Did you get an Amazon gift card this Christmas? You can use it to get a book you’ll enjoy, and help feed a family.
Through Dec. 31, Rice & Beans Foundation will get $1 for each book sold in the series The Day Magic Died. They’ll use 100 percent of that for rice and beans for needy families in Nicaragua, where $1 will feed a family for a day.
So enjoy the journey and feed a family, with your Amazon gift card.
With friends and family, even the simplest meal can be a joy, Karia believes. I think that’s clear in this passage from The Hall of the Prophetess:
This left Karia to eat alone again. Up until she was fifteen, she seldom did anything alone. She was always with family or Nana, or with Timbal and Narek – though she later learned they were family too. Since then she had learned to do many things alone. But of all those things, her least favorite thing to do alone was eat.
With friends and family, any meal can be a celebration, and even the most mundane meal is delightful when the conversation is good. Alone, a meal becomes simply an opportunity to satisfy hunger. And to Karia, that made even the most elaborate meal mundane.
She picked at a very tasty dish of noodles in a red sauce containing finely chopped but unfamiliar vegetables and herbs. She tapped her hard roll against her plate. She sipped her wine. It was a very good white wine, served in a crystal goblet. But she barely tasted it, and the flowery bouquet went mostly unnoticed. The plate was covered with gold filigree, as were the utensils. But she would have gladly traded it all for a wooden spoon and a wooden bowl full of hinarka and kariki with her mom and dad. Or even just her mom.
She sat back and pushed the plate away.
Will you help us provide rice and beans so needy families in Nicaragua can sit down together for a simple meal?
In December, for every book sold in the series, The Day Magic Died, $1 goes to the Rice & Beans Foundation. Rice & Beans Foundation will use 100 percent of the funds they receive to buy rice and beans (what else did you expect?) for needy families in Nicaragua.
That $1 buys a family’s meals for a day.
So you can, quite literally, enjoy the journey and feed a family.
Can you spread the word, so we can feed many, many families?
Along with the release of the fourth book, The Dwarf’s Legacy, planned for February. come some other exciting developments.
I’m looking into a third edition of The House in the Old Wood with some minor revisions. I’m glad so many people have liked the book as it is. At the same time, I’m paying attention to critical comments, and I think a few changes might be in order. If you have any thoughts on what might improve the first book, or any of the others, please feel free to share them. Will I agree with everything I hear? No. But I will listen.
Let me tell you a quick story to try to explain that. I used to work with another writer whose approach was completely different from mine. When she’d review my work, she’d suggest changes – changes that I almost never made. But I could see why she suggested the changes, and when I addressed the issues, my writing was better. That’s why I say, I won’t agree with everything I hear, but I will listen.
I will also be unveiling a new logo for the series, The Day Magic Died. If I knew what I was doing, this would have been done before the first book was out. But since the first book was my first published novel ever, I’m learning as I go.
That logo will go on every cover, meaning there will be updated covers for The House in the Old Wood, Karia’s Path and The Hall of the Prophetess.
I’ll also be using the logo on Facebook and wherever else we’re discussing the whole series. That includes a new bookmark.
The artist who is working on it for me says she’ll have it done tonight. We’ll see.
If you’ve read Karia’s Path, the second book in the series The Day Magic Died, you might remember this passage:
As the afternoon drew to a close and the sun sank toward the horizon, the trees began to thin again. The swamp became shallower, and there were more and more open patches with reeds. When they came upon a relatively dry patch of ground about an hour before sunset, they decided to make camp. Happily, this dry patch had a few trees, so that meant a place for the hammock and dry sticks scattered around on the ground for a fire.
Since it was still light, they got a fire going and she cooked some hinarka and kariki the way Karia’s mom cooked it for her dad. She was very pleased when Gerik liked it, and she realized this was the first time she had cooked for him. This was not exactly the dish she would have chosen, or the place, but it still seemed rather romantic.
Rice and beans – or in this case, hinarka and kariki – was all Karia had to cook.
That’s how it is for many poor people in Nicaragua. Living on $2 a day doesn’t provide for much more than what is absolutely necessary. So receiving $1 worth of rice and beans is a big deal for them – a big help with their daily costs of living.
This month, $1 from the sale of each book in my series, The Day Magic Died, will go to Rice & Beans Foundation. They’ll use 100 percent of those funds to provide rice and beans to needy families in Nicaragua.
Tell your family. Tell your friends. Tell complete strangers.
Enjoy the journey and feed a family.
Thanks to all the folks who shared the giveaway on Facebook and other places, and to the 811 who entered the giveaway.
If you were one of the 799 who didn’t win a copy, and especially if you’re one of the 392 who put The House in the Old Wood on their “to read” list, there’s no better time to get a copy than now. That’s because this month, $1 from the sale of each book in the series The Day Magic Died will help feed needy people.
In fact, that $1 will feed a family for a day in Nicaragua, where Rice & Beans Foundation will use 100 percent of the funds to buy rice and beans for needy families.
So enjoy the journey and feed a family.
by Ian Fallis 
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