The Hamelin Stoop Series
Hamelin is only a few weeks old as he and his parents, Johnnie and Simon, flee from trackers. Certain of their eventual capture and desperate for their son’s survival, Johnnie and Simon devise a plan that lands Hamelin in a nearby orphanage. As Hamelin grows up in this nontraditional home, people begin to notice that he is “always looking for something or someone else.”
After their inevitable capture, Hamelin’s parents are imprisoned in a nearby world under the control of the ruthless Ren’dal, all the while remembering the son they have abandoned. As Hamelin grows, he learns to deal with some of life’s biggest challenges: making friends, dealing with bullies, and understanding why the people he cares about the most always have to leave him.
When the children’s home forgets his eighth birthday, Hamelin decides to run away. This decision, however, proves to be something more—a summons from the Ancient One. Guided by the Great Eagle through a mysterious cave, Hamelin is immediately put to a dangerous test of courage. He soon discovers that the answers to his personal issues of identity, parents, and home are tied up with otherworldly battles between kingdoms of good and evil, powerful rulers, and a journey across the Tunnel of Times to the Atrium of the Worlds. Hamelin comes to discover the true weight of fear and courage as he realizes he is called to embark on an amazing adventure that is bigger than himself. His failures and hopes become part of a larger story where the old myths of magic, evil contracts, and enslaved children turn out to be real.
Will Hamelin be summoned again?
Hamelin suspects that his friend Layla is the lost princess from the Land of Gloaming. As he describes his daring adventures to trusted friends at the children’s home, an intricate tapestry of stories emerges. Layla admits that she has had dreams – or are they memories? – of another world with faded light. The orphan boy is not alone in his struggle to learn the truth, search for family, and question the Ancient One's purposes.
Meanwhile, dangerous forces continue to pursue the boy of both worlds, but the evil Chimera gives his agents an additional task: find the fourth princess, the missing daughter of Carr, and stop her. She must never return home.
This is the second book in the Hamelin Stoop series. Hamelin's story began when he was found as a newborn in a tomato crate on the stoop of an orphanage in west Texas. Hamelin's first adventures with the Great Eagle led him through the mysterious cave and finally, across the footbridge. He has learned that his quest to find his parents and learn his true identity will not be quickly done or easy to fulfill. The Great Eagle leads him through the dangerous Waters of Death and Life and into the Land of Gloaming, where Hamelin is thrown into the midst of a war already being waged between the evil Chimera and the mysterious Ancient One. He must help two new friends find a kidnapped princess and recover a stolen jewel, tasks for which they have special gifts that must not be misused; a scarf of sight, shoes of speed, and a sword of death. But these quests are only part of the larger story, a story including Chimera's plan to use Hamelin -- a child of two realms -- to seize the kingdoms on both sides of the Atrium of the Worlds.
Although Layla has finally returned to her family on the other side of the Atrium of the Worlds, she is about to lose the little sister she only just met. As she, Charissa, and Eraina desperately try to wake Princess Sophia from her coma, Hamelin must face the consequences of his rash actions that led the eagle to return him home. Meanwhile, one of Chimera’s evil sons, Landon, still holds the city of Parthogen captive with his army and pack of vicious dogs. As he grows bolder in his attacks against King Carr’s encampment, it’s up to Hamelin and his friends to save not only Sophia but all of Parthogen before Landon’s reinforcements arrive and doom the Land of Gloaming forever.