"Paul Xavier Jones is a Welsh writer living in the Swansea Valley with his wife and two daughters. Xavier is his pen name, based on an old nickname.
Paul is and always has been an avid sci fi and fantasy fan, graduating from Marvel and DC comic book superheroes to the realms of Middle Earth and Cimmeria. Authors who have influenced Paul’s thinking and writing are Stephen King, Dean Koontz, J R Tolkien, Robert E Howard, Edgar Rice Boroughs, Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler and more recently, Andy McNab.
His own work is Epic Fantasy (the Ameca J Trilogy) and Science Fiction Thrillers (Boundary Limit). To date, Paul’s books are available as eBooks from Amazon and Smashwords.
Paul has written articles on eBook publishing for the Western Mail.
Paul has also given talks on writing and eBook publishing for events such as the Rugby Business Network and been interviewed by the Llanelli Town Website.
Ameca J and the Legacy of Menindus has been awarded the Top Choice award by Flamingnet book reviews.
The Ameca J Series
The Ameca J series originally started life as one book, written specifically for Paul’s daughters, who both attend Welsh medium schools. Because Welsh is their first language, their English vocabulary was not great, so Paul wanted them to have a book that they could read to help improve their vocabulary. Of course, once the first book was written both children wanted to know what happened next, and the series was born.
The series starts with Ameca J and the Legacy of Menindus, where Ameca, the teen protagonist from the title is sent to fetch her sister from school. While returning home, the two girls are transported to another world, Mythrania, where they have to put aside their differences and work together to survive.
Mythrania is a land of magic, closely tied to our own, and there the girls discover that they have magical abilities by virtue of the colour of their hair; in Mythrania everyone has black hair, while Ameca has red hair and her sister has yellow. This gives them abilities which are tied to their personalities; Ameca can generate fire as she has a volatile personality, while Fraya can heal or age people with her own powers.
The girls are soon caught up in a battle between the humans on Mythrania and a range of horrific adversaries known as “Werethralls” – men who have been changed into beasts, but still retain their intelligence. Typically Werethralls are three types; Bear, Wolf and Lizard.
As the tale unfolds, Ameca and Fraya discover they are destined to fight the evil behind the Werethralls, a nebulous being of power known as the Scelestus. They also discover they were prophesized to do this by someone called “Menindus,” the greatest magic user of all time. Incredibly, Menindus was also known on our world by another name, “Merlin.”
In this first book, the girls must get over their sibling antagonism and learn to use their abilities to fight for their very lives and the future of the entire Universe.
The second book follows on directly from the first, with the girls having to return to their own world to secure a magical artefact. They return with companions from Mythrania who have a culture shock on seeing the technology of our world as Mythrania is still medieval. They girls are shocked in turn to discover their mother has been abducted, and their quest takes a new twist when they try to recover her from agents of the Scelestus who have operated on our world for centuries.
The final book in the series draws together the story from the first two where the girls discover the true meaning of family and Ameca in particular must face a destiny that no child is prepared for… to kill her father…
The series was also written to promote a strong message of family solidarity. Having two children inevitably leads to lots of quarreling and bickering, and Paul wanted to paint a picture of what can happen where a family doesn’t pull together.
Ameca J and the Legacy of Menindus is now available from Amazon and B&N.
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