80% of the proceeds of this book will be directed towards working with COVID-19 orphans in India.

"It was a test, you fool," she sneered, "to see if you would save your Connector. Yes, yes, I know he's not really your Connector. My father told me about how things are in your world. But over here, everyone believes he is your Connector; there is no other way of thinking about these relationships. And when you climbed up to try and save him, you passed the test. The bird will be willing to carry you up to the hut now. Ready to go?" She was looking at me like she really had no desire to explain all this to an ass like me.

I nodded, wondering, what it would take to get her to respect me.

Surely, Shogun, the half-breed apso knew his 14-year old owner, Peter Petersham, was not doing the right thing when they stepped through the portal in that thread-bare carpet.

One step and they were changed forever. No longer could they be just pet and master.

They had just come to the land of the Connectors and the Dwellers and that is what they must be from here on.

Each Dweller of the Golden World had a creature by their side - their mate for life - their Connector. The love they shared is the life-blood of the World.

All this has been true since time before time . . . but when Peter crashes in with Shogun they find a land hung over by deep fog, lashed by acid rain.

Nothing grows. Very little survives.

There is a new players in the Golden World: the OWNER.

The bond between Dweller and Connector is shredded. Those who resist are in hiding and Peter joins this core group of resisters made up of a mere six Dwellers.

Together they must travel across the beautiful, blasted land to reach their only hope - the SEERS of the land who perch on the high mountains that bind the edges of the Golden World.

And then, unexpectedly, one more joins their number: Goshanna, half-human, half-Dweller. She is irresistible, not just to the OWNER but also to Peter. A unique being in this World of unique beings; Peter cannot help but fall in with her but will she lead them to their final breakthrough against the OWNER or will she damn them forever?

The confrontation between the forces of the OWNER and the resisters approaches and not even the SEERS can foretell what the final outcome will be.

Will the Golden World ever regain its balance in time and space? Will the Connectors and Dwellers re-connect in a bond of love and wholeness as they have for aeons past? Or is it all over for a World once bound by love, now held together by ruthless force?

And over it all hangs the unmentionable question: Does Peter know of his own connection to the disintegration of this once perfect land . . .?

The Golden World - pokkari, Englanti, 2021