I’m so excited for the fourth book in my fairy tale series to release in the new year! This book will be the Fall Equinox Chronicle in The Solstice Chronicles and the end of the series where it is at currently :(. I do have ideas for a sort of prequil series that showcases the stories of the characters parents that you meet in these first four books, and possible even a legacy series about their children, but those are not actively in the works right now so we will see where those ideas go in the coming years. I have absolutely loved writing this series and will have a hard time saying goodbye to it (who knows, maybe I won’t be able to say goodbye completely and I’ll have some others in the works). This first journey into the world of writing has had its hard times and I often feel like I’m facing similar trials to what the characters in my books are going through, but the beautiful stories that have come from it have been more than worth it. I just hope and pray they continue to reach the world and that they are read by many who love them and that the deeper God-stories woven into them will be seen and felt.
When I started writing this fourth book, I had a small idea of where I wanted to go with it, but the story that came out of my imaginative musings and God’s guiding far surpassed what I expected. The last few books I’ve written have kind of taken on their own lives and it has felt like God has been writing more of the stories than I have. It’s been interesting to sit down and have chapters flow and watch scenes develop that I know are God’s words flowing through me, because I don’t usually have a full idea of what the scene is going to look like, but it just ends up flowing onto the page. This fourth book has a lot of hard things happening within its storyline. You will discover that the timeline of this story is quite a bit removed from the other stories in this series. There are lots of secrets, lots of things revealed, lots of things from the characters’ pasts that come up. Many of the personal battles the characters faced in the other books come out on a larger scale and many will face choices of going back to old lives before redemption, or be forced to endure certain things to test how their character and faith has grown throughout the books. As horrible as their circumstances are, there is a different sense of unity in this fourth book that hasn’t been there in the other books. If you’ve read the first three, you know that the realms have lived apart from each other for many years and none of them really knew each other or interacted with each other, but a huge difference in this fourth book is the coming together and working through the hard things together and being there for and with each other through the incredibly hard times they all face. Despite all the hard things, and they are very hard (I’ve definitely cried a few times as I’ve been writing and editing certain sections, and some chapters are just those hard ones an author hates to keep reliving because it breaks my heart every time I have to read them. I know, authors have a bad rap of finding joy in bringing characters pain, but I for one don’t. My heart hurts every time 🙂 ), there are some really beautiful moments in this fourth story, and I feel (and hope) those moments will make all the hard things worth it. As much as I’ve cried and felt the heartache of the hard scenes, I’ve also smiled and found certain moments just enchanting and heart-lifting, so there is hope for this story. I will start sharing more about the nuances that make up this fourth book in The Solstice Chronicles in the weeks to come as I get ready to release Beauty Revealed in the new year, but one scene in particular comes to mind as we come off of the weekend spent giving thanks and remembering all that we have to be grateful for. It is truly one of those heart-lifting scenes, and every time I’ve read it, I just feel my soul being caught up in the beauty of this scene and the reminder of the power of turning your hearts and thoughts to God in worship and praise in the midst of dark circumstances that surround us with fear and doubt.
Many of you know from my posts that I love the productions that Sight and Sound Theatres put on. I’ve had the immense privilege of seeing a handful of their shows in person and have watched their DVD’s and streamed videos multiple times over. They bring God’s stories told through different people from the Bible to life and leave an impacting impression on my heart, soul, and mind every time I watch them. It is hard to pick a favorite show because each one has such deep truths and different things to relate to and each one carries favorite parts. One part of their David show had a scene where David is on the run from Saul and he comes to Samuel. They took this scene from 1 Samuel 19 and did a powerful job of portraying this passage. When David comes to Samuel, he is overly anxious about Saul finding him and killing him, with good reason, but Samuel’s response to David is three simple words: “Play your harp.” David questions Samuel’s advice and doesn’t see how playing his harp will help his perilous situation, but Samuel insists. “Play your harp.” David finally concedes and starts to play his harp. Playing his harp turns his heart, and the hearts of everyone around him, to worshiping God. Every one of Saul’s soldiers that enter the cave to take David into custody are overwhelmed by the presence of God’s Spirit and can’t help but praise God. Saul enters the cave after his soldiers and is overwhelmed by God’s presence as well. In the scene in the show, David and Saul end up praising and singing and dancing together, the powerful act of worship diminishing the enemy lines between them. In essence, David was saved from Saul’s destructive hand because he listened to Samuel and played his harp.
The beautiful scene I mentioned in Beauty Revealed happens towards the end of the book, and I absolutely love it. This scene was not born out of my watching the scene in David as that scene wasn’t even in my mind when I wrote it, but going back and reading it, I was reminded of that scene in “David”, and it just became such a beautiful and precious scene. A little backstory–Beauty Revealed takes a lot of its storyline from the Greek myth about Pandora’s box. This myth is so fascinating to me and I feel it provided a good base story to use for the Garden of Eden and how sin and darkness entered the world. In Beauty Revealed, the main character finds out that she has the ability to open a mysterious box that the Dark Lord is after. She faces many temptations throughout the book and the desires and promises of power feed her temptations to open the box. Ultimately, the character gives into the enticing and overpowering temptations, seeking after her own desires rather than the desires the Great Mage has for her life or the good of the realms. I’ll share more about this in a later post as I start to share more about this new book in the next month, but this story is such a reminder of how the choices we make not only affect us, but can affect those around us and how devastating choices made out of selfish desire can be. We often allow our desires for comfort or power or just our own selfish wants to take hold and control of our lives. Adam and Eve allowed their desire for the power promised to them by the serpent when they ate the fruit to overrule the truths of God’s love and provision and love for them, resulting in sin entering the world and separation between God and man to tear us away from our God and Creator. Thankfully, someone else made a choice to give up his power and place in the universe to lay down his life as payment for the debt we could not pay and restored our place in God’s kingdom.
As I mentioned, the mysterious box that is housed in the original garden created by the hands of the Great Mage himself as a dwelling place for him and the first king and queen that he drew up from the dust of the earth, is opened. Many of the characters that have been introduced in the first three books are in this garden towards the end and in their attempts to close the box, Luscian, the Dark Lord, encapsulates them in clouds of darkness that brings to mind all of their greatest fears and weaknesses. These clouds of darkness debilitate them from closing the box, and really from doing anything to stop the darkness the Dark Lord is happily sending out into the world, leaving the realms in a hopeless state. The main character who was tempted to open the box was gifted a beautiful flute by the Mage’s Son in the woods and is told to remind the others of the beauty within themselves. When everyone is captured by their darkest thoughts and incapacitated, the main character has a choice to make: cower in her own fears or use the gift the Mage’s Son gave her to help remind the others of the beauty within. She finally chooses to play her flute. As she begins to play, a beautiful melody fills the garden and reaches each of the characters trapped in darkness in a unique way. Each character is reminded of the beautiful lives they’ve been blessed with and ultimately points their hearts back to the Great Mage and the beauty and truth of his love for them. You can’t help but be enchanted in this heart-stirring scene as the main character’s flute playing releases each of the other characters from their shrouds of darkness and crescendo’s into a song unlike any ever heard before that each of the character’s join with in singing their own songs of thankfulness. As the melody progresses, she dances across the rivers that surround the tree in the garden, catching everyone up in her gifted song that breaks the hold of darkness and even diminishes the darkness itself, rendering the Dark Lord weak and powerless.
The beauty of this scene is the way the act of worship turns their hearts from the hold the darkness has over them back to the one who created them and gave them gifts to enhance his kingdom and the beautiful lives and freedoms they had been given. During this season of Thanksgiving, may this be a beautiful reminder of the power giving thanks and worshiping God can have in our lives. We may face dark and difficult situations in our lives that incapacitate us and cause us to forget about the good things in life. Those situations can cut our hearts off from God and turn our minds to the darkness of our situations. But like David was told by Samuel to play his harp, and the main character in my fourth book was told to play her flute, one song of worship can turn your heart back to God and remind you of His enduring love that has already overcome the darkness of this worlds. It can bring healing to your soul and fill your being with the Spirit of God. And, when your heart is fully tuned to worshiping our God and Creator, who knows how many around you will get swept up into the same spirit of worship and will be turned back to their God and Savior because you chose to play your flute.
I am desperately in need of this poignant reminder to turn my heart back to God’s heart and be reminded of the beauty and the love with which He has written my story. Darkness and difficult times have taken my mind from the goodness of God so many times in my life and I am easily captured in the webs of deceit and the shrouds of darkness that the Enemy loves to fill my heart and mind with. Satan knows that when we aren’t focused on God, we are easy prey for him to hunt and devour, and he doesn’t waste time in pouncing at the first sign of weakness. His lies and doubts and fears will quickly overcome us and consume us, and he loves to keep us trapped in those worlds of darkness to keep us from being the strong and beautiful reflections of God’s love and beauty into this world. Play your harp. Play your flute. Lift your voice and sing praise to God this season of gratefulness and thanksgiving. Your song may not make the darkness go away, but it will remind you of the Light you have to hold onto in your times of darkness and difficulty. Open your heart to finding God again. Let your words of thankfulness remind your heart of the power God has instilled in you. You have the ability to turn others hearts to God and remind them of His beauty and love. Remember the beauty in your own heart and use that beauty to remind others of the beauty within.
Ashley Beach-Author and Storyteller 