Arken Freeth and the Adventure of the Neanderthals
An award-winning epic fantasy adventure series for all ages
Latest Book News!
The forthcoming Amarrat Invasion wins First Place in the Gertrude Warner Book Awards Contest!
On April 20, 2024, The Amarrat Invasion won First Place in the Gertrude Warner Book Awards hosted by the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs) in Bellingham, Washington.
The Gertrude Warner Book Awards honor talented new authors and stellar works in Middle Grade Fiction genre.
First Place Category winners and Grand Prize Division Winners were announced at the CIBAs Banquet and Ceremony by J.L. Oakley on Saturday, April 20th, 2024 at the Four Points by Sheraton in beautiful Bellingham, Wash. sponsored by the 2024 Chanticleer Authors Conference.
Amarrat Invasion also made it to Finalist in the Paranormal Fiction category at Chanticleer, demonstrating its appeal to the adult reading audience as well.
The King’s Armada wins First Place in the Gertrude Warner Book Awards Contest!
Thrilled to announce that book 6 of my YA series, The King’s Armada, is now available in Kindle and paperback on Amazon. Armada also just won First Place in the Chanticleer International Book Awards Ceremony as well. Don’t miss the award-winning latest installment in this exciting fantasy adventure series! I would love for you to check it out and review it!
In this sixth book, the Amarrat army continues its march across the northern land route to attack Lanth. But Arken Freeth has been critically wounded by his encounter with a deadly Tant and may not survive to lead the Nanders to war.
The Valley of Death wins Grand Prize!
I am happy to announce that book 5 of my YA series, The Valley of Death, is now available in Kindle and paperback on Amazon! The book cover gives you an idea of what awaits our heroes in the Valley of Death. This is an exciting read.
Writing this novel took me two years, more than a year longer than I had hoped. I am now working on book 6. I think this series is going to be 7 or 8 books long. You’d think I would know! I have the general plot outlined, but these characters now own their world, and I have to tell the story they are telling me, so like you, I am hanging on to this wild ride. Don’t forget to review it!
Tookan Attack wins First place!
I am happy to announce that Tookan Attack, Book 4 of my Arken Freeth and the Adventure of the Neanderthals, series, won First Place in the Dante Rossetti Young Adult fiction category of the Chanticleer International Writing Contest! So excited about this honor and fingers crossed hoping to be a winner.
SeaJourney wins the Dante Rossetti First Place Award!
SeaJourney, Book 1 in Alex Paul’s Arken Freeth Series, won First-In-SFF-Category in the 2016 Dante Rossetti Awards Young Adult Fiction Contest!
The Dante Rossetti Awards writing competition recognizes emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Young Adult & New Adult Fiction. The Dante Rossetti Awards is a division of the Chanticleer Awards International Writing Competitions.
SeaJourney is the first in a series of upper middle grade novels that center around Arken Freeth, a young officer in training in the Lanth Empire. It serves as an really interesting alternate history of the time before the fabled Great Flood, and how life thrived until the cataclysm that caused it.
Chanticleer Review of SeaJourney
What’s more fun than Neanderthals? How about Neanderthals on the high seas? Now that we have your attention…
Author Alex Paul delivers a highly imaginative, middle-grade epic fantasy adventure-packed story with everything you could ever ask for to have a rip-roaring good time.
SeaJourney (Book One) opens with an ancient archive stating that the Arken Freeth, lived 11,000 years prior, before the great flood. It follows that Arken’s world is inhabited by saber-toothed tigers and other monstrous beasts—and populated by both humans and Neanderthals.
It’s Arken’s fourteenth birthday and he’s looking forward to graduating from school and going on a sea journey with his classmates. All he needs to do is balance a huge rock on a small point. That sounds easy enough, right? Well, he fails.
The only way he can redeem himself is to combat Gart, a very large, bully of a boy who happens to hate him. Arken wins the skirmish—and more of Gart’s wrath in the process. However, both boys will board the Sea Nymph with their classmates to serve their country, Lanth. It turns out that the people of Tolaria (allies of the Lanths) are under attack. Yolanta, King of Tookan, is even now traveling with pirates to hunt down Tolarian Princess Sharmane and steal her magic necklace. The Sea Nymph is readying for war.
Arken meets a girl named Talya, a freckle-faced scout-in-training, who warns Arken that Gart plans to kill him. And when word reaches the Sea Nymph that Princess Sharmane’s vessel has been attacked, Arken, who has proved his worth leads the charge against the enemy ship. Somewhere in the middle of all that is happening aboard the Sea Nymph, there’s a Neanderthal who is gearing up to join in the fun.
With three other Arken Freeth volumes in production, SeaJourney introduces readers to a worthy hero and reveals some of his secrets and hidden powers. The book is well suited for tweens who identify with the underdog who overcomes hardships and ultimately triumphs. Too, our heroine is not based on her looks so much as her energetic attitude.
With fast-escalating action on every page, a likable, capable hero, plenty of mystery and an abrupt ending, readers will be lining up for more. Arken Freeth and the Adventure of the Neanderthals, SeaJourney #1 is sure to please those who crave fantastical adventures with pirates, underdogs, prehistoric beasts, and Neanderthals!
Available Now!
SeaJourney, Book 1
Part Neanderthal, but raised as a human, Arken Freeth finds that he doesn’t fit in either world as he struggles to survive. In order to survive and become the warrior he knows he can be, Arken must brave the dangers that lurk beneath the depths of the Circle Sea, the old Atlantic, as well as the Tookan pirates who roam its surface.
Shipwrecked, Book 2
Arken Freeth is swept up in the conflict when his Lantish Military Academy training ship is attacked by pirates and runs ashore. He and six classmates are the only survivors of the shipwreck and they struggle to live in a jungle filled with saber-tooth cats, dire wolves, mammoths, and mastodons.
The Toth Hunter, Book 3
Neanderthal blood runs in Arken’s veins. His lineage gives him strength and makes him a powerful warrior, a warrior who can keep his friends safe. But he must use his strength wisely and keep his heritage a secret because it means certain death under the laws of Lanth.
Tookan Attack, Book 4
The Tookan Invasion involves Yolanta’s desperate attempt to recover the Necklace of Tol.
The Valley of Death, Book 5
Arken and his friends must rescue the Nander Ord and warn of an impending attack from the King of the Amarrats before it’s too late.
The King’s Armada, Book 6
Arken Freeth has been critically wounded by his encounter with a deadly Tant and may not survive to lead the Nanders to war. Who will win the battle at sea against the Amarrat Armada?
Coming Soon!
The Amarrat Invasion, Book 7
Princess Sharmane marries Prince Dahl to unite the Kingdoms of Tolaria and Lanth but events turn against the best of intentions.
The Sea of the Never Setting Sun, Book 8
In the Sea of the Never Setting Sun, despite tragedy and hardship, Arken finally attempts to find the mythical sea at the far North of the world where the sun never sets.
