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| Shared Idea |
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| Saving Lady Noan
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| When I was much younger, I truly enjoyed reading books like The Once and Future King by T.H. White, The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas and Ivanhoe by Walter Scott. This interest in medieval tales led me to join other students from MIT and Harvard to create the Barony of Carolingia in the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) in my senior year in college. I played an active role in SCA for about five years.
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| I was introduced to Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) by Scott Perzan, a student in my chemistry class in 1981. It led me to create a series of adventures in a D&D world of my own imagination. Fellow college students and my children and their cousins and friends participated in these adventures, as did groups of students in D&D adventure clubs in two schools where I was employed. My grandchildren and their friends have also participated in these adventures, and such has not yet stopped. One of my first adventures, created in 1981, was based on rescuing Lady Noan.
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| A book I wrote about early factors in my D&D world, Sonia in Vert, was published in 2009. It occurred several centuries earlier in this created world. Unfortunately, it was published by a vanity press company while I was still a full-time teacher and it didn’t do well. Saving Lady Noan was written in 2010, but I held out to find a serious business. This entailed a long effort of approaching potential publishers and agents, but I had patience, a necessary factor for solid teachers. I was reconciled by the fact that Dr. Seuss had 27 rejections before his first book was published in 1937. Similarly, J.K. Rowland had a series of rejections before succeeding in having the tales of Harry Potter published. I tried unsuccessfully for a few years and then resumed after recovering from cranial surgery for AVM embolization in 2023.
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| My 108th attempt wound up being successful. Saving Lady Noan was published on February 13, 2026, by TWB Press. Perseverance paid off! The effort is now going into marketing this fantasy adventure tale. Being retired, I can invest time and energy into this venture.
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| As stated in the book's blurb, Lady Noan, but fifteen years old, is believed to have been kidnapped by Lord Blavin, her evil half-dwarf uncle and contender to the contested throne of Glawynia. She's held prisoner as leverage against her father's claim to rule the land where humans live in harmony with dwarfs, gnomes, elves, and druids. Enter the Coterie, a ragtag band of adventurers, hired by Lady Noan's father to secretly rescue her and avoid all-out war with his brother. Each member of the Coterie possesses special abilities, including outdoorsmanship, thievery and magic. On the journey north to Castle Tiufrann, bonds are formed as they face the perils of Blavin's barony, confronting thieves and monsters and then fighting soldiers Blavin has sent to stop the would-be rescuers. The Coterie loses loved ones in battle, which further threatens their mission to save Lady Noan and secure a future of freedom in Glawynia.
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| One acquaintance recently read the book and expressed her opinion. "It was absolutely amazing. The character development was excellent. It was so entertaining I couldn't put it down. Are you planning a sequel?"
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| The Coterie was developed for active participation in future books. Not all survived in Saving Lady Noan, but I am actively changing the pool of adventure characters for the next book that I am currently writing to follow Saving Lady Noan.
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| [Noat: Additional information on Saving Lady Noan is included elsewhere in this website.]
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