Eliot Schrefer: Hello, this is Eliot Schrefer, and I am author of Mez's Magic. I'm gonna tell you a bit about how I write this book and then I will share an excerpt with you. I always feel like fantasy novels, when they're working at their best, have a really believable world that even though it's not ordinary, you understand the system of how magic works, and how the characters relate to each other and that there's a real culture that you can be part of. And in the lost rainforest, Mez's Magic, I was writing about a different kind of world than the sort of western culture where most fantasy comes out of. I went to Peru and to the Amazon to study the rainforest animals, and what I realized was because there's so much greenery and so much coverage, it's actually very hard for the animals to see each other. So you don't have what we had in Europe, which is where you'd have packs of animals coming together and that you would have more of a group culture. The animals really are off on their own for the most part when they're in the rainforest.

So like a panther, like Mez the main character, she would spend most of her waking hours by herself stalking through the undergrowth, hunting prey. And there's also a big divide in the rainforest between daytime and nighttime animals. So I would go on a hike during the day, and I would meet all sorts of beautiful creatures, like the Scarlet Maccaws, and all the monkey species down in the jungle. But then once night fell, all those animals would be fast asleep and an entirely different group of animals would come out, so we would see these giant king toads, which are about a foot long, and tarantulas, and panthers, like Mez. So I really came up with the idea that these daytime animals and these nighttime animals would have a really set boundary between them, I called it the veil in the book.

And they wouldn't know each other. So for a daytime animal and nighttime creature would be a creature of myth, something that was, a legend, and that's how I structured this world in which these daytime and nighttime animals, once they gained magical powers during the eclipse, they have to band together to fight off mysterious enemies, and learn about these creatures of legend and fear that then become really fast friends and I loved linking together these daytime and nighttime animals that didn't know each other before.

So I'm just read to you a short excerpt right from the beginning of the book. Chapter One.

What's wrong with me?

Mez curls and uncurls her paws, worry springing her eyes back open each time she tries to scrunch them shut. All of the other panthers in the den are asleep, as any normal panther should be. It's daytime!

So why is she awake? Why is she on the wrong side of the Veil?

She starts counting ants hoping that will make her sleepy. No creature can know any place better than Mez knows this den. It's a thick warren of rambles and vines, crawling with leaf-cutter ants and nestled deep within the intersection of two ancient trees. Snug and safe from any day walkers that might do them harm.