Portal Travel

Meet the heroine of The Nowhere Chronicles.

The prickly, hard-edged protagonist in The Nowhere Chronicles, Annie is not a woman to be messed with!

She escaped her home world after poisoning her brutal father, and found herself in Nowhere. Here, she's built a life for herself, alongside her best friend, Sheb, their disgruntled owl-squirrel, Bartok, and Annie's own monster, Wriggler.

Annie's sharp tongue and snarky personality keep everyone around her on edge, and she starts more fights than she finishes. But she hates to see anyone bullied or humiliated, and will often take on powerful enemies to free the oppressed and the innocent.

Annie's rage means she's bonded to a dark force: a monstrous, winged lightning-snake made of Annie's fury. Whenever Annie becomes enraged, this monster grows to colossal proportions and can summon lightning storms. Annie affectionately calls him Wriggler, and he can take her to task with his own sass and sarcasm. 

Annie might not be everyone's idea of a hero, but she's tenacious, determined, and clever. Her own dark past, and the terrible power she wields, threaten to overwhelm her, but with the right friends at her side, she's capable of extraordinary things.

 (Image copyright: Breakermaximus, licensed through Shutterstock)

Dive through the portal into the fantasy land of Nowhere.

Hungry trees, bleeding mushrooms, and nocturnal predators more terrifying than any nightmare ... this is the land of Nowhere, a place you can only reach through a magic portal.

It's a world between worlds, an un-place, a sanctuary for lost and frightened souls. And it's where Annie has made her home.

Nowhere is a fantasy world of magical beasts with strange powers. The nosta birds sing a song so strange, they steal your memories. Gremlins can detach from their shadows, and the toads can see the future.

But at night, this fantastical land becomes dangerous. Predatory howler horses stalk among the trees, conjuring black mist where their hooves touch the ground. Cherish screamers drift through the forest in the shape of beautiful, spectral women, howling their despair into the darkness. In Nowhere, even the flowers have teeth.

It mightt seem like an odd place to call home, a bizarre choice for a sanctuary, but it's the place Annie feels safe. Here, she and her found family have built a life for themselves. 

Check out the map to discover some of the amazing creatures that live in Nowhere, and get an idea of some of Annie's adventures. You can join my readers' club to learn more about the creatures of Nowhere, including receiving illustrations and facts about them, as well as to read some of Annie's earlier adventures in Nowhere.

 (Image copyright: Rebecca L. Fearnley, created through Inkarnate.)

Find out about the monstrous creatures that stalk the worlds of The Nowhere Chronicles.

Wherever there is fear, helplessness, or anger, a monster is born.

Monsters are made from dark, magical energy that is conjured at moments of terror or trauma. When they hear this distress, they are Summoned, and they take shape. Monsters are as varied in shape as the humans who call them, and they are incredibly powerful.

Once a monster is Summoned, it is bonded to that person in mind and energy. The death of one often results in the death of the other.

It isn't always clear to the human Summoner that they have bonded a monster and, to begin with, they might have very little control over it. They're so fuelled by terror and fury that they may unwittingly drive their monster to do terrible things without realising.

This is where Annie and her team come in. Annie has her own bonded monster, and understands the dangers that come with having summoned and shaped such dark magic.

Monsters don't exist in every world that humans inhabit, but they can always hear the cry of a terrified or haunted human. It may be that they have to travel across many worlds in order to get to the one they were Summoned from, but once their bond has been accepted, the monster and its human must remain in the same world as each other, or traverse worlds together. To be separated across worlds could kill both of them.

Bonding to a monster sounds pretty traumatic, and that's true. But Annie is learning to see that her own monster isn't always a terrible burden. Wriggler (as she calls him) can become a friend, a confidante, and someone who fully understands her - he's driven by her emotions, after all!

Bonded monsters are also extremely powerful, with different kinds of magic depending on their shape and the human they're bonded to. They can be quite handy in a tight spot, so learning to manage and control them is a key part of any bond.

You'll come across a lot of bonded monsters in The Nowhere Chronicles, and you'll see that each of them is as different as the humans they bond to, and bring their own unique voices, surprises, and challenges.

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Learn about the portals between worlds and how to use them!

There are many human worlds that lie parallel to our own. We brush by them every day without even realising, but to cross from our reality to another requires a portal.

All portals from all worlds lead to Nowhere, the world between worlds. But, from Nowhere, you can travel to any universe of the infinite number that exist.

The portals have strange magic that no-one fully understands, but the characters in The Nowhere Chronicles learn more about the portals every time they travel through one.

While the worlds beyond the portals are often strange and unexpected, stepping into the portal itself is also an adventure. The energy within the portal pulls at the energy of whoever steps through it. Some travellers report feeling as if the portal is trying to separate their light from their dark. Many even claim to have seen strange apparitions as they hang inside the portal, waiting to fall through into a new world.

Whatever the truth is, portals often leave travellers feeling a little queasy when they reach the other side.

In all worlds where portals are known to exist, there is a portal guardian; someone who has inherited, or been appointed, the role of caring for, and guarding the portal. Portal guardians often hold a key, or an ability to close or restrict the portal to others. Like anything, this power can be used for good or for bad, and Annie has run-ins with several portal guardians on her adventures.

(Image copyright: Bisams, licensed through Shutterstock.)