Jaykriss is a typical teenager. He's bored with school, the girl he loves doesn't even know he's alive, and he and his mother disagree-a lot. The village Jaykriss lives in lies deep in a primevalforest. Life there is simple, and is predicated upon day-to-day survival. As his father is gone, Jaykriss must provide for his mother and sister. That is his primary role in life--and he is good at it. But Jaykriss is restless. He is curious and inquisitive. And he wants desperately to avenge the death of his father Glyndich--a warrior killed by a fearsome dragon known only as the Thrax. So how does a mere boy of fourteen who is simply trying to keep his family alive kill a legendary beast thought to be nearly invincible? To kill the Thrax, one must first find it. On a routine hunting trip, Jaykriss and his best friend encounter the Thrax at last. The terrifying creature chases them mercilessly through the darkening forest--and the boys eventually stumble into the refuge of an eccentric hermit whose home is filled with books from ancient times. The hermit teaches Jaykriss that all is not as it seems in his world. The mutants and dragons that populate their world are actually relics of a long-ago biological disaster. The Dark King, a ruler they revere as a god, is a vicious tyrant who will do anything to stay in power. Jaykriss realizes that there may be more to his life than he initially thought. He might be able to someday vanquish the Thrax. He may, in fact, be The One who Leads, prophesied to save the entire human race. But is Jaykriss truly ready for his destiny--or will that destiny consume him?
About the Author: Mark Murphy has been a doctor since 1988. He has been a writer his entire life. After spending his early childhood roaming the marshes and maritime forests of coastal Georgia --where he collected seashells and arrowheads and fancied himself a swashbuckler of the highest order-and reading anything he could get his hands on, Mark entered the creative literary world by winning a local poetry contest in the fifth grade. Later that year, he wrote, directed and starred in his own play about the signing of the Declaration of Independence and started his own self-published classroom newspaper. It was the high-water mark for Murphy's elementary school literary career. In high school, Mark served as Editor of the high school newspaper and won a few awards for his editorials, critical reviews, short stories and poetry. He also attempted several times to start a novel, but got nowhere. When he enrolled at the University of Georgia as a journalism major, he seemed destined for a literary career. But he loved science. And he missed science. As a Zoology major, Mark planned to become the next Jacques Cousteau. However, a year or so tossing about on the Atlantic in a converted shrimp trawler, a leaky vessel that stank of diesel and dead fish, made him realize that he did not want to be the next Jacques Cousteau (or the first one, for that matter). Instead, he decided to go to medical school. During his medical training at the Medical College of Georgia and UNC-Chapel Hill, Mark took care of a dying sitcom star, a fallen tele-evangelist, and a serial killer, among others. In doing so, he realized that medicine afforded physicians with a unique perspective into peoples' lives--an observation that would serve him well later. In 1994, Mark returned to his hometown of Savannah, Georgia to start a medical practice that would ultimately become the largest gastroenterology group in South Georgia. The untimely death of a close friend led him to write a short story, The Funeral, which was published in 2004. Mark then attended the Iowa Summer Writing Festival and began writing a well-received opinion column in his hometown newspaper, the Savannah Morning News. In 2012, he published his first novel, a critically-acclaimed thriller entitled "The Shadow Man." Mark lives in Savannah and is married to Daphne, his high school sweetheart. They have two grown children and a menagerie of semi-wild animals-but no dragons. At least, not yet.