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An enchanted illustrated novel into the heart of nature and the nature of the heart

With over 80 pen & ink illustrations by American fine artist Travis Weaver

Allan Quinn Fitzpatrick is an unhappy middle-aged bachelor from New York City who grudgingly embarks on a journey in Ireland to find a mythical book that could save the planet. What he discovers breaks open his heart, offering him a radically new understanding of life, nature, and love.

“QUEST is a sweet, sacred journey into our innermost selves. Whatever our life path, this is a heart-felt guidebook into what we already know, and a mystical roadmap to what we don’t.” Pineniece Joshua, Cultural Anthropologist, Mental Health Educator

THE ASTONISHING TRUE STORY BEHIND QUEST

Nature has always been an important part of my life but not in any obvious way. I didn’t grow up on a farm. I didn’t grow up hiking or camping or bathing in cold mountain streams. I grew up in gritty East New York, Brooklyn, fighting rush hour traffic and riding squealing subway trains with my Polish immigrant parents. It was there, kneeling beside a patch of dirt in my cement backyard when I was five years old that I had a miraculous experience trying to grow a pea pod. Decades later, living amid the noise and crowds of Manhattan, I continued having profound moments with tulips and sparrows and bushes in Central Park.

For more than twenty years I thrived in New York, living in rent-controlled apartments, walking miles every day past designer storefronts and eclectic neighborhoods and dressing only in black. I loved the city. It was truly my home, my calling, my identity.

So when I left New York (very, very reluctantly) and moved with my fiancé to the Hawaiian islands I felt utterly lost and out of place. No one wore black. No one walked across town. And Nature dominated absolutely everywhere. Her energy spilled into wild orchids, fist-sized hibiscus flowers, towering coconut trees, bright green wild parrots, and infinite turquoise ocean. Simply put, She overwhelmed me.

Then something unbelievable happened. One day, while riding my bicycle through Kailua, a quiet neighborhood on Oahu’s windward coast, a big red hibiscus flower shouted at me. I jumped off my bike, pulled out my journal, and started frantically writing down everything I heard. For three weeks, Nature spoke to me, at all hours of the day and night. For three weeks, I became a reluctant scribe, downloading profound messages for humanity. And when I woke out of that feverish, trance-like experience, I had a complete manuscript in my hands. A non-fiction book about nature spirits; a manuscript that would eventually be titled BELIEVING IN FAERIES: A Manual for Grown-ups, then find its way to a British publisher, and become an international bestseller translated into many languages.

That was a long time ago. Yet ever since then, the seed of QUEST has been taking root deep inside me. I wrote the first draft of the novel while living on the tiny, rural island of Lanai, Hawaii where I was married. But I never finished it. There was something about the story that felt too intimate, too close to my heart. Even though I went on to a successful freelance career, I couldn’t seem to work on QUEST. And I never understood why.

Until the pandemic.

I entered a sort of spiritual retreat for two years. That’s when I took out the first draft, read it again, and burst into tears. Because I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the story and the characters and the message were waiting for these times! Now. Right now. When the planet and Her people are seriously struggling. On the brink of an evolutionary, revolutionary change. A time when QUEST’s message about tenderness and praise and compassion and surrender have a real shot at being heard.

 It's been quite a journey getting here. Yet I know this is precisely where QUEST is supposed to be. As the steward of QUEST, my hope is that the story of Allan Quinn Fitzpatrick’s transformational adventure not only delights you, but also inspires you to do two simple things: recognize and praise the infinite beauty and wisdom that surrounds us, all the time. And, perhaps even more importantly, recognize and praise that beauty and wisdom within you.

BONUS MATERIALS

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