The Charlatan’s Boy – Day 1

“I only know one man who might be able to tell me where I come from, and that man is a liar and a fraud.”

As far back as he can remember, the orphan Grady has tramped from village to village in the company of a huckster named Floyd. With his adolescent accomplice, Floyd perpetrates a variety of hoaxes and flimflams on the good citizens of the Corenwald frontier, such as the Ugliest Boy in the World act.

It’s a hard way to make a living, made harder by the memory of fatter times when audiences thronged to see young Grady perform as “The Wild Man of the Feechiefen Swamp.” But what can they do? Nobody believes in feechies anymore.

When Floyd stages an elaborate plot to revive Corenwalders’ belief in the mythical swamp-dwellers known as the feechiefolk, he overshoots the mark. Floyd’s Great Feechie Scare becomes widespread panic. Eager audiences become angry mobs, and in the ensuing chaos, the Charlatan’s Boy discovers the truth that has evaded him all his life—and will change his path forever.

Jonathan Rogers grew up in Georgia, where he spent many happy hours in the swamps and riverbottoms on which the wild places of The Charlatan’s Boy are based. He received his undergraduate degree from Furman University in South Carolina and holds a Ph.D. in seventeenth-century English literature from Vanderbilt University. He lives with his family in Nashville, Tennessee.

Excerpt

Tomorrow I will have an interview with one of Jonathan’s family members!

Also by Jonathan Rogers:

A shepherd boy heeds the call of the wild and finds it’s a call to save his country.

The prophet Bayard arrives at Longleaf Manor, estate of Lord Errol with an unanticipated announcement: Aidan Errolson, Lord Errol’s youngest son, is the Wilderking. But the weight and glory of this pronouncement is yet to be shouldered.

In the meanwhile, Lord Errol and his sons attend a Treaty Feast celebrating a pact signed between Corenwald and the Pyrthen Empire. But Corenwald is double crossed by the Pyrthens and they go to war.

The story unfolds as Aidan begins to walk the way of his destiny through the feechiefolk and a showdown with the Pyrthen champion Greidawl ending with an epic battle to save the kingdom of Corenwald.

This first book in the Wilderking Trilogy is sure to capture the hearts of young and old alike, in the fashion of The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia tales.

No civilizer has ever come back alive from the Feechiefen Swamp. What makes Aidan think he can?

As the second book of the Wilderking Trilogy opens, Aidan is living in the court of King Darrow. He has become best friends with Darrow’s son Steren, and he enjoys great favor among the courtiers. But King Darrow’s suspicion is growing and his insecurity causes him to hate the young man who saved his kingdom. Concerned about his king’s spiral into ever-darker moods, Aidan asks what he can do to help. Darrow sends him on an impossible adventure into the Feechiefen Swamp, thinking he is sending Aidan to his death.

Aidan’s fate is not yet sealed, though, for he allies among the feechiefolk who know him as the hero Pantherbane. But even the feechiefolk may be unable to deliver Aidan from the enemy who waits in the swamps deepest recesses–an enemy who threatens not just Aidan, but all of Corenwald.

In book three of the acclaimed Wilderking Trilogy, civilizer Aidan returns home from three years in Feechiefen Swamp to discover that a party known as the Aidanites has arisen among his fellow Corenwalders. They believe the “Wilderking Chant” makes reference to Aidan, and that he is destined to overthrow Corenwald’s tyrant King Darrow.

Aidan has no intention of leading any such rebellion. But when the Corenwald kingdom continues to weaken, and the enemy Pyrthens threaten to invade, it’s clear the Aidanites are the only army his people have left. What soon transpires among civilizers, feechiefolk, Corenwalders, and Pyrthens alike, no reader could predict. When all is said and done, who will be the Wilderking?

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(I  received The Charlatan’s Boy from the publisher.  All opinions expressed are mine alone.)