Fool's Proof

A jerk of a jester who’s just lost his job.

A fierce old noblewoman about to lose her country.

And the thieving magpie who puts them on a collision course full of laughter, danger and plot twists galore!

Malfred Murd is supremely talented but undeniably abrasive. Freshly booted from his 20-year gig as the Royal Jester, Fred is finding it tough to jingle out a living on the street, even with the dubious help of a sassy talking bird.

He isn’t thinking of the future when rival buskers chase him into a Tekologically advanced country that, like him, lies squarely in the King’s disfavor. He has no idea that the ruler of this country has made plans to save her people— plans that are rapidly unraveling, missing messenger, ominous omen and all.

So when Fred’s flying friend brings him a bag that looks to be full of shinies, his decision to try and wring a little reward money out of the situation doesn’t seem particularly perilous. But surprise! It lands him in the midst of a rescue mission gone horribly, hilariously wrong.

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The inevitable comparisons to Terry Pratchett are accurate. —Andrew Shanahan, author of Before And After

A wonderful read for fans of the fantasy-comedy genre in the spirit of Monty Python or the gleeful musical television series Galavant... a colorful story of adventure, friendship and deception.—Sydney Rappis, Reedsy Discovery

A book and a writer to look out for. — Jim Webster, author of the Tallis Steelyard series

A cleverly plotted, twisty novel with a gratifying conclusion. —The BookLife Prize

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Meet a cast of memorable, vividly drawn characters with exciting action sequences and interpersonal drama. Read it now and escape into a world of magic, miscommunication, monsters and magpies!

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Q&A WITH THE AUTHOR
Q. Would you describe FOOL’S PROOF as "cozy fantasy"?
A. Many readers do! It takes place in summer, and the tea my characters drink is iced, so I'm not sure how cozy it is, per se. But I’m of the opinion that the term "cozy fantasy" really means "small-scale"—as opposed to epic, grandiose—and by that measure, this definitely qualifies. There's more at stake here than in, let's say, Legends and Lattes...but even the largest problem my characters face is smaller than the question of saving the world.

Q. What kind of world is it?
A. I had a reader say it was "full of left turns and surprises". The Whellen Country, for example, is technologically advanced and has a Da Vinci sketchbook flavor: Ye Olde Science Fiction, if you will. But then we also have criminals, foreign cultures, and a variety of monsters.

Q. Is it magical realism? Absurdist fiction?
A. Yes! I can answer that definitively: Amazon says it is, so who am I to argue? (LOL). I suppose it's absurd to think an animal can talk— but we're all used to it really! My character Corvinalias is more realistic than BoJack Horseman, at least in that he's a normal-sized and normally behaved magpie.

Q. How about the writing? It seems poetic and complex.
A.