Guest Post- Tammi Character Profile by Matt Xell

I'm pleased to announce tonight we have a guest post from Matt Xell, awesome debut author of Tower of Parlen Min!

Hey everyone, and thanks so much to Benji for letting this obnoxious Matt Xell guy to do something of a guest post on his blog! And today I thought I'd talk about Tammi Ericks, Benji's favorite character in my book, Tower of Parlen Min, and also go on about the High-Spirited people and magic in the world of Everlon; the setting of the book. So let's role with a bit about High-Spirited people, yeah?

High-spirited is the term used to described people with unusually high levels of spiritual or life energy. The High-spirited, also known as the Shoko'ei, have an extraordinary sensitivity to nonphysical or supernatural forces. On Everlon, one in a thousand people are believed to be High-spirited. The most distinguishing feature of High-Spirited people are their unusually coloured and glowing eyes. There as many colour types as the colours of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. The most recognised and gifted of the High-spirited are those with 'red', 'blue' and 'green' eye-types.

About 70% of all the High-Spirited people with the blue eyes are believed to be followers of the pre-christen religion of nature; Wicca. The word Wicca itself now refers to the practice of the arts of attaining objectives, acquiring knowledge, or performing works of wonder through supernatural means -- basically what we would call magic here on Earth.

In Tower of Parlen Min, Tammi Eriks is a black, 12 year-old girl from Sambique, a country in the continent of Etrik and is one of the 20 children invited to the Tower by Jacobius Trent, the owner. She is High-spirited and has the blue eyes and, like her mother before her, is a child of Wicca.

Shortly after she receives the invitation from Jacobius Trent, she also wins a scholarship to Eravard, a prestigious university for children of Wicca hidden somewhere, it's rumored, in Everlon's iterations of France or Germany. She is chosen to study as a Nubela student -- a witch of the elements. In preparation for the entry exams, Tammi has to master all the basic Nubela spells - conjuring water, fire, wind and earth elements at the three main levels: the Untis Premiere, Nubela Premiere and the very difficult and destructive Massimas Premiere.

At the Tower, and in secret (though not seen in the current edition of the book) and with permission from Jacobius, Tammi practices and masters the Untis and Nubela Premiere spells. But has difficulty mastering any of the Massimas Premiere spells due to the high-levels of energy required and also because she is asthmatic. It's during one of these sessions that a Tower guard assigned to over see Tammi's training tells her that there is aDelume tree somewhere in the district of Meden (where the Tower is located), though the guard was not sure where exactly. Tammi, like many children of Wicca, knows that a potion made from the flowers of a Delume, which is a very rare wiketian tree, can cure many ailments and diseases -- even asthma.

Later, with the help of Ves Asirin (the protagonist of the book) Tammi learns that the Delume tree is in the old Trent Family Cemetery, deep in the dark and supposedly haunted Meyr Woods, which during that season is a dangerous place to enter because it is where Canids (large sentient wolves) lurk and is also rumored to be the hiding place of The Shadow -- a supernatural serial killer ... but all this doesn't scare Tammi at least not at that moment -- she has to find that tree.

And that's all I can say about Tam. Be sure to check out the book for more. You can read up to 50% of it for free on smashwords.com before you decide if it's worth the buy, sweet huh?

cheers and thanks for readin'

Matt Xell