Travel Glasses by Chess Desalls Series: The Call to Search Everywhen,
Published by Czidor Lore LLC on 7th May 2014
Genres: Fantasy, Magic, Science Fiction, Romance, Time Travel
Pages: 242
Goodreads
Amazon Kindle, Audible
Calla Winston’s mobile devices sit in a corner of her room, covered in dust. Weeks ago, she shared photos and laughs with her best online friend. Now, after having felt the sting of betrayal, she prefers being hidden and friendless. She equates privacy with security and technology with pain.
Then she meets Valcas, an otherworldly time traveler who traverses time and space with a pair of altered sunglasses. When an ethereal being knocks Calla to the ground near her family’s lakeside cottage, Valcas uses the Travel Glasses to help her escape. He offers his further protection in exchange for a promise. Intrigued by Valcas and the possibility of time travel, Calla accepts. That is until she learns that his search for her was no mere coincidence.
Calla sets off on her own, taking the Travel Glasses with her. Torn between searching for her estranged father and reuniting with the rest of her family, she tracks down the inventor of the Travel Glasses in hopes of discovering more about Valcas’ past and motivations. The Travel Glasses take Calla’s mistrust of technology to all new levels. But without them, she’ll never make it back home. With Valcas hot on her trail, Calla hopes to find what she’s looking for before he catches up.
The Call to Search Everywhen is a serial series of novel-length installments. Travel Glasses is YA fantasy filled with metafiction and other literary twistiness. It’s a thought-provoking narrative about trust, relationships, reality and illusion.
Many thanks to the cover design team at www.damonza.com for the beautiful new cover art.
Insight Kindling by Chess Desalls Series: The Call to Search Everywhen #2
Published by Czidor Lore LLC on 13th January 2015
Genres: Fantasy, Magic, Science Fiction, Romance, Time Travel
Pages: 211
Goodreads
Amazon Kindle, Audible
Calla faces charges against her for changing the past. Her use of the Travel Glasses resulted in the creation of two writings that affected the lives of Edgar, the inventor of the Travel Glasses, and Valcas, their prior owner. Now Calla must explain her actions before the Time and Space Travel Agency.
The hearing does not end well. The travel commissioner finds Calla guilty as charged and forces her to choose between two harsh penalties. Despite the risk of becoming lost herself, Calla accepts a dangerous travel mission that may help her find her father. She teams up with a group of talented travelers. While working with them, she soon discovers that she has a special travel talent of her own.
Pursued by the sentient being of white light that’s been tracking her father’s bloodline, Calla fears her newfound talents may not be enough to protect her and her teammates before they complete their mission.
Insight Kindling is the second installment in The Call to Search Everywhen serial series.
Time for the Lost by Chess Desalls Series: The Call to Search Everywhen #3
Published by Czidor Lore LLC on 9th February 2016
Genres: Fantasy, Magic, Science Fiction, Romance, Time Travel
Pages: 237
Goodreads
Amazon Kindle, Audible
Calla's disappearance leads her family and friends to suspect that she’s lost. In a desperate attempt to find her, Valcas seeks help from a man he betrayed. A new search begins, one that sounds promising, even if it forces Valcas to confront his past.
The travel team reunites for a mission they never saw coming: a journey to a world caught between life and death, and hidden within the deepest recesses of time. Ivory rediscovers a friend and Ray learns the meaning behind his tattoo. But the connections they make between travelers and the lost may twist the core of the Time and Space Travel Agency inside out.
Time for the Lost is the third installment in The Call to Search Everywhen serial series.
Excerpt
I inhaled a few times, expanding my chest with the cleanest, coolest air that I could find. My body stiffened. “I can’t do this,” I said.
Valcas grasped my waist and turned me in the direction of the Fire Falls, all while taking a couple of deep breaths of his own. A moment later our hands joined again. He brought his lips to my ear. “Yes, you can. You must.”
I looked at the sheet of flame and bit my lip. There would be no going back. Shakily, I sucked in a huge gulp of air.
Valcas yelled, “Now! Hold your breath, close your eyes and run!”
His grip on my hand tightened, and I felt myself being tugged forward. We ran as fast as possible, blindly, without breathing.
Burning flames charred my clothing and skin. It smelled like a barbecue, the thought of which sickened my stomach. Had I not been trying to hold my breath, I would have gagged. Next came the sizzling and popping sounds, which only nauseated me more.
I lost the squeezing sensation of Valcas’ grip, but I felt something continue to propel me through the Falls. I opened my mouth, not to breathe, but to scream, when it hit me—really hit me—that I couldn’t run back out of the fire.
The fiery torment scorched my tongue and the insides of my mouth, turning my saliva to steam before burning through layers of skin. Then, the burning spread into my lungs as they pleaded for air.
I no longer felt my feet and legs pounding against the ground. Something else pushed me on, but the forward movement paled in comparison to the broiling of my body. I thought I would pass out from the pain and lack of air, waiting and hoping for either that or death.
As far as I could tell, my eyes were still shut—I’d complied with that part of Valcas’ instructions. Yet, in my agony, I had no sense of whether my eyelids were still intact or burned completely off my face. When I’d first entered the Fire Falls, I could see a fiery orange glow through my eyelids. Now everything was black and red.
Somehow “seeing” the blackness and the redness comforted me. My eyes were still present; they hadn’t been eaten away by the Falls. I knew this because my eyeballs throbbed, a distinct, piercing white-hot pain that stood out among the burning of my flesh.
No longer was there any concept of time.
I lost all awareness of Valcas.
Everything was pain and pain was everything.
While yearning for the relentless suffering to stop, I felt myself fall forward.
As I fell, an enveloping coolness wrapped me in balmy bliss. I wanted to sigh in relief, but my lungs had been deprived of air for an indeterminate period of time. I had nothing left to fill a sigh.
A cooling serum filled my mouth, stomach and lungs, healing me from the inside out as it repaired me, externally, internally, outward and inward.
I welcomed the liquid ointment into my eyes by opening them the way I’d learned while swimming in a pool of water. I would have laughed if I could have, remembering how much I’d complained about the chlorine in the water stinging my eyes.
This ability to open my eyes brought with it other sensations, making me realize that I hadn’t fallen at all. I became aware of my own two legs, felt them; they were no longer running, but they continued to carry me forward.
Then I began to see. First, I recognized that the balmy liquid was a blue-green color. Through it, I could see the shape of a cave, distorted but dark and gray, and very real.
To my left I felt a pressure on my hand. I turned my head to find Valcas walking beside me. By some miracle he was still holding my hand.
Encouraged, I picked up speed, dragging Valcas along with me. He didn’t resist. Before breaking through to the surface of air, I felt myself rinsed clean by a shower of clear, refreshing water—a substance much less dense than the blue-green fluid.
I drew in a long, deep breath of warm, delicious air as I stepped out of the water and onto dry ground. The sensation of Valcas’ hand fell away.
Leave a Reply