Seven years ago, I hadn’t yet started my career as an independent author. I was still finding my way as a writer, so I decided to write a NaNoWriMo novel based on my memories of childhood.

It wasn’t a memoir, though. I’m a fantasy author. I wanted there to be some magic in this story, so I had to make it fictional. My inspiration was Ray Bradbury and his beautiful ode to childhood, Dandelion Wine, a novel I hold dear to my heart.

So I invented Sarah Lewis, a ten-year-old from California who spends the summer with her grandparents in Michigan.

(“Sarah Lewis” by the way is an homage to two icons from my childhood: Sarah, the name of the lead character in Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, and Jenny Lewis, child star of the 80s and early 90s. I wished I could be them when I was a kid.)

I worked on the NaNoWriMo novel for awhile back in 2015, but then I set it aside and started work on my first published novel, The Thirteen Treasures of Britain. Treasures came out just after I had given birth to my second child (in 2016), and I was all set to start working on book two of the Merlin’s Last Magic series, when I found out I was pregnant again.

This third pregnancy threw me for a loop, and to take my mind off the mounting pressure to finish my Merlin series, I returned to my little side project.

Avalon Summer became my low-pressure respite from the demands of my day job, motherhood, and trying to write the next book in my fantasy series. When I was working on Avalon Summer, I could return to the days of my childhood: to the early 90s, to endless bike rides, to playing adventures in the woods. I would cue up my old R.E.M. albums and just write, remembering what it was like to be a kid again.

I worked on this book off-and-on for several years, just dipping into it when I needed a break from normal life.

But then about a year or so ago, something happened. I started to work on Avalon Summer A LOT. Maybe it was the pandemic, or maybe it was just the right time for it, but I became so caught up in Sarah’s story that my nice little side project became the main event. I started working on Avalon Summer all the time.

And then something else happened.

In the course of the story, Sarah finds a dusty old paperback called Gates to Illvelion. It contains some eerie parallels to her own life.

When I was writing about the paperback and its effect on Sarah, I realized I needed to make up some chapter titles, some characters, and some plot points for this non-existent book to fit into my narrative for Avalon Summer.

So I did.

And then I decided to write the entire book.

The result — Gates to Illvelion — is an homage of sorts to the pulpy genre fantasy of the 1970s. Inspired by writers such as Peter S. Beagle, Patricia McKillop, and Andre Norton, I wrote Gates to Illvelion as something ten-year-old Sarah would get immersed in and even disturbed by.

I wrote it under a pen name — A.R. Rathmann — and not to spoil things too much, but I decided to make the identity of A.R. Rathmann a plot point in Avalon Summer.

If this sounds a little confusing, well, it is.

I wrote a coming-of-age novel in which a young girl is obsessed with a fantasy book by a mysterious author, and then I went and wrote the fantasy book this young girl becomes obsessed with.

Because of the nature of these two projects, I decided to do a Kickstarter campaign that showcased the connection between these two books. Readers scrolling through Amazon wouldn’t know or understand that Gates to Illvelion is a new release pretending to be an old vintage paperback. And they certainly wouldn’t understand that Gates to Illvelion plays a role in the plot to another novel, Avalon Summer, a coming-of-age story about a girl spending the summer with her grandparents in Michigan.

These two books have a story behind their creation. The Kickstarter was my way of sharing that story.

But now the books are getting released to the general public on May 30, 2023, so I thought a blog post was in order to explain the connection between them. Buyers scrolling through Amazon still won’t know the connection between Gates to Illvelion and Avalon Summer, but I’m hoping word of mouth will provide some illumination.

Of course, each book can be read independently of the other. They aren’t connected except in a meta, self-referential way.

And I’ve kept the pen name “A.R. Rathmann” separate from my “Jennifer M. Baldwin” identity. A.R. Rathmann is listed as a separate author on the retailer websites and on Goodreads. Perhaps this isn’t the best tactic marketing-wise, but it’s how I wanted to do things.

Summer is almost here, and so are Avalon Summer and Gates to Illvelion. I hope you’ll want to sit on the handlebars and come along for the ride.