Refraction
In the middle of a night, widely-loved hero Sir Patrick S. Ridder wakes up to find his magic Key stolen. The Key is intimately linked to the fate of his Kingdom. From mermaid Queen Jacqueline’s underwater palace, to Madame Pele’s Hawaiian volcanoes, to little-explored locations in Africa and Indonesia, Patrick goes on a quest to find the Key with his humble servant Mike Loyal. While imprisoned by his foe, Devil, Patrick befriends a fellow prisoner — an arrogant aristocratic girl, Rocsisle, who wears outdated gowns and heavy makeup while secretly longing for freedom. As Patrick’s Kingdom falls into turmoil, can the hero save the day? Who are his allies, who are the traitors, and who are the surprising guests of the story? …
In 2009, a 12-year-old aspiring writer growing up in Asia completed her second novel, Refraction. An introverted girl then, she was too shy to consider publishing it.
Some 10 years flew by.
Now a lawyer seeking to publish her legal thriller-romance novel, Formidable Iciness, April revisited Refraction out of pure curiosity. A casual re-reading quickly became an introspective journey into the development of her narrative voice over the course of a decade. Immersed in Patrick S. Ridder’s odyssey all over again, April excitedly proposes an adventurous project: to achieve her secret childhood dream of publishing Refraction with the help of her more mature self. April’s approach to editing her earlier work strives to preserve the unique voice and perspective of a 12-year-old writer, with which young readers can closely identify, as well as the substantive core of the earlier manuscript. Meanwhile, adult April’s edits bring more linguistic sophistication and depth to the characters and plot.
Some Refraction spoilers from April: “There are surprising overlaps in the themes and features between Refraction and Formidable Iciness, such as ambition, criminal justice, fear vs. fearlessness, interdisciplinary thinking, and internationalism. There’s even a character whose initials happened to be “JD” — the abbreviation of my law degree (Juris Doctor)!”