The Tenth City, third book in the Elyon trilogy from author Patrick Carman, debuted in April on a variety of industry bestseller lists. The Land of Elyon appeared for the first time on the New York Times children’s series list in April. The list, which is comprised of all series with three or more titles for all age groups, is one of the toughest lists in publishing. Battling the likes of Harry Potter, A Series of Unfortunate Events, and the Magic Tree House, The Tenth City debuted at number 9. The following week it jumped tonumber 7 and is expected to continue climbing in the coming weeks. The Tenth City also appeared on the USA Today top 150 list, a first for the series. The USA Today list is comprised of every book in every category. The Tenth City debuted on the list at number 145.The Tenth City has also popped up on many regional lists including the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association list, where it debuted at number fifteen.For questions, interview opportunities or public relations please contact:press@patrickcarman.com For press material, pictures, and video or to find out more about The Land of Elyon Trilogy log onto www.patrickcarman.com

It’s not quite as big as the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but for kids who love reading fantasy, it’s close.”I handed her the bag, and she grabbed it and shouted, ‘It’s the book, it’s the book!’ ” said Traci Blank of her daughter Hannah’s reaction to the final installment of the Land of Elyon trilogy, The Tenth City, by Patrick Carman. Hannah had been asking about the third book since December, when she finished the second book, Beyond the Valley of Thorns. Booksellers put The Tenth City on the shelves this week. It’s just in time for the author’s visit to the Tri-Cities on Thursday. He’ll speak at 7 p.m. at Barnes & Noble Booksellers, at 10 a.m. at Marcus Whitman Elementary in Richland, and at 1:30 p.m. at Maya Angelou Elementary in Pasco. “Seeing an author really makes an impression on (children) for the rest of their lives,” said Kim Guyette, librarian at Marcus Whitman. Hannah, a third-grade student at Bethlehem Lutheran School in Kennewick, and other Mid-Columbia students aren’t the only kids in America hungry for more Elyon stories. The series began with The Dark Hills Divide, which ended up on the New York Times bestsellers list in 2005. “Kids get attached to certain characters and places,” Carman said during a telephone interview from his home in Walla Walla. “I’ve gotten so much mail in the last month from kids thinking the series is over and being distraught.” The Tenth City begins just hours after Beyond the Valley of Thorns ended. Carman said Alexa, the main character, is “in a lot of peril; it’s almost constant.” The book finally reveals where and what the tenth city is, Carman said. There are more secrets and surprises, too. “Everything good vs. evil comes to a head,” he added. Carman has a five-week book tour planned in the Northwest and in Tennessee and Kentucky. Another surprise Carman fans might not be aware of is that even though the trilogy is ending, the characters will live on in a prequel to the trilogy, Into the Mist, which already is written and will be published in the fall of 2007. The prequel is the story of Thomas Warvold, the architect who built the walls in the trilogy. It was for his two daughters that Carman invented Alexa, the 12-year-old heroine of his trilogy, and the world of walled cities, talking animals and unexpected adventures that fill the trilogy that started off as a self-published work before Scholastic offered him a publishing deal. Next for Carman is another series called Atherton, which will be printed by Little, Brown. The first book will be published in a year, and it’s for a slightly older crowd (think middle school, Carman said). “It’s every bit as much fun (as the Elyon books),” he said. The story focuses on a mad scientist who creates a whole new world where people live. “It explores the idea of playing God and what that means for the character who builds a new world,” he added.* Reporter Stacey Palevsky can be reached at 582-1512 or via e-mail at spalevsky@tricity herald.com.

The third and final issue of Patrick Carman’s “Land of Elyon” trilogy comes to a satisfying conclusion. Alexa is still in possession of the last jocasta, a special stone, more powerful than all the ones before it. It allows her to hear the animals speak — Murphy the squirrel, Odessa the wolf, Ander the bear. But it also brings to her another voice, a voice that whispers on the wind only to her — the voice of Elyon himself, guiding her choices and asking her to do things that seem foolish, even dangerous.At the conclusion of Beyond the Valley of Thorns, Alexa had discovered that Abaddon was a real, evil threat in the land, and was working his evil through the person of Victor Grindall. Victor had harnessed the power of fallen seraphim — giants — who had been turned into rotting ogres by Abaddon’s roaming hordes of bats; think twenty-foot-tall zombies. There’s only one true giant left in the land, Armon, and he’s sided with thirteen-year-old Alexa and her crew, a company that includes the believed-to-be-dead Thomas Warvold.Grindall has taken Alexa’s friend, the diminutive Yipes, as a hostage, threatening to kill him unless Alexa meets him and brings him the last jocasta, which he intends to use to find his way to the fabled Tenth City, the home of Elyon. By bringing the ogres back to their home, he plans to topple Elyon and elevate Abaddon to total, unrestricted power.As our heroes sail aboard the Warwick Beacon, the ship belonging to Warvold’s brother, Roland, Warvold shares with Alexa the reason why he became such a well-traveled explorer: … “Before that — during all those years of my youth, wandering in The Land of Elyon — do you know why I searched, Alexa?” he asked me. It was a question he strained to produce, and he seemed desperate to tell me the answer. “Because you love adventure, you and Roland both,” I answered.He looked back out to the sea once more, and his voice trembled as he spoke the true answer. “I was seized by the power of a great affection.” It seemed as though Warvold had given me the key to his entire life in that one statement, and yet I struggled to understand what he meant. I rolled the words over in my head, trying to see in them what had driven him to live such a dangerous life. I was seized by the power of a great affection. “I don’t understand what you mean,” I admitted. Warvold looked deep into my eyes, the wind blowing strands of white and gray hair across his worn face. “Elyon has only one hope for us, Alexa. That we would know he loves us. Do you understand? The one who made you, the one who made everything.” He swept his hand across the sea. “He loves you. And more than that, there is nothing you or I need do to earn his reckless affection for us. That love has driven me to fight his enemy, the enemy of us all.” “Abaddon,” I whispered. He stared at me then with such intensity I could hardly hold his gaze. “No evil can resist the power of love forever.” He winked at me and smiled, as if he thought that somehow our band of misfits might yet overcome Grindall and the ogres — even Abaddon himself. “I have failed, and failed, and failed again,” he said. “But no amount of failure can move Elyon’s hand of affection away from me. It’s inescapable. To live boldly for that kind of love is the least I can do.”Sound familiar? It should. It’s the core message of just about every Christian denomination out there. Carman, a Christian himself, has incorporated his faith into his writing since the first book, but in this installment, the themes are far more pronounced. Here, Elyon and the Tenth City are quite a few literal steps closer to their allegorical counterparts than are other Christian-based characters and places of similar literature, such as Aslan and Narnia.As well as touching on the love of the Creator for his creation, Carman also brings in other basic tenets of Christianity. Certainly most fantasy stories include such basic mores like good and evil, faith and doubt, justice and unfairness, and The Tenth City has this in spades. But Carman also delivers the message that all things happen according to a grand plan, even if we don’t know what that plan is. Alexa is told by the voice of Elyon to do things that, in the circumstances, seem dangerous and foolhardy; but through obedience, Alexa learns what her part is in the scheme of things for Elyon to rescue the land from Abaddon’s control, and she comes to understand that this life is merely a prelude to a resurrection that is to come. The Tenth City plays out faster and with less grandeur than does C.S. Lewis’s The Last Battle, but the pace is adventurous and quick, and the only cheated feeling the readers will be left with is that the tale of Alexa Daley is — as far as we know — over.
RJ Carter

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