Do You Believe in Magic? by Jim Melvin
Teen fantasy adventure for 13 and older. Best Book Awards double finalist. Winner of 13 international awards. Recommended by Kirkus Reviews: “A delightful beginning to a promising series that’s sure to appeal to teen readers who feel like outsiders.”
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“Do You Believe in Magic?” tells the story of a boy named Charlie who is whisked away from his life in Lowery, SC, to a fantastical world called Pacchann. Charlie finds himself in the middle of a war between the good Yodhin warriors led by the boy Garrick and the evil Niddukk, who uses an army of monstrous creatures to conquer the land. While Charlie must learn to navigate this dangerous world, he is joined by his new friends Zola and Virgil, who are also transported to this land. The novel follows the group as they face many dangers and eventually learn that Charlie possesses High Magic, making him a vital player in the fight against the Niddukk.
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Author Bio:
Jim grew up on the shores of western Florida and spent much of his childhood swimming in shark-infested waters long before the movie “Jaws” put a scare into everyone. At the time, he was too skinny to attract a shark’s attention, anyway.
About ten other boys his age lived on my same street, and they hung out morning, noon, and night playing the usual sports that young boys love — football, baseball, “kill the carrier,” etc. — but as a group, they also played fantastical games that contained magic, monsters, and superheroes. It was in this setting that Jim’s imagination as a writer of magical fantasy was born and nurtured.
Jim moved from Florida to Upstate South Carolina about twenty years ago and drove from Tampa-St. Pete to the Clemson area on Interstate 75 many times. It’s about a 10-hour drive, which is quite wearisome. And the traffic around Atlanta can be horrendous. Jim always found the rest stops to be a bit spooky, especially at night. His MC Charlie Magus also found them to be spooky. If you read “Do You Believe in Magic?,” you’ll get the picture.
Jim’s first home in SC was on forty wooded acres that included a creek that wound through a forest to a waterfall. It wasn’t as magnificent as described in his books , but it did serve as the inspiration for the story.
Jim is at home in the mountains. It’s where he now lives, and he does long hikes at least three days per week. Characters in fantasy novels tend to wander around a lot in the wilderness, so Jim feels comfortable writing about natural surroundings.
Jim is the author of nine award-winning novels, three novelettes, and thousands of magazine and news articles. He now lives in a valley surrounded by mountains in the Southern Appalachians. He was previously an award-winning journalist at several large newspapers and a communications director at Clemson University.