Finalist 2009 New Generation Indie Awards
🔗 www.IndieBookAwards.com
Story Behind The Book
Writing a children’s book—The Secret of the Sacred Scarab—was an unexpected step, inspired by a recent trip to Egypt. In fact, I should say I owe it all to my mother, who read about a tour to Egypt in a family magazine. I wasn’t sure about Egypt because Europe is more to my liking, but Mother was insistent, and so I went along with her whim. We took my two nephews along for the ride, and they became the ‘models’ for the two young heroes of the book, Justin and Adam Sinclair. We had quite an amazing trip and since I am a journalist, I wrote notes, collected brochures, and took many pictures ... although I wasn't sure why I was doing all that. Luckily for me, it came in handy later on. The tale of the sacred scarab began life as a little anecdotal tale for my nephews (then 10 and 12). When we got back to South Africa and had admired the photos and sorted out the souvenirs, I wanted to give them something special so they could remember the trip. I refreshed my memory with all the material I had brought back, then I picked up a writing pad and a red ballpoint pen. Then, without even thinking about it, I wrote the title, The Secret of the Sacred Scarab, and the first word, Egypt! The rest just seemed to flow. I used the actual trip as the guideline and tried to incorporate the many unusual things that had happened to us, just infusing them with more exciting meaning. This short story grew into a children’s book, the first in the adventure series, Chronicles of the Stone. It had to become a series because, by the end of the first book, I realized that the children couldn’t possibly save the world in one book ... they’d have to carry on. The story just grew from there. I have finished the second adventure novel in the series (The Search for the Stone of Ecalibur), and this book takes the boys off to Scotland, where they encounter medieval castles, ancient swords, crumbling manuscripts and secret ciphers, and more danger than ever before. They are also joined by an unexpected companion....
Media Links
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Finalist 2009 USA Best Book Awards
🔗 http://www.usabooknews.com/2009bestbooksawards.html↗
Winner 2010 Moonbeam Book Awards
🔗 http://www.independentpublisher.com/article.php?page=1386↗
Finalist 2010 Rubery Book Awards
🔗 http://www.independentpublisher.com/article.php?page=1386↗
USA Children's & Teens Top Ten Books
🔗 http://childrensandteensbookconnection.wordpress.com/2010/01/10/tctbcs-top-10-favorite-books-of-2009-for-kids-tweens-and-teens/↗
Reviews
<span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', serif;color:#000000;font-size:12pt;"></span> <p style="text-align:center;margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;" class="MsoNormal" align="center"><span style="font-family:Calibri, 'sans-serif';font-size:11pt;"></span> </p> <p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri, 'sans-serif';font-size:11pt;">Reviewed by:<span> </span>Barbara Milbourn for Writers in the Sky</span></p> <p></p> <p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri, 'sans-serif';font-size:11pt;"></span></p> <p><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Calibri, 'sans-serif';font-size:11pt;">Author Fiona Ingram understands that young readers have no patience for long, drawn-out prologues. At the first sentence—a one-word exclamation—of <em>The Secret of the Sacred Scarab</em>, she jettisons readers off on an adventure to a far-away land with two young cousins. </span></p> <p></p> <p style="line-height:150%;text-indent:36pt;margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Calibri, 'sans-serif';font-size:11pt;">Justin and Adam are leaving the comforts of home and the family dog for a one-week adventure in Egypt with ace writer/researcher Aunt Isabel and their loveable and zany Gran. In exchange for missing school, their assignment is to keep a daily record of things they’ve seen and learned along the way. It so happens that their aunt’s current project and the boys’ recent history lessons coincide and set the reader on firm footing before they even lift off.</span></p> <p></p> <p style="line-height:150%;text-indent:36pt;margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Calibri, 'sans-serif';font-size:11pt;">Aunt Isabel has guaranteed their maximum travel experience and personal safety by booking them on a tour with a host of entertaining fellow sojourners and a tour-guide who is suspected of knowing far more than she shares with the group. Safety vanishes early in the hot, still air of a marketplace when the boys are encountered by a ragged peddler who bestows upon them four scarabs; one of which is particularly ancient and coveted.</span></p> <p></p> <p style="line-height:150%;text-indent:36pt;margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Calibri, 'sans-serif';font-size:11pt;">The story flies forward from there as the boys put together fortuitous pieces of a puzzle in quest of a legendary tomb of an ancient Egyptian ruler and a missing archeologist. Ingram writes the landscape and the legend vividly and keeps the boys barely one step ahead of death and dismemberment at the hands of men in black, the fangs of a giant cobra, and all manner of danger that lurks in caves, shifting sands, and things hidden in deep, dark places. <span> </span></span></p> <p></p> <p style="line-height:150%;text-indent:36pt;margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;" class="MsoNormal"><em><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Calibri, 'sans-serif';font-size:11pt;">The Secret of the Sacred Scarab</span></em><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Calibri, 'sans-serif';font-size:11pt;"> is entertainment for readers up to around age fourteen and for those who wish they were fourteen again. It is at once adventure and history, art and architecture, humor and redemption, travel writing and social studies, and great fun. Fiona Ingram presents this as her first of seven in a series titled <em>Chronicles of the Stone</em>. </span></p> <p></p> <p style="line-height:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;" class="MsoNormal"><strong><br />Recent Amazon Reviews:<br /></strong></p><strong>Five Stars</strong> <table class="MsoNormalTable" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tbody><tr><td style="border-bottom-color:#f0f0f0;padding-bottom:0cm;background-color:transparent;border-top-color:#f0f0f0;padding-left:0cm;width:.3pt;padding-right:0cm;border-right-color:#f0f0f0;border-left-color:#f0f0f0;padding-top:0cm;" valign="top" width="0"> <p style="text-align:right;line-height:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;" class="MsoNormal" align="right"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', serif;color:#000000;font-size:12pt;"></span> </p> <p></p></td> <td style="border-bottom-color:#f0f0f0;padding-bottom:0cm;background-color:transparent;border-top-color:#f0f0f0;padding-left:0cm;width:100%;padding-right:0cm;border-right-color:#f0f0f0;border-left-color:#f0f0f0;padding-top:0cm;" valign="top" width="100%"> <p style="line-height:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;" class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', serif;color:#000000;font-size:12pt;">An Excellent Mystery</span></strong><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', serif;color:#000000;font-size:12pt;">, February 28, 2009 </span></p> <p></p> <table class="MsoNormalTable" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tbody><tr><td style="border-bottom-color:#f0f0f0;padding-bottom:0cm;background-color:transparent;border-top-color:#f0f0f0;padding-left:0cm;padding-right:0cm;border-right-color:#f0f0f0;border-left-color:#f0f0f0;padding-top:0cm;" valign="top"> <p style="line-height:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', serif;color:#000000;font-size:12pt;">By </span></p></td> <td style="border-bottom-color:#f0f0f0;padding-bottom:0cm;background-color:transparent;border-top-color:#f0f0f0;padding-left:0cm;padding-right:0cm;border-right-color:#f0f0f0;border-left-color:#f0f0f0;padding-top:0cm;"> <p style="line-height:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;" class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A10RINEA3WPJ6H/ref=cm_cr_pr_pdp"><strong><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', serif;color:#000000;font-size:12pt;">William P. Robertson "Bucktail novelist" </span></strong></a><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', serif;color:#000000;font-size:12pt;">(Duke Center, PA USA) </span></p></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="line-height:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', serif;color:#000000;font-size:12pt;">Fiona Ingram creates very believable boy characters caught up in a scintillating adventure. Her descriptions of the Egyptian landscape are breathtaking. She also imparts a wonderful knowledge of Egyptian culture in a way that young people will understand. Her map and diagrams will help her readers follow the story more easily.</span></p></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="line-height:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', serif;color:#000000;font-size:12pt;"><strong></strong></span> </p> <p></p> <table class="MsoNormalTable" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tbody><tr style="height:39.6pt;"><td style="border-bottom-color:#f0f0f0;padding-bottom:0cm;background-color:transparent;border-top-color:#f0f0f0;padding-left:0cm;width:.3pt;padding-right:0cm;height:39.6pt;border-right-color:#f0f0f0;border-left-color:#f0f0f0;padding-top:0cm;" valign="top" width="0"> <p style="text-align:right;line-height:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;" class="MsoNormal" align="right"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', serif;color:#000000;font-size:12pt;"></span> </p> <p></p></td> <td style="border-bottom-color:#f0f0f0;padding-bottom:0cm;background-color:transparent;border-top-color:#f0f0f0;padding-left:0cm;width:100%;padding-right:0cm;height:39.6pt;border-right-color:#f0f0f0;border-left-color:#f0f0f0;padding-top:0cm;" valign="top" width="100%"> <p style="line-height:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;" class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', serif;color:#000000;font-size:12pt;">Superb</span></strong><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', serif;color:#000000;font-size:12pt;">, January 22, 2009 </span></p> <p></p> <table class="MsoNormalTable" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tbody><tr><td style="border-bottom-color:#f0f0f0;padding-bottom:0cm;background-color:transparent;border-top-color:#f0f0f0;padding-left:0cm;padding-right:0cm;border-right-color:#f0f0f0;border-left-color:#f0f0f0;padding-top:0cm;" valign="top"> <p style="line-height:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', serif;color:#000000;font-size:12pt;">By </span></p></td> <td style="border-bottom-color:#f0f0f0;padding-bottom:0cm;background-color:transparent;border-top-color:#f0f0f0;padding-left:0cm;padding-right:0cm;border-right-color:#f0f0f0;border-left-color:#f0f0f0;padding-top:0cm;"> <p style="line-height:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;" class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/AQCXM97GQU5EG/ref=cm_cr_pr_pdp"><strong><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', serif;color:#000000;font-size:12pt;">R. E. Tregaskis </span></strong></a><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', serif;color:#000000;font-size:12pt;">(South Africa) </span></p> <p></p></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="line-height:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman', serif;color:#000000;font-size:12pt;">Fiona has done a remarkable story and everyone who has children will delight in either reading this story to them or letting them read it again and again. It will become a classic soon. </span></p> <p></p></td></tr></tbody></table>