"The Trail to the Lonely Tree: Book 1 of the Jaguar Oracle Series" by Kurt Mähler -- Author Interview

 

About the Book

Book: The Trail to the Lonely Tree (Book 1 of the Jaguar Oracle Series)

Author: Kurt Mähler

Genre: Christian Magical Realism Fantasy

Release date: September 30, 2024

A richly poetic tale of friendship, courage, and destiny that will awaken the imagination of children and adults alike.

When Oracle, a jaguar from the Yucatán, learns of the dying words of the last jaguar in the Rio Grande Valley, he finds himself on a perilous journey to see a prophecy fulfilled.

To do so he must travel 1,400 miles to Texas and find the Lonely Tree, where his kin spoke an enigma to the heavens as hunters took him down. But the Lonely Tree is in the dangerous realm of Man—and Oracle will need more than his own wisdom and strength to fulfill the task.

Oracle remembers Eden and the naming of the animals; what Adam spoke to the first of each kind. He discovers the animals in the Valley have forgotten their names—as has Man himself.

Can he not only fulfill the prophecy, but help the animals reclaim ancient truths before they are lost forever?

This hope-filled tale explores the quest for courage in a fallen world and how to make the faith journey—and its sacrifices—worthwhile.

 

Click here to get your copy!

Author Interview 

Do you have a way to keep track of your story ideas?

I use a Google sheet called “Timetable of the Tale” to track the days, nights, and patterns in the night

sky with an app called Starry Night Enthusiast 8. I use an internally hyperlinked Google doc called

“Faithfulness to the Tale” to remind myself of what the characters intend to do later on; notes

regarding style; and details about each character.

What is your writing space like?

It is a solid wood desk with no drawers facing southeast. Two Gothic-arch windows are above it, one

of which has a perch for birds who feed on seeds just below the sill. Under a brass reading lamp is an

icon of the Holy Family, and with this my daytimer, called a Full Focus Planner, which I highly

recommend.

A toy raccoon “reminds” me to take courage and write. (The Jaguar Oracle series features a raccoon

named Patch.) And there is a desk fan (for it is quite hot where I live in Arabia.) and a plant beside the

desk. A map of the tale—which appears in the book—is also before me, along with silhouettes of the

four main cats: jaguar, ocelot, bobcat, and jaguarundi.

Where do you get your ideas for your books?

In the case of The Trail to the Lonely Tree and the Jaguar Oracle series that follows, the idea came

from a black-and-white photo and a question.

The photo, dated January 1946, is of farmers and ranchers displaying the “last” jaguar in the Rio

Grande Valley of Texas, which they have hunted down and killed.

The question interrupted me a few hours later during a time of prayer about some troublesome matter

I no longer remember. The question dropped into me: “What if a jaguar returned to the Rio Grande

Valley?”

What is your work schedule/routine when you write?

Insofar as love and wisdom allow, mornings are devoted to writing. I write pre-dawn for an hour or so,

then, after breakfast and morning chores, I write another two to four hours.

Afternoons and evenings tend to be devoted to everything else, i.e., matters that do not require the

generating of creative content and the solitude that makes that more possible.

Do bits of yourself/friends show up in your characters?

Sometimes, yes. The main character in the Jaguar Oracle is a jaguar who, apparently, has spent time

with a lion a lot like Aslan, although I can’t be sure. In Book 2, The Way Back to Eden, there is a

hermit based on a long lost relative of mine, and there is a cartel operative who is based on Cesar

Romero, a Hollywood actor known for his role in the original Batman TV series.

About the Author

Kurt Mähler writes in the prophetic and poetic tradition, inspired by the wonder of creation and cultures of the world. He and his wife have served in forty nations as encouragers in the Christian faith, where Kurt discovered the beauty and wisdom of storytelling. His roots include the Gulf Coast, Rio Grande Valley, and Heart of Texas.

 

 

 

 

More from Kurt

During my eleven years in Afghanistan with my wife Karen and five children, I learned that sometimes we need ‘aha’ moments instead of how-to manuals; a story instead of a sermon; an encounter instead of a lecture.

That’s why my answer to the question, “What if a jaguar appeared in South Texas?” is saturated with parables, prayers, poems, proverbs, and prophetic words set in the voices of creation.

My wife Karen is from where this imaginary tale takes place, so I have visited it often. On one visit, I saw a 1946 black-and-white photo of what was believed to be the last jaguar in the Rio Grande Valley. Hunters gathered around their prize. The question, “What if a jaguar came back here?” struck like a match inside me and became a bonfire of discovery for six books, beginning with The Trail to the Lonely Tree.

C.S. Lewis, George MacDonald, Tolkien, Milton, and Dante are the literary mentors I have looked to for this Christian fantasy, which, in my case, is a form called “magical realism.”

It’s real in that you can visit, for example, the Port Isabel lighthouse or the Rio Grande River; it’s magical in that I have immersed that world into another one—one that isn’t “real” yet completely true. The ranches are fictitious and yet, as symbols, speak the truth to the way things are and the way things could be as wheat and weeds grow together in the realm of Man.

The descriptions of the animals and plants of the Rio Grande Valley are as accurate as I could labor to attain. For the stars, I employed the astronomy app Starry Night Enthusiast 8 to precisely describe the activity of the heavens during the time of the tale, which is from September 2016 through August 2017 in Book 1.

The herblore is a work of research too. Patch the raccoon heals a friend’s injury with aloe vera and the pita plant, while later he and ab aplomado falcon named Sent attempt to heal an ailing, abandoned child with leaves of the anacahuita (Texas wild olive); twigs of the allthorn (amargoso); and tasajillo berries of the Christmas cactus.

A word about the jaguar named Oracle. He isn’t Aslan, but he sure seems to have spent time with him. His faith journey might be like yours, with clues to the future, a heart to serve others—and profound disappointments along the way.

Let’s discover together how to begin again, own our faith, leverage our sorrows, and pick up the trail before us. For the way to our future often begins with a memory. Our destinies are found in the first things our Creator told us long ago in childhood and before. That is where we will most likely find courage for our calling.

I don’t mean ‘calling’ in the sense of clergy alone, but in the sense of living as your original self, the one God thought of when He said, “Let there be…”

I wrote this tale to impart such courage.

Blog Stops

Texas Book-aholic, December 12

Vicky Sluiter, December 13 (Author Interview)

Locks, Hooks and Books, December 14

Library Lady’s Kid Lit, December 15 (Author Interview)

Debbie’s Dusty Deliberations, December 15

Abba’s Prayer Warrior Princess, December 16

Simple Harvest Reads, December 17 (Author Interview)

Denise L. Barela, December 17

Aryn The Libraryan, December 18

For the Love of Literature, December 19 (Author Interview)

Truth and Grace Homeschool Academy, December 20

Tell Tale Book Reviews, December 21 (Author Interview)

Blogging With Carol, December 22

Blossoms and Blessings, December 23 (Author Interview)

Holly’s Book Corner, December 24

Stories By Gina, December 25 (Author Interview)

Giveaway

To celebrate his tour, Kurt is giving away the grand prize of a $50 Amazon gift card, a detailed digital map of the entire six-book tale, a paperback copy of the book, and an audiobook copy of the book!!

Be sure to comment on the blog stops for extra entries into the giveaway! Click the link below to enter.

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/00adcf54120