The Tales of Tarya

Shall I speak to you of dreams?

No, not of dreams. What I speak of lies before waking, but beyond sleep.

There is a moment, just before the dreamer stirs, when the mysteries of the world offer up their meanings. There is a moment, just beyond the ordinary, when perfection can be reached playing a melody or telling a tale. This moment is born in a world that lies between reality and dream. To reach it is as precious as life, but as dangerous as a nightmare.

For this is Tarya, a world that sits close to our own. A world those with creative gifts can reach, if they dare. In Tarya, dreams can be explored… or plundered. Few can reach Tarya, and even fewer understand the power that can be found there. For in this other realm, the imagined can be made real.

When Mina joins the travelling players and is initiated into the secrets of Tarya, her life is changed by what she finds there. But this is only the beginning of her discoveries. Someone in her world knows Tarya’s secrets and their knowledge threatens to unravel the lives of many.  As Mina develops her own abilities in Tarya, she may be the only one who can stop its dangers spilling over into the real world.

Discover the secrets of Tarya in Harlequin’s Riddle, the first book in an intriguing fantasy trilogy about the places that creativity can take you. The story continues in Columbine’s Tale. To buy them, click on the links on the side of this page.

“Rachel Nightingale has composed a work of remarkable vision and depth of insight, a work narrated in an accessible and enchanting style; gentle, inviting, sensory, like silk and gossamer … In the final analysis, Harlequin’s Riddle a work of intelligence and refinement that I can only compare to an Ursula le Guin, with overtones of Umberto Eco in theme but not in compositional style. A visionary fiction masterpiece.” ~ Isobel Blackthorn, author of The Drago Tree