The Obsidian Spindle Saga

Do you adore fairy tales?

Are you obsessed with mythology?

Do you flip for portal fantasy?

Then you'll love The Obsidian Spindle Saga.

Fairy tales are real.

Rose Briar is a diabetic college student without insurance. She’s been scraping by through a combination of maxing out credit cards and relying upon the kindness of strangers.

Unfortunately, she’s spent every dollar at her disposal. There’s no money left to buy her life-saving insulin.

Without her medication, Rose falls into a diabetic coma. She tumbles into a deep slumber and wakes up in a fantastical place called the Dream Realm, where fairy tales and legends of old are still very much alive.

She has one chance to wake up.

She must trek across the world, visit the most powerful object in the land, the Obsidian Spindle, and entreat the fates; the only beings powerful enough to send her soul back to Earth.

But evil forces don’t want her to leave. They will stop at nothing to capture her and make sure she never goes home again.

Now, with the help of her half-gorgon girlfriend and a mysterious red rider, Rose must race across the land fighting dragons, monsters, and the forces of the Wicked Witch, Nimue, in order to reach the Obsidian Spindle before her body dies on Earth and she’s trapped in the Dream Realm forever.

Will she be able to wake up? Can she survive? That is the genesis of the Obsidian Spindle Saga (simplified sometimes as TOSS below), and the first book The Sleeping Beauty.

These are NOT retellings, but a new interpretation inspired by them.

Specs:

Total number of books: 12

Genre: Portal fantasy, fairy tales, mythology

Page count: 226-291 each, totaling 2,500+ pages

Trim: 6"x 9"

This is my favorite series I've ever written. It contains several of my favorite books that I've ever written. If you have not read this series, and you love my work, then you will absolutely ADORE this series. If you have known of my work and been waiting to try something, then this is my best work. 

Portal fantasy is my absolutely FAVORITE genre of fiction, whether it's The Wizard of Oz, Alice In Wonderland, The Magicians, His Dark Materials, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe The Hazel Wood, Caraval, Ten Thousand Doors of January, Peter Pan, Coraline, or literally any other book about characters traveling to different places, worlds, realities, they are my jam. I poured all that love into this series. 

What is the Obsidian Spindle?

The Obsidian Spindle is one of the most powerful objects in the universe. There is one in every dimension and every inhabited planet in the known galaxy. It is a transport hub between planets for gods and magical creatures, but it is also a focus for magical energy, as it takes an incredible amount of power to make it work.

Think of it like The Wheel of Time, or the Dark Tower. It is a powerful magical object that much of the story relies on and upon which many of the character's destinies depend.

In the first arc of the series, we visited the Dream Realm and the Nightmare Realm. In the second arc, we visit the Underworld and the Fairy Realm. In the final arc we--well, I'll tell you about that when the time is right. 

In the second arc of the series, we visited the Fairy Realm and the Underworld. In this third and final arc, we visit the Celestial Realm and the Dark Planet, a world of untold horrors. 

Each book tells a good chunk of the story with a satisfying conclusion, but there are cliffhangers between books that are only resolved at the end of each arc, and each arc also has a beginning, middle, and end.

What is the Dream Realm? 

Ruled by Hypnos, The Dream Realm (Urgu) is the domain of dreams. When we dream, humans travel to the Dream Realm where they get glimpses of Urgu's splendor. 

This is where the majority of our fairy tales come from, made real inside the world of the Dream Realm. 

For instance, the capital city of Urgu is The Emerald City, and it is ruled by Nimue, the Wicked Witch. Millions upon millions of people dreaming over the centuries have glimpsed the Emerald City before Frank Baum committed it to paper, and it endures because everyone has seen a glimpse of it. 

Or they did until 100 years ago, when Hypnos vanished and The Dream Realm closed itself off to Dreamers. Now, after a century locked off from humanity, The Dream Realm is dying, and Rose becomes the first Dreamer to come into the world since the early 1900s. 

Why was she allowed into the realm when so many others were denied access to it? Does she have a special destiny? Is she the Dreamer of legend who will return Urgu to glory? 

These are the questions many inhabitants of Urgu are asking themselves. While she works to find her way back to Earth, other forces conspire to use her for their own ends. 

The Other Gods

Eons ago, when the Dream Realm was still young, Zeus and the other gods needed a place to imprison some of the most wicked gods in existence; ones deemed too dangerous to the survival of the universe. 

They decided to keep them in the Dream Realm, and it fell to Hypnos to become their jailer. There were countless wars for power, but eventually the world settled into six provinces, run by the six gods who lived there, Hypnos and his five prisoners. 

Much like my popular The Godsverse Chronicles, The Obsidian Spindle Saga is a universe where all gods exist, and you will see characters and mythology from all pantheons. Here are the ones that play a major part in this arc of the series. 

• Hypnos - Hypnos is the God of Dreams from Greek Mythology. Even though he has vanished, his magic still protects his realm - the Land of Oz. This is the seat of power for the whole of Urgu, along with both the Emerald City and The Obsidian Spindle. 
• Hera - Hera is the queen of gods from Greek Mythology, but in this universe she was imprisoned by Zeus for crimes against the pantheon. She rules the Dark Domain, a haunted forest directly to the south of The Land of Oz. Her castle rests high atop a sheer cliff, where she can peer out to the Emerald City, where she controls all of Oz through her puppet, Nimue, the Wicked Witch. 
• Anansi - Anansi the spider-god comes from Ashanti tradition and is the trickster god from his pantheon. He controls the Mistreach in the northwest, a land shrouded with a thick fog that envelops any who pass through it. Few who journey into it ever return. 
• Sekhmet - Sekhmet is a warrior goddess from Egyptian mythology. She controls the Sandlands in the southeast of Urgu, where nomadic bands navigate the vast expanses of unending suffering that lay in wait for those that dare to step foot inside. 
• Agrona - Agrona is a Celtic deity of war and slaughter. She controls the mountains in the northeast, where she stays holed up in her castle on the highest mountain. Nobody has seen her in hundreds of years, and any who have gone to her castle met with a terrible end. 

The Main Characters

Each book of The Obsidian Spindle Saga is told from multiple different perspectives from all across the world of Urgu, weaving together a narrative between them. This was the most complex project I've ever worked on, getting each character right, and telling different but cohesive stories between them.

One of the things I appreciate about Game of Thrones is that each character is not only rich and unique, but they also are having their own type of fantasy story. Sansa is having a story about political intrigue while John Snow is having a classic fantasy adventure story, all while Arya is having a coming-of-age fantasy story.

It's like 30-40 stories in one book.

These stories are quite pared down in comparison to Game of Thrones. Each book comes in around 275 pages compared to 500+, but I loved the idea that each story can be its own thing, and bring different elements of fantasy into it.

• Rose - The narrative of The Obsidian Spindle Saga rotates quite heavily around Rose. She plays the role of The Sleeping Beauty in our narrative, but also Alice, and Dorothy, as she is the character we see the first moments of the Dream Realm through, and the one filled with the most wonder about what she's seeing. Rose is a college student with no magical powers, who is so poor she lives in a van in the school parking lot with her half-gorgon girlfriend, Chelle. She is also a diabetic, who often has to choose between medication and eating, which is what sets her on her path.
• Chelle - Chelle is Rose's half-gorgon girlfriend. As a "monster", she has been chased and hunted for her whole life by monster hunters trying to make a name for themselves. Her mother was slaughtered and her parts sold on the black market. She has some of her mother's gorgon powers, and also other magical powers. She has learned to defend herself and protect the ones she loves.
• Nimue - The Wicked Witch of our universe is the ruler of the Land of Oz. She deposed the previous ruler, Ozma, and has ruled for the last hundred years, She is the most powerful witch in Urgu, as she was blessed by Hera, and is working in consort with her to open the locked door to the Obsidian Spindle and return to Earth by any means necessary.
• Red - Red is the titular Red Riding Hood in our universe. She is one of Ozma's royal guards and has searched for a way to depose the Wicked Witch. She believes that Rose is the key to restoring order in Urgu, and will do anything to protect her.
• Ariel - Ariel was adopted by the queen of the mermaids after her family was dusted, but a new threat brings her back to the surface to seek out answers to age-old questions and help prevent the end of the Dream Realm as she knows it. 
• Each book in this arc follows 4-5 of these characters. As you can see above, there are many different paths these characters will walk over the course of this arc, as they try to keep and maintain power, while attempting to mold fate to their will.
• Queen Aine - The ruler of the Forbidden Forest, Queen Aine is a powerful Unseelie fairy that led a brutal war, wiping out the Seelie and consolidating power. She is ruthless about obtaining and maintaining power. However, she is very adept at diplomacy, and molding wills to her own ends.
• Gwen - After her adventures helping Rose in the first arc, Gwen just wanted to sit at home and lead a normal life. However, when her boyfriend is called to adventure as the hero of the Fairy Realm, she has no choice but to stop him from doing anything stupid. 
• Lucy - Gwen's best friend, a fashion model, and a professional "quest girl", Lucy made her living going on, and surviving, dangerous quests. Now, she lives a comfortable life...that is, until Gwen pulls her back into the life again for one last job.