TITLE:
A Wizard in Waikiki
AUTHOR:
A.J. Llewellyn
PUBLISHER:
Ai
Press
COVER
ARTIST: Sid Love
LENGTH:
62 Pages
RELEASE
DATE: April 25, 2016
BLURB:
Summoned from the past, Konu rises naked from the sea to reclaim his power for
the freedom to live—and love. If the forces of evil don’t get to him first!
On a hot day in
Waikiki, beachgoers are stunned when a tall, handsome man rises from the ocean.
Striding naked to a small, ringed enclosure containing four huge stones most
tourists never even notice, he becomes visibly upset. These are Wizard Stones,
positioned between the beach and the foot traffic on Kalakaua Avenue. Konu, the
naked man, is agitated by a young Asian girl draping her beach towel over the
stones. He's come a long way, from Tahiti, and is one of the ancient wizards
whose power was infused into these sacred stones four hundred years ago.
With the invisible
battle between good and evil raging, Konu has been dispatched to help balance
the power. Landing in modern-day Waikiki, he's stunned by the changes – and to
find he is alone. A cop tries to arrest him for indecent exposure but the young
girl's grandfather – who thinks Konu's a homeless lunatic offers him refuge.
Will the ancient forces of evil beat this wizard in Waikiki? Or can Konu find
his power again, and perhaps…even love?
Publisher’s note: This book was previously published. It has been
edited and re-released with Ai Press.
He rose from the cold,
dark depths of the ocean, pain and fear eating at him as his human form slowly
molded and emerged, begging for air. Precious, sweet air. He needed to breathe.
As he stumbled onto the hot sand at last, the heat seared his feet, but the
pain in his body vanished as he took deep, gulping breaths. His human form was
so astonishing, it struck him as being perfect, even though his feet hurt.
It wasn't ego. He had
been forbidden to enjoy his physical, earthly body for five hundred years.
I am alive. I am human.
I am here!
He longed to stand and
just… be, to absorb the moment he'd waited for, but Konu sensed the stares of
people at the beach. His long, wet black hair clung to his face and shoulders
as his gaze took in the mass of bodies… the colorful strips of fabric they
wore. He had come a long way. Under cover of darkness, using only the stars for
guidance, Konu arrived at the place they called Waikiki. Now, in the late
afternoon light, his strength sapped, he'd been forced to leave the sanctity of
the sea. He'd tried to wait for night, but he was tired… so tired.
For five hundred years,
his soul and those of the four sorcerers he'd worked with, watched and waited.
In the distance, at the
edges of the sand, he saw the flash of large beasts… loud sounds, flickering
tiki torches, the flashes of smiles. He heard laughter and the jarring sound of
a dozen different languages. Then he saw them. All of the sights and sounds
stilled. His heart gave a lurch at the sight of the stones.
His stones.
Konu flushed with anger
as a woman draped a thick, brightly colored towel over the iron gate and onto
one of the four boulders representing the sacred mana of the ancient, fifteenth
century wizards—Kapaemahu, Kahaloa, Kapuni and… Kinohi, Konu's grandfather.
Konu had been the fifth wizard, the sacred protector of the stones… until he'd
been banished.
“Hey!” the woman
shouted as he pulled her wet towel from the iron gate surrounding the stones and
tossed it onto the ground.
The word Aloha flashed
up at him from the pooled fabric.
Konu narrowed his eyes
as his gaze shifted to the woman. Was she the sign he'd been seeking?
He reached in through
the bars to touch the boulders. It wasn't easy. The gate kept a distance
between the stones and prying human hands. He glanced at the white pigeons
sitting vigil on the rocks. The tiny bird heads turned in his direction. These
miniature keepers of the fire looked as exhausted as he felt. They were dirty,
unkempt, very sick birds. Konu read their energies. His mind flashed on mass,
migratory deaths. These were the survivors. They had flocked to the stones as
creatures in trouble always had. They needed his help.
The gate had a small
lock that in his normal strength, he could have removed, but he was weakened by
the journey. He was relieved that the four wizard stones seemed intact. His
heart almost broke at the sight of one very scrawny bird that looked near death
as it lay on his grandfather's rock. The bird kept pecking at itself, biting at
a raw wound in its wing. Konu held his hand near the bird, unable to reach it.
The bird scuttled a little closer. It tucked its head under its wing and Konu
worked his magic. He tried to sense if the bird wanted to live or die, but
people were jostling him now, and he had to work fast.
He gave the creature
life and with a flap of his hand, produced a few worms on top of the rock face.
The bird gobbled quickly. The stone's supernatural power would restore the
bird's fire-core. Konu grappled to touch the rock. He saw now that people had
brought offerings. Purple orchid leis dangled along the gateposts. Somebody had
left a shell lei, too. He gingerly stroked it. A recent addition.
Two bronze plaques
stood before them. He scanned the writing. He recognized it as English. He had
to retrain his mind to read the words.
The voices around him
grew loud again as his hand crackled like lightning against the sensing power
of the stones. Ah, magic still dwells here. He felt the separate, yet unified,
energies of each wizard infused inside the stones. He took a deep breath as his
hand came to the last stone, which represented his grandfather. Konu, long
exiled from his family, yearned for this sincere connection with Kinohi. His
hand neared the stone, but fell on a yellow lei. Ilima, flower of the gods.
He bent his head and
wept.
They haven't forgotten
us.
So long he'd waited and
now he was here, his emotions had gotten the better of him. He gripped the iron
bars for a moment, blinking away the hot tears on his face. He reached out once
again, this time touching his grandfather's stone. A dim stirring from within.
The mana was still there. Polluted, but it was there. Sleeping. The stone had
sought to protect itself. He understood now why his family had sent him here.
The bird he'd healed
stood on wobbly legs. Konu saw that one of them was broken. With another flick
of his wrist, he restored the injured foot. The bird glanced at him with one
beady eye, hopped to the tallest rock, and settled down to watch him.
“Fly,” Konu said, but
the bird remained with its companions.
“He threw my towel down!”
the woman beside him shouted. “Somebody get the police. This guy is lolo…he's
crazy!”
I am so excited to be here today to talk about my
book, A Wizard in Waikiki, being
reissued by Ai Press. The idea for the story came to me a few years ago when I
visited Honolulu and came across the stones. I was surprised to learn of their
history – that they had been left by four ancient Tahitian wizards after they
visited the islands three hundred years ago. They had come as healers and
begged the locals not to forget them.
They left the stones
infused with their power, but somehow as the years went by, the stones were
rolled by hand away from their original location and left on the grounds of an
old estate, which was about to be demolished. A kahuna knew the story of the
stones and insisted they be given a new location and he blessed them in a
ceremony.
They
are on display on the beach at Waikiki but it’s astonishing to me that people
still walk by them. Most don’t even notice them and it still surprises me that
a lot of people in Hawaii don’t know anything about them. I’ve had some pretty
unusual experiences with the stones myself and the idea came to me when I went
to visit them one day…
What
if one of the wizards comes back?
I did a lot of research
on the four wizards and decided to create Konu, a nephew of one of the wizards
who was banished to the spirit world by the ancients for being gay. When he was
in the islands in the past, he had a lover, a warrior named Loho, and in the
present, he is in love with a wonderful man named Jason Gamble.
Jason likes to say he got
the perfect last name because he feels everything in his life is a gamble,
including loving Konu.
As for Konu, he has to
juggle the ancient world with the modern one. Things we take for granted are
deeply confusing to him. As the series progresses, he learns he’s been sent
back from the past to help people who are sick, or troubled, and to find love
and accept it. He’s haunted by memories of Loho and what happened to him after
Konu left, but he is determined to honor Jason, the beautiful man he now loves.
He might have special powers, but he is as
human as the rest of us. Can he find the love, and the life he wants, or will
he wreck it all and be banished once again?
A.J. Llewellyn
A.J.’s obsession with myth, magic,
love, and romance might have led to serious stalking charges had it not been
for the ability to write. Thanks to the existence of some very patient
publishers, A.J.’s days are spent writing, reading and dreaming up new worlds.
A.J. has definitely stopped Google-searching former boyfriends and given up all
ambition to taste test every cupcake in the universe to produce over 200
published gay erotic romance novels.
A.J. wants you to read them all.
A.J. can be found lurking on Facebook
and Twitter—part-time class clown being another occupation. When not writing or
reading, A.J.’s other passions include juggling, kite-boarding, and spending a
fortune buying upgrade apps for Pearl’s Peril and Farm Heroes Saga.
A.J.’s
links:
Website: www.ajllewellyn.com
Twitter: @ajllewellyn
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/aj.llewellyn
Newsletter sign-up:
ajllewellynnewsletter@gmail.com
I’m an app! Download my FREE A.J.
Llewellyn App for Android here: tinyurl.com/lkbc4wm
How
to find/friend me:
A.J. Llewellyn lives in California, but dreams of living in Hawaii. Frequent trips to all the islands, bags of Kona coffee in the fridge and a healthy collection of Hawaiian records keep this writer refueled.
A.J’s passion for the islands led to writing a play about the last ruling monarch of Hawaii, Queen Lili’uokalani as well as a non-erotic novel about the overthrow of her kingdom written in diary form from her maid’s point of view.
A.J. never lacks inspiritation for male/male erotic romances and on the rare occasion this happens, pursues other passions such as collecting books on Hawaiiana, surfing and spending time with friends and animal companions.
A.J. Llewellyn believes that love is a song best sung out loud.
Winner’s Prize: 5 E-copies of A Wizard in Waikiki
