A Squire for Wolf's Keep

A Squire for Wolf's Keep is a novel-length work-in-progress that had its beginnings in about 2006 when I was playing with my daughter, who would have been 11. We were playing with her Playmobil, of which she had an extensive collection of mediaeval figures and a castle which I had built for her out of cardboard tubes. While we were playing, I surreptitiously modified the figure of a squire, to give 'him' the hair of a girl. It was red hair. "This is Jane," I said. "She is coming to be a squire at the castle." My daughter, the princess of the castle, was initially hostile, but I won her over by writing an entire novel about Jane, the princess, and the residents of the castle.

The universe that A Squire for Wolf's Keep is set in is a beautiful otherworld, a place for the magical creatures of the Earth to escape the increasingly human-dominated original Earth. It is called the All-Realm, the land for all creatures, including all the magical creatures and the First Ones, that humans once called gods. Collectively humans call these the Fay, for they are magical and dangerous. Some say it is part way between Earth and Paradise, but others say that are they all the same place, but are just a blink and a turn away. It is the same universe as my published story The Dæmon. 

The main character is Jane Linden, the squire of the title. In this world it is not unheard-of for girls to become squires, but it was unusual for the King of Duveda, the principal resident of Wolf's Keep, to have more children than it already had. But apart from Jane, he soon had a further two squires, and eventually four. The four have many adventures as they train to become knights, generally being a headache for the King, and eventually solve the mystery of the King's locked chamber. 

A Squire for Wolf's Keep is essentially complete, and stands at about 66,000 words. This story would be my priority, but I need to complete a comprehensive edit, make changes suggested by readers, and incorporate more of the mythos of this world that I had worked on after the initial version. All of this needs a block of dedicated time which is difficult for me at the moment. But it will happen...