Find Adventure Within . . .

John Hood’s Folklore Cycle is a series of novels and stories that combine elements of history, folklore, and epic fantasy to tell the story of America in a fresh and exciting way.

Book One, Mountain Folk, introduces readers to Goran, a Sylph who lives atop North Carolina’s Pilot Mountain. Goran is one of those rare fairy beings who can venture without magical protection into the Blur, the human world where the days pass twenty times faster than in fairy realms. During his missions for the Rangers Guild, Goran encounters George Washington, Daniel Boone, an improbably tall dwarf named Har, a beautiful water maiden named Dela, and a series of terrifying monsters from European, African, and Native American folklore. But when Goran receives orders to help crush the American Revolution, he must choose between duty to guild and family and a fierce loyalty to his human friends and the principles they hold dear.

Subsequent novels and stories depict our heroes finding new allies, human and otherwise, to confront grave threats to freedom, justice, and peace on the frontier of the new American republic. Davy Crockett, Sam Houston, Ichabod Crane, Sojourner Truth, Paul Bunyan, Manuel Chaves, Pecos Bill — these are only some of the colorful characters you’ll meet in the pages of the Folklore Cycle!

Meet your talespinner

John Hood is a syndicated columnist, teacher, and foundation executive with a deep passion for both American history and speculative fiction.

The author of several critically acclaimed books of economic and political history, Hood has reported on governments from town councils to Congress and written for the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Military History, and dozens of other publications. A frequent television and radio commentator and winner of the 2016 book award from the North Carolina Society of Historians, he teaches public policy to Duke University graduate students and tap dancing to tweens and teens.

Hood received his BA in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and MA in liberal studies from UNC-Greensboro. He chairs the board of the NC Institute of Political Leadership, co-chairs the NC Leadership Forum, serves as vice chair of North Carolina Public Radio and Martin Center for Academic Renewal, and serves on the boards of State Policy Network, John Locke Foundation, Student Free Press Association, and UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media Foundation.

Hood lives in North Carolina with his wife, two sons, a stepdaughter, and a dog, Woola, named after the faithful companion of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ swashbuckling hero John Carter, Warlord of Mars.