The Queen is dead, and two princes, Amel and Erien, are pushed centre-stage and made to vie for power that neither brother wanted. Driven by vengeful princesses, most notably the beautiful and dangerous Alivda, the brothers must prove themselves, choosing between the lives they wanted and the roles that people demanded of them.
Lynda Williams has been creating the Okal Rel Universe through three degrees and at least as many careers. Now the books of the ten novel saga are rolling out from Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy one a year (Part 7: Healer's Sword forthcoming in Nov 2011). Works by both Lynda and other writers captivated by the story-potential of the ORU, are published by Edge's sister-press called Absolute X-Press. Lynda taught and worked in educational innovation at the University of Northern B.C. for fifteen years, and now works as Learning Management System Analyst for SFU. She holds two masters degrees (M.L.S. and M.Sc. Computation) and a B.A. in Liberal Studies with emphasis in Chemistry and Creative Writing. "All my life," Lynda explains her eclectic education and life experience, "I had questions that no single discipline could answer without help from others."
Fully-realized characters living the drama and humor of culture clash surrounding power, sexual mores and social values are the hallmark of the Okal Rel experience: dramatizing questions about what it means to be human. Enthusiastic readers range from precocious pre-teens to senior citizens, and include thinking people from PhDs to high school dropouts. The gentle, beautiful, vanilla-scented Amel Dem'Vrel, title character of Part 1: The Courtesan Prince, provides a focus for the series as his life plays out the age-old story of the prince raised as a pauper combined with the notion of the prostitute with a heart of gold, despite being male. But Amel's slow recovery from a traumatic youth and rise to power as his people's leader is only the backdrop for the lives and passions of a cast of characters who seize the stage for as long as a book (e.g. Horth Nersal in Part 2: Righteous Anger) or weave their own bright threads through the ten-novel saga (e.g. reluctant rebel Perry D'Aur, the intense and brooding Di Mon, or trickster, warrior, poet Eler Nersal).
