Under the Green Cloud: (2 Tales from Basthinia)

A Second Adventure in Basthinia After the King of the Yellow River is defeated, the children from Covendale are finally ready to return home. Upon approaching Nova Marmoxa, however, they witness a strange sight on the horizon - a thick green cloud is wrapped around the sleepy Laubendan city. Sage believes this cloud has something to do with a period of Basthinian history called the Bronze Age, a time when an island people ruled the waves, when a cult of mages kept watch over the continent, and when six heroes battled an invasion of monsters and a treacherous sorcerer. And soon enough this green cloud explodes into life, pursuing the children and their companions through sodden marshlands, over crocodile-infested waters, across an eerie country of hills and valleys, and down into a forgotten city, where Sage at last comes up with a plan to halt the progress of their new enemy.

About the Author :
Hamish Williams is a lecturer in Greek and Latin at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. The first book in his Basthinia fantasy series, The Southern Tide, was published in 2021 by De Wereld Leest. He has also published several works for an academic readership, including Tolkien and the Classical World (2021, Walking Tree Publishers), The Ancient Sea (2022, Liverpool University Press), and J.R.R. Tolkien's Utopianism and the Classics (2023, Bloomsbury). Apart from teaching and writing, Hamish enjoys walking around the town, listening to podcasts about various topics in science and philosophy, and watching arthouse movies with his wife, Ksenia. Anke Eissmann (born 1977) is a freelance illustrator and graphic designer living and working in Herborn, Germany. Since studying Vis-ual Communication at Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany, and Graphic Design at Colchester Institute in Colchester, UK, she has worked for several international publishers, preferably on fantasy and children's literature. These include publications featuring Greek mythology, fairytales and ghost-stories, adaptations of ancient poems such as Beowulf, mixes of fantasy and historical subjects such as Naomi Novik's Temeraire series, and most prominently water-colours based on the works of JRR Tolkien. Her preferred media for artistic expression are watercolour, pencil, and ink. She is rarely seen without a sketchbook, apart from when she is riding her bicycle, hik-ing, running, writing, or teaching art and art-history at secondary school.