Panthea: Book one - The Darkness and the Light

Civil war looms on the Plains of Myth. To stop their world from dying, the dark forces of the Nox Aeterna wish to invade the Realm of Man and force humanity to worship the old gods and legends. The benevolent Lux Aeterna fiercely oppose this; their leader Odin wants to reactivate disused energy portals known as Limen between realities and increase the flow of energy from our world to theirs. The only thing preventing the total destruction of the Plains and humanity is the world tree Yggdrasil – but she is secretly being attacked by the Nox’s leader, the great Polynesian sea god Tangaroa, to force the Lux into agreeing an invasion.In our world, the mighty Japanese dragon Tatsu, masquerading as elderly oriental gentleman Mister Tsume, recruits human experts in legends on behalf of the fake Earth Cultural Organisation to aid Odin’s plan. His brief is simple – locate long-lost artefacts used in the worship of mythical beings and place them in their original locations. This leads to the rebirth of faded beasts and creatures and the reactivation of long-disused Limen - but the clock is ticking.First to be approached is historian Hisako Kobayashi, and while she is fascinated by ancient Japanese history, the same cannot be said for her half-English twelve-year-old daughter, Nanami Roberts. The two don’t get on; Nanami feels overlooked and ignored, misses her separated father and just wants a ‘normal’ life. Things get even worse when she accidentally discovers the true nature of Mister Tsume, and is reluctantly drawn into the beasts’ brutal fight for survival.As Nanami struggles with her secret knowledge, a second expert, Dr. Malcolm Questor, arrives along with his thirteen-year-old son Owen. He’s as big a nut on myths as his father, making him a less than ideal friend for Nanami but when their tutor Miss Keening arrives, they find a mutual enemy in the beautiful, chilling woman. From this point, the two kids are hurled into a breathless fight between the reality of their own world and the Plains, with one of them discovering along the way their connection with the fantastic is far stronger than they could ever have imagined..