Photo Courtesy of Amazon Books

A Wellman church pastor and assistant Mid-Prairie cross country coach now adds author to his resume. 

Aaron Fleming recently published his novel “Kingmaker:The Hunter and Chekwe Adventures Book 1.” Fleming gives a brief synopsis of the story, “So ‘Kingmaker’ is the name of a sword actually, an enchanted sword. And our two heroes Hunter and Chekwe have stolen this sword from the emperor, for purposes that I will not reveal now. But, they’re trying to hide in the jungle and keep this magical sword from being recaptured. So they’ve got some difficulties to overcome.The main one is that Hunter’s sister is loyal to the emperor and she’s a detective and she’s coming after him, and she’s got a troop of cavalry and they’re gonna track him down and bring him to justice if they can.” 

Fleming shares how his travels to the jungles of Belize inspired a moment in the book, “Probably most listeners aren’t aware of this but there is a kind of a population of Amish in Central America. So we were with friends on this mountain road out in the jungle trying to see scarlet red macaws early in the morning. We’re on this dirt road and all of a sudden this Amish buggy comes up the path and it’s just an Amish man on his way to market to sell watermelon and meat and carrot cake. So it’s like a little slice of Kalona dropped into the jungle and it was surreal and I’m like this is so wild. And I ended up putting kind of a situation like that in a fantasy book which I don’t know if anybody has ever taken inspiration from the Amish for a fantasy novel.” 

Fleming is currently on the fourth draft of the second novel in the series titled “Skeleton Company.” 

The Hunter and Chekwe Adventures Book 1 is available on Amazon and other online book retailers. You can hear more from Fleming during a two-part JJ Nichting Company in Touch with Southeast Iowa program at kciiradio.com