Marble Falls author’s fantasy world comes to life through Namarielle trilogy

DANIEL CLIFTON • PICAYUNE EDITOR

MARBLE FALLS — Almost 23 years ago, Julien Jamar dreamed up the Kingdom of Lashai and a race of people called the Namarielle, but it wasn’t until Dec. 12 that the rest of the world became aware of them along with Cassai, the last survivor of that race.

Now, people can learn about Cassai’s struggle as others, primarily the Fontre, try to find her and decide what to do with her. After all, the Fontre are the ones who helped wipe out Cassai’s people.

Jamar, 33, published her story in a series of three books, “The Namarielle: The Chronicles of Lashai” (parts 1-3) on Amazon.com.

“The book itself is about 300 pages, but we decided to break it up into a series of three books,” Jamar explained. Part of the reasoning came down to pricing the book, while the other part is simply a matter of encouraging people to take a look. At 99 cents for the first part, Jamar figured a potential reader might just give it a shot.

“And if they like the first one, hopefully, they’ll go on and read the other two,” she said. Jamar added that readers should check the Amazon website over the next several weekends because she is looking at offering part one as a free download.

The fantasy story follows Cassai, the last remaining Namarielle, as she struggles to find her place in a world where the now-ruling race doesn’t know what to do with her. The Fontre invaded Lashia 14 years prior to when the book takes place, killing off all the Namarielle, or so they thought. Only Cassai survived, protected by a woman named Nanna. But since the destruction of rest of the Namarielle, the Fontre learned the very survival of the kingdom depends on this girl.

“I think people will really enjoy it,” Jamar said.

Though this is Jamar’s first book, she’s been writing since she was about 6 years old when her family created their own “writers group.” Her father, Terry Wilbur, attended a writers group every Thursday when she was growing up. It was the one night she could stay up a little bit later because she and the rest of her family were intrigued by the group.

Seeing the enthusiasm in his family, Jamar’s father created a family writers group that “met” each Saturday.

“I just took off with it,” Jamar said. “I wrote throughout the years. I just kept getting better and better.”

Around the time she turned 10, Jamar came up with the Namarielle story. But she never quite put it down on paper.

But about three years ago, her dad died and the family passed on some of his writings to her with the hope she would finish them. As she worked on her dad’s stories, Jamar felt the urge to finally put Namarielle down on paper.

So, she did.

It wasn’t an easy task. She and her husband, Jason Jamar, have four children all between the ages of 1 and 5. But Jamar made it work. Whenever she had a few minutes, she sat down to write.

“I know a lot of people say you have to set aside a certain amount of time, or something like that, but that wouldn’t work for me,” Jamar said. “I wrote when I could.”

With the story bouncing around her head for about 20 years, when Jamar did sit down to write, the words just poured out of her.

“It’s so real in my mind,” she said.

The actual writing came fairly quickly, but then she and her husband started the editing process. That took a bit longer. But last year, she finally uploaded it to Amazon’s Kindle Direct Printing. After a review process, Amazon accepted the story for publication.

“It was pretty exciting,” Jamar said after her dream became a reality.

As part of the Amazon KDP agreement, she must only publish it through Amazon for a certain period of time, but once that expires, Jamar said she’s probably going to upload it through similar eBook and independent publishing programs such as Barnes & Noble’s Nook and Smashwords.

“The publishing and marketing, that’s really been a learning process for me,” Jamar said. “Jason does a great job monitoring all the marketing things. But it’s a been something I’ve really had to work at. If you go through a traditional publisher, they usually handle all the marketing, but this way, it’s all up to me.”

Still, Jamar said she has enjoyed the venture into independent publishing and putting her book out there.

As for the future, Jamar wrote “The Namarielle” with an ending that leaves an opening for more books.

“It’s set up to be a trilogy,” she said. “So yeah, there’s more to come.”

To get a copy of “The Namarielle,” go to www.amazon.com and search for “Julien Jamar” or “The Namarielle.” People don’t necessarily need a Kindle to get Jamar’s book; they can download the Kindle app to their smartphone, computer or tablet as well.

And Jamar has a Sharpie, just in case you want her to sign your Kindle.

daniel@thepicayune.com