Merlin's Calling

Dr. Wallace Branford receives a mailing from the alluring Philemont, purported to be Merlin's diary. Trapped beneath earth and under a spell cast by his paramour Nimue, the seer reveals his life, times and practices. A modern day Grail search ensues, with truth about Merlin and the wisdom he holds for the coming age as its aim. Merlin's prophetic voice and subtle second narration provide a plot within a plot. Questing characters scour the summer country of England, the northern mountains of Wales and the rocky coast of Cornwall for clues and inspirations. Eventual meetings are at once tense, exciting, soulful and magical. Protagonists battle their own demons and histories as dark, reactionary forces attempt to usurp or discredit the find. Merlin's calling becomes urgent when he senses turbulence in the surface world and circumstances that might free him. The story builds toward conclusion with a shamanic ritual at Stonehenge.

Mark F. Ettin, Ph.D. works as a clinical psychologist in private practice in Princeton and East Brunswick, New Jersey. In 1996, he received the American Group Psychotherapy Association's "Award for Excellence in Psychodynamic Group Theory" for a trilogy of papers on group psychotherapy, culture and mythology. Dr. Ettin has published three professional textbooks and over fifty journal articles and book chapters, including: "Merlin: First group consultant to the British Isle" for the British journal Group Analysis. Merlin's Calling is Mark's first novel. It takes off where his scholarly work leaves off, with wonder and curiosity about Merlin's relationship to a new age in need of wise counsel and a bit of magic. Four years of research, with trips to Merlin sites in England proper, Cornwall and Wales inform this novel. The book has already met with acclaim after its selection as a finalist in the "Frontiers In Writing" contest.