Jour­ney beyond imagination

A Dud­ley lady has released her first novel, a fan­tasy adven­ture called Ankhspell.

Pauline Hadley lives in Dudley.

She has spent most of her adult life work­ing as an artist and draughtswoman, writ­ing fic­tion in her spare time.

She had always planned to write books and illus­trate them herself.

Now her first novel has just been released in the Black Country.

Ankhspell is a fan­tasy adven­ture story with spir­i­tual over­tones writ­ten for older chil­dren and adults.

It tells the tale of Syke, a 14 year old Eng­lish girl, and Sol, a young Cana­dian shaman, both of whom have con­nec­tions to the ancient Egypt­ian gods.

The two are plunged into a mys­ti­cal dimen­sion called ‘The Under­world’ where they encounter weird aliens, mis­chie­vous spir­its and bad-tempered trees.

“The story of Ankhspell came after years of study­ing the Ancient Egyp­tians, Native Amer­i­cans and Cana­dian peo­ples’ spir­i­tual beliefs,” says Pauline.

“I’ve also always had an inter­est in the super­nat­ural and para­nor­mal phe­nom­ena. Ankhspell com­bines all of these ideas in a way that I think hasn’t been done before.”

The novel also explores the ideas that human beings orig­i­nate from outer-space, as well as astral travel.

“The idea that we — as in human beings — came from outer-space is not a new one,” explains Pauline.

“For so many native peo­ples all over the world it is one of their key beliefs.

“Sim­i­larly, the idea of astral travel — that gifted psy­chics can move their essence and energy to another loca­tion whilst in a dream or med­i­ta­tive state — is fas­ci­nat­ing. The idea has been explored very seri­ously by sci­en­tists study­ing remote view­ing and telepathy.”

For the main char­ac­ters of Ankhspell though, all of these themes con­struct an excit­ing adven­ture story where noth­ing is what it seems and death is not the end.

Pauline her­self drew all of the colour­ful pic­tures that accom­pany the text, some of which are dis­played here.

“I’ve loved writ­ing Ankhspell and doing all the pic­tures and really hope that it will be able to stretch the imag­i­na­tion of the reader,” smiles Pauline.

“I’ve aimed it for slightly older chil­dren but hope­fully adults will love it too.

“Ulti­mately, despite some of the fan­tas­ti­cal themes, the story is meant to show the con­nec­tions between us all, and the need for us to show respect for the cul­tures and spir­i­tual beliefs of native peo­ple from all over the globe.”

At present, Ankhspell is only avail­able from selected book­shops in the Black Country.

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