree is the way back there. Keeping the details to a minimum, Rebecca suggests to Bethany that the boys have been kidnapped as a ploy to get her to go back to that land apart, the Four Lands. Further, that it is Bethany who has what it will take to get Bryan and Reid back.
Rebecca tells Bethany that she believes Bethany may be strong in the Knowing, a gift bestowed on only a special few from the Four Lands, and even less in its fullness. She admits to Bethany that she herself has the gift but not in its fullness. She then tells Bethany about the altars and the role they will play, if Bethany is to rescue Bryan and Reid.
Into the Four Lands and the novels that follow are Bethany’s story as she seeks out the altars and learns to use the Knowing.
More to follow…
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