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A Very Human Question
Bella Santini in the Land of Everlasting Change follows a fourteen-year-old girl who enters a magical fairy realm and discovers that her mysterious connection to its magic may reveal a hidden truth about her identity. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Bella Santini was born from my own experience of feeling different as a child. I was highly sensitive and deeply aware of the emotions around me, but I did not always understand what I was sensing or where I belonged. I wanted to create a character who carried some of that same uncertainty.
Fantasy gave me a beautiful way to explore those feelings. Bella begins the story believing she knows who she is and what her world is, even though she has never felt completely at home in it. Then she enters a place where everything she understands about herself begins to shift. The magic is part of the adventure, but underneath it is a very human question: What happens when you discover that the things that made you feel different might actually be part of who you are?
That became the heart of the Land of Everlasting Change. Bella is entering a magical world, but she is also entering a deeper understanding of herself.
Bella enters the fairy realm almost by accident. What did you want her unexpected journey to represent?
Life rarely announces the experiences that are going to change us. We can be moving through an ordinary day and suddenly find ourselves somewhere we never expected to be, emotionally or literally. Bella does not choose a grand quest. She falls into one.
I wanted that unexpected journey to reflect the experience of growing up, particularly during the tween and early teen years. The world begins changing around you, relationships change, your awareness of yourself changes, and suddenly the rules that once made sense do not seem quite as certain.
The Land of Everlasting Change makes that experience visible. Bella cannot control everything that happens around her, but she can learn to understand what she feels, make choices about how she responds, and discover what those choices reveal about her. For me, that is where courage begins.
Yelimoon Fairy School adds a magical-school element to the story. What was most exciting about creating the school and its magical curriculum?
Yelimoon was tremendous fun to create because it grew out of a real place that captured my imagination. I lived in Cheltenham, England, and often admired the beautiful buildings of Cheltenham College. Their historic architecture became the visual inspiration for Yelimoon Fairy School. I loved taking something that existed in the real world and imagining what might be happening behind those walls if they belonged to a school for fairies.
From there, I could let my imagination run free. I created magical classes, unusual teachers, creatures, friendships, mistakes, and all the delightful complications that happen when young people are learning abilities they do not yet know how to control. What interested me most, though, was that Bella could not simply master a spell and suddenly master herself. She has to experiment, make mistakes, become frustrated, try again, and learn whom she can trust. Yelimoon teaches magic, but the experiences Bella has there teach her about herself. That is one of the things I love about writing fantasy for young readers. You can give a child an extraordinary world while still speaking to something very real in their life.
What can readers expect from Bella’s continuing adventures in the Land of Everlasting Change?
Bella’s world continues to grow, and so do the challenges she faces. Each adventure explores another layer of growing up through fantasy, friendship, difficult choices, misunderstandings, consequences, and, of course, magic.
In Troll War, Bella begins discovering that understanding another person requires looking beyond what we have been told about them. In Princess Bella Visits the Dragon’s Lair, her choices become increasingly important, and she learns that even well-intentioned decisions can have consequences. As the series continues, the world expands further, and Bella’s understanding of herself becomes more complex.
There are larger mysteries unfolding as well, including questions about Bella’s connection to this world and where she truly belongs. I want readers to have the pleasure of following an ongoing fantasy adventure while growing alongside Bella. She does not become fearless or suddenly have everything figured out. She becomes more capable of listening to herself, understanding others, making choices, and meeting change when it arrives. That, to me, is a much more interesting kind of magic.
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When Bella follows a trail of glowing lights into the woods, she’s suddenly swept into the Land of Everlasting Change, a magical realm where nothing stays the same for long and courage is tested in unexpected ways. Taken to a mysterious fairy school, Bella must face a series of magical trials that challenge not just her abilities but also her confidence, her choices, and her belief in herself.
As Bella navigates strange rules, powerful fairies, and friendships that test her heart, she begins to discover that real strength isn’t about being fearless, it’s about learning how to stand steady when things feel uncertain.
Bella Santini in the Land of Everlasting Change is the first book in a heartfelt middle-grade fantasy series about resilience, identity, and finding courage from within. It’s a story for sensitive readers, children who have felt out of place, and anyone learning how to trust themselves in a world that keeps changing.
Perfect for middle-grade readers who love magical worlds, brave heroines, and emotionally meaningful adventures.
An Unconscious Choice of Chaos
Tessa Kinsela’s An Unscious Choice of Chaos is an emotionally candid coming-of-age novel about how quickly adolescence can outrun a young person’s ability to understand it. Ashley begins Year 9 believing that careful thought can keep life orderly. Then friendship, desire, grief, alcohol, secrecy, and trauma begin exerting their own momentum. Kinsela makes the butterfly effect more than a recurring image. It becomes the book’s emotional structure, with each seemingly small choice altering the shape of everything that follows.
Ashley’s voice is intelligent, observant, funny, and intensely analytical. Her attention to bedroom colours, family rituals, school timetables, books, trees, and food gives the novel a vivid everyday texture, while the Queensland heat and bushland make its setting feel lived in. That domestic detail matters because it establishes the warmth surrounding Ashley before her inner world starts to fracture. The chapter titles, from “Anticipation” and “Exposure” through “Shame,” “Resilience,” and “Equilibrium,” create a thoughtful map of that psychological journey.
The novel’s most affecting quality is its willingness to remain close to Ashley when her reasoning becomes tangled. Her relationships with Tanner, Maddy, and Bray reveal different forms of intimacy, but the emotional heart of the book lies in her bonds with her family, especially Lacey. Kinsela handles consent, sexual assault, self-harm, substance use, and emotional distress with seriousness and compassion. The story also captures how shame can distort responsibility, leaving a person convinced that every harm they’ve suffered began with some earlier mistake of their own.
This is a confronting read, but it’s also a deeply humane one. Ashley’s recovery arrives through honesty, professional care, familiar places, books, and the quiet presence of people who keep loving her. The ending feels earned because healing is presented as an ongoing practice. Tessa Kinsela captures the terrible velocity of one small choice becoming a storm, then shows how tenderness can teach a life to hold steady again.
Pages: 252 | ASIN : B0HBRGDZR3
Bella Santini in the Land of Everlasting Change
Bella Santini in the Land of Everlasting Change, by Angela Legh, is a children’s fantasy adventure that blends fairy-tale magic, a hidden world, magical-school fantasy, and a coming-of-age story with a surprisingly thoughtful look at emotions. Fourteen-year-old Bella would rather spend her summer painting than camping with her parents, but a mysterious light leads her into a fairy realm where she’s arrested, questioned by the Seelie Court, and eventually sent to Yelimoon Fairy School. What starts as a strange detour quickly becomes a much larger discovery about Bella herself. She may have entered this world believing she’s human, but the magic around her keeps suggesting there’s much more to her story.
The fantasy world is colorful and busy in a way younger readers can easily picture. There are fairies with shimmering wings, magical spells, enchanted mirrors, a fairy tribunal, trolls gathering in the woods, an ancient chalice, a formerly stone gargoyle named Torvieto, and even a parallel realm inhabited by emotions. Yelimoon gives the book its magical-school adventure energy, while Bella’s initiation trials create a clear series of challenges that keep the story moving. One of my favorite stretches is her search for the Chalice of Keani, which turns into a genuine fantasy quest filled with puzzles, danger, strange magic, and some clever problem-solving from Bella.
What gives this children’s fantasy novel its own personality, though, is the way emotional growth is built directly into the adventure. Bella learns about fear, sadness, frustration, calm, trust, friendship, bullying, and the stories people tell themselves about who they are. Those ideas aren’t confined to conversations. In Emovia, emotions actually become forces Bella and Torvieto have to navigate, so techniques such as breathing, calming yourself, examining fear, and trusting your own judgment become part of surviving the quest. Bella also changes in believable ways. The girl who begins the book irritated with her parents and determined to stay inside painting gradually discovers courage, loyalty, resourcefulness, and a much greater sense of what she might be capable of.
There’s plenty left unresolved by the end, and that works well for the opening book of a fantasy series. Ginekei and Ashworth are still moving pieces into place, the trolls are gathering, Bella’s royal connection is becoming harder to hide, and even Bella doesn’t yet understand the truth about her identity. At the same time, this first adventure gives her a satisfying arc of its own. She arrives in the Land of Everlasting Change feeling frightened and powerless and finishes surrounded by friends, aware of her growing magic, and more willing to trust herself.
Readers looking for a middle grade fantasy, fairy adventure, magical school story, or children’s book about emotional intelligence will find all of those elements woven into Bella’s journey, with enough mystery waiting in the wings to make the next installment feel like a natural continuation.
Pages: 190 | ASIN : B0FS6HZY8K
Shared Experiences
The Arbiters follows a group of teenage friends who discover a development project is threatening their favorite wilderness area, and they are determined to find a way to save it. Why did you want to combine a coming-of-age story with an environmental conflict?
I think it is important for young people to care about the planet and their local environment. Anyone, including a young person, can make their voice heard in various ways when it comes to injustices against nature or otherwise. I remember development near my home during my childhood and the sense of loss I felt. Through my stories, I want to inspire people to take action.
Friendship is just as important to the story as the environmental conflict. What did you want to capture about teenage friendships during this stage of life?
Some of my greatest friendships were forged during my childhood and teen years. Shared experiences created and tightened those bonds. We had incredible, unforgettable outdoor adventures together. I’m sure the friendships of many people have a similar genesis. I want to celebrate and showcase the joy, sometimes bittersweet, of those connections.
The novel shows different ways of making a difference, including research, writing, art, observation, and direct action. Was it important to show that activism doesn’t have to look the same for everyone?
Yes. We all have different personalities and strengths. Each talent can be harnessed in ways big and small. Everyone can contribute. You may not realize the difference you make, but it all adds up to good.
Is The Arbiters intended as a standalone story, or do you see possibilities for following Reily and his friends into the next stages of their lives?
The Arbiters was written as a prequel to my earlier novel, The Restorers. In that book, my main character, Reily, and his friend, Wil, are in their 40s. I enjoyed going back in time and writing the coming-of-age tale, imagining what Reily was like as a 15-16 year-old with his nascent environmental convictions. I’m currently writing the third book in the trilogy, which takes us to the present day and features some of the same treasured characters.
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Together they fight back with their own form of frontier justice and realize new things about themselves in the process. Ben Kabumba lets his feet, and inquisitiveness, do the talking. Wil Wisnoski plays defense–with and without a pen. Eddie Knisely improves his jaded world through watercolors, while Reily yearns for the neighborhood dream girl and wet and wild extracurricular pursuits.
In this coming of age story, an adventuresome coed crew, and enterprising dog, discover love, acceptance, and the importance of making a difference. Words and research matter, along with proper reconnaissance, covert deeds, and a fed-up bureaucrat named Billy Tilghman. Armed with knowledge and a little bit of serendipity, they disrupt–if not, disassemble–the devious plans of a bumbling developer, and protect their sacred lands. Stirring environmental passions, spiritual connections, and a dose of 1970’s nostalgia, The Arbiters has readers cheering for a knotty tree and falling for the charms of a few timely snakes . . . of one kind or another.
The Arbiters
The Arbiters by Brook Lenker is a coming-of-age adventure set in eastern Pennsylvania in 1975 and 1976, where the pleasures of being young gradually collide with a much bigger question about who gets to decide what happens to the natural places people love. Reily Watters and his friends spend their time fishing, hiking, swimming, chasing romantic interests, getting into trouble, and exploring the Mannequin Creek watershed. When a proposed pumped-storage hydroelectric project threatens to transform that landscape, their familiar woods and water take on new importance. The environmental storyline grows naturally from Reily’s attachment to the creek, so the book’s interest in conservation feels personal. It’s as much about young people discovering what matters to them as it is about saving a place.
One of the book’s most enjoyable qualities is its ensemble of characters. Reily is the emotional center, curious about nature, girls, friendship, and the person he’s becoming, but the supporting characters develop lives and ambitions of their own. Wil’s dry wit and interest in writing give the group a different kind of intelligence, while Boom’s scientific curiosity becomes especially important as he and Cindy investigate the snakes living near the proposed reservoir. Eddie may be the biggest surprise. His rough, impulsive personality sits alongside a genuine artistic talent and a growing confidence that gives him more depth as the story progresses. Even Merle Darkes, the developer pushing the hydroelectric project, gets his own chapters, allowing the novel to show how ambition and self-interest can shape the way someone sees a landscape. The shifting viewpoints make the story feel less like one teenager’s crusade and more like a community of people moving toward choices that reveal who they are.
Lenker also has a strong affection for the texture of the 1970s, and the novel is packed with music, television, cars, clothes, food, slang, and other period details. Those references create a lived-in world. Just as important, the landscape itself becomes one of the book’s most memorable presences. Fishing holes, waterfalls, forests, quarries, farms, and creeks accumulate meaning because the characters keep returning to them. The plot can be leisurely and episodic, particularly when it follows romances, school life, sports, and the group’s everyday escapades, but that spaciousness serves the coming-of-age story. By the time the fight over the dam reaches its resolution, the reader understands exactly what could be lost. The government’s eventual rejection of the project therefore lands as more than a bureaucratic victory. It’s the preservation of the physical world in which these friendships and discoveries have taken shape.
I recommend The Arbiters most to readers who enjoy character-driven coming-of-age fiction, outdoor adventures, environmental themes, and stories with a strong sense of place. It should have particular appeal for people who remember the 1970s, since they’ll recognize plenty of cultural touchstones, but younger readers interested in conservation and friendship can connect with its central concerns just as easily. The book understands that learning to care about something often happens before a person knows what to do about it. Reily and his friends begin with fishing, swimming, crushes, jokes, and afternoons that seem endless. They come away with a clearer sense that the places they love can be vulnerable, that their own talents can have a purpose, and that speaking up can matter. That combination of youthful adventure, friendship, humor, and environmental stewardship gives The Arbiters its distinctive identity.
Pages: 231 | ASIN : B0DS6BN31G
A True Friendship Can Survive Anything
A Small Memory follows an eighteen-year-old college basketball player and his best friend as they serve as live-in counselors for adults with intellectual disabilities while navigating the challenges of young adulthood. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
This novel exemplifies that old adage, “Write what you know.” It was actually inspired by my experience living in the circumstances the two main characters encounter. This was several decades ago when that concept was brand new so everyone was feeling their way. Living in that group home while experiencing independence myself along with my best friend provided the inspiration.
The friendship between Mike and Ted is the emotional foundation of the novel. Why was it important to make that relationship central?
As I said, my friend from high school and I did actually room together under those circumstances and this is a tribute to that friendship. Also, growing up, I read John Knowles classic, A Separate Peace. There is a deeply rooted friendship at the heart of that novel, but ultimately tragic consequences destroys its future. While there is a traumatic event in my novel, I wanted to show the resilience of true friendship. Most people have that one special friend that exerts a hold on us for whom we would sacrifice so much.
Ted’s injury forces Mike to confront guilt, grief, and limits he cannot control. How did you approach writing that emotional journey?
I will admit to being a pantser for a large part of my approach to writing. The first part of the novel is almost a memoir as most of those circumstances were based on things we actually experienced. The remaining two-thirds is one hundred percent fiction. When Mike is facing emotional struggles on multiple fronts, I had to be careful to not let it become something that was a simple pity party he was throwing for himself. Those sections went through multiple edits and beta readers to help me make certain that Mike didn’t become one-dimensional, or that his actions would be out of character. I also thought back to challenges I faced in maintaining friendships under difficult circumstances and drew upon those.
If readers remember one message from the novel, what would you like it to be?
A true friendship can survive anything.
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When Ted is brutally attacked by a resident and left in a coma, Mike is forced to confront a question that will haunt him: Why wasn’t he there? As Ted slowly awakens with no memory of his former life-or of Mike-their easy shorthand of nicknames and shared dreams vanishes. What remains is a fragile stranger in his friend’s body, and a guilt Mike cannot outrun.
A Small Memory is a quiet, emotionally resonant novel about friendship tested by trauma, the burden of responsibility, and the long work of forgiveness. For readers who believe the deepest love stories are sometimes about friends, it asks: Who are we when the past is gone-and who will we be if it returns?
A Small Memory
Robert Dyer’s A Small Memory is a heartfelt coming-of-age novel about friendship, responsibility, and the lasting effects of trauma. Set in Ohio during the 1970s, it follows Mike Youngstown, an eighteen-year-old college basketball player who moves into a group home with his best friend, Ted Dirksen. The two young men work as live-in counselors for adults with intellectual disabilities while balancing school, relationships, and their first real taste of independence. Their arrangement begins as an exciting new chapter, but it becomes far more demanding after Ray, a troubled new resident, enters the home.
The relationship between Mike and Ted gives the novel its emotional center. They tease each other constantly, compete over everything, and communicate with the ease of people who’ve known each other for years. Beneath the jokes, though, there’s genuine devotion. Early in the book, Ted tells Mike, “We’re in this together,” a simple statement that becomes increasingly meaningful as their lives change. Dyer makes their friendship feel lived-in through private nicknames, late-night conversations, petty arguments, and small acts of loyalty. Because that bond is established so carefully, the later scenes carry real emotional force.
The group home setting also gives the story warmth and depth. Stuart, Mark, Paul, John, Kevin, and Ray aren’t treated as a single interchangeable group. Each has his own habits, fears, abilities, and relationships. One especially revealing moment comes when Stuart resists a job promotion because he’s afraid success will separate him from his friends. He finally admits, “I don’t want to be alone.” Moments like this show how independence can be both a goal and a frightening prospect. They also push Mike to become more patient and observant, even when his confidence tells him he already understands the people around him.
Mike’s narration is direct, energetic, and emotionally open. He can be protective and generous, but he’s also impulsive, stubborn, and convinced that determination can solve nearly anything. After Ted suffers a devastating brain injury, that confidence turns into guilt and a desperate desire to repair what has been damaged. The second half of the novel follows Mike as he tries to support Ted’s recovery while holding on to basketball, college, and his relationship with Karen. At times Mike’s thoughts circle repeatedly around blame and forgiveness, but that repetition suits a character who can’t simply reason his way out of grief. His growth comes from learning that caring for someone doesn’t always mean controlling what happens to them.
A Small Memory is a tender story about the many forms friendship can take after life changes it. Its most affecting scenes are often quiet ones, such as a returned hug, a remembered nickname, or a familiar joke emerging through confusion. The novel handles painful material with compassion while still making room for humor, romance, and the ordinary messiness of college life. Dyer’s book asks what it means to remain loyal when a person can no longer return to the life everyone expected for them. Mike’s answer isn’t perfect, but it’s deeply human: he stays, adapts, and keeps choosing the friendship they built together.
Pages: 304 | ASIN : B0H6GQ6SW6
Societal Rules and Rituals
Nebraska Avenue follows a lonely Brooklyn boy in 1976 Long Island as he joins a crew of paperboys whose neighborhood adventures, comic rituals, and risky scheme to clear their boss’s name teach him about courage, loyalty, friendship, and home. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The inspiration for the story was my own experience moving from Brooklyn to Long Island in the 1970s, leaving behind my school, friends, and “block”, and needing to start over. My twin sisters, two years older than me, had a much easier time adjusting to our new environment. I was indeed a paperboy for Newsday, and most of the “shenanigans” depicted in the book actually happened.
Vinny’s world feels rich with period details, from paper routes to banana-seat bikes. Were these drawn from personal memory, research, or a mix of both?
I have vivid memories of that time period, which I supported with research to make sure my memory knew what it was talking about! I only wish I had kept my Royce Union bicycle all these years – although I’m pretty sure I still have the milk crate I used to deliver newspapers,
The novel treats childhood like its own small society with rules, rituals, and economies. Was that perspective central to the story from the beginning?
An examination of childhood societal rules and rituals was not at all planned. My intention was just to tell a story about paperboys (and one girl paperboy). But by Chapter 2 – beginning with Wally’s sister becoming annoyed at Artie’s immaturity – it became apparent that some of the most interesting things about growing up happen “between the lines.” Recounting the manner in which interactions between the characters were conducted became fun for me. For example, the frequent punches in the arm were essentially the way the paperboys kept order, with each of them having the authority to render judgment when someone stepped out of line. I recall receiving my fair share of (well-deserved) punches, all in good fun and with no lasting damage.
How did you balance nostalgia with the more tender emotional undercurrent of Vinny’s homesickness and need to belong?
I think most everyone is nostalgic for their formative years and could write a story about it if they put their mind to it. My eyes would sometimes tear up when I was writing about Mr. R’s struggles or the loneliness I felt after moving to Long Island. It would have been a very sad story if I remained in that space, so I tried to concentrate on the lighter moments. Fortunately, my summers as a paperboy were filled with those lighter moments – and way too many fireworks.
Being a paperboy gave me friends and confidence, not to mention the best financial lessons an early teen could hope to learn. Best of all, I remain good friends with some of the “characters” depicted in the book. I only wish today’s children could experience what my friends and I did fifty years ago.
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But the easy rhythm of morning routes and Fourth of July mischief doesn’t last. When a string of burglaries hits homes along Vinny’s route, suspicion lands on the boys—and a local cop with a long memory is more than willing to make it stick.
With no one else on their side, the crew sets out to prove the truth themselves—following the only lead they have and risking more than they bargained for in the process.
The news is only for a day. The legend of Nebraska Avenue is for a lifetime
