The Vault of Kings - Book Tour and Giveaway

A Light in the Darkness
The Vault of Kings Book 1
by Matt Taylor
Genre: YA Fantasy 

For ten years, the dark mage Maelos has shrouded Evendreil in darkness and oppression. With no hope in sight, many are struggling to survive; others pray that their luck will remain. In searching for answers, Sylas stumbles upon an ancient artifact--a mysterious silver amulet--that confirms the reality of the fabled Vault of Kings. Hoping to overthrow Maelos and end his evil reign, Sylas and his companions set off to find the legendary elemental stones of power that are needed to unlock the door to the vault. If they are to succeed in their quest, they must first learn to master the ancient art of Magick in all of its basic forms: Light, Darkness, Water, Fire, Nature, and Air. Then they must pray that whatever secret is contained in the Vault of Kings will be enough to give them the edge that they need to defeat the most powerful dark mage that the world has ever seen.


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​For ten years, the dark mage Maelos has shrouded Evendreil in darkness and oppression. With no hope in sight, many are struggling to survive; others pray that their luck will remain. In searching for answers, Sylas stumbles upon an ancient artifact--a mysterious silver amulet--that confirms the reality of the fabled Vault of Kings. Hoping to overthrow Maelos and end his evil reign, Sylas and his companions set off to find the legendary elemental stones of power that are needed to unlock the door to the vault. If they are to succeed in their quest, they must first learn to master the ancient art of Magick in all of its basic forms: Light, Darkness, Water, Fire, Nature, and Air. Then they must pray that whatever secret is contained in the Vault of Kings will be enough to give them the edge that they need to defeat the most powerful dark mage that the world has ever seen.

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Alliance
The Vault of Kings Book 2 

Gelendor has fallen. Darkness has descended once again. Despite the danger, Torren has decided to stay in Gelendor to try and form a secret rebellion while the others make their journey towards Sindmyr, the Capital of Light. Once there, Sylas and Samara will need to convince the King of Sindmyr to join their cause and fight back against the armies of Maelos. To be successful, the two young mages will not only need to continue to master the ancient art of Light Magick, but also uncover an ancient secret that has been hidden away beneath the City of Light for generations. A secret that could prove deadly to any who attempt to wield it. Most importantly, Sylas will need to prove that he is worthy to obtain the Stone of Light and unite it with the ancient silver amulet. With two Elemental Stones of power at his side, Sylas will bring himself one step closer to completing the key to the Vault of Kings. One step closer to unlocking the powerful secret that's been hidden from the world for over a thousand years. Gelendor has fallen to Darkness, but in the Light...there is still hope.


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Goodreads * Amazon ​

​Gelendor has fallen. Darkness has descended once again. Despite the danger, Torren has decided to stay in Gelendor to try and form a secret rebellion while the others make their journey towards Sindmyr, the Capital of Light. Once there, Sylas and Samara will need to convince the King of Sindmyr to join their cause and fight back against the armies of Maelos. To be successful, the two young mages will not only need to continue to master the ancient art of Light Magick, but also uncover an ancient secret that has been hidden away beneath the City of Light for generations. A secret that could prove deadly to any who attempt to wield it. Most importantly, Sylas will need to prove that he is worthy to obtain the Stone of Light and unite it with the ancient silver amulet. With two Elemental Stones of power at his side, Sylas will bring himself one step closer to completing the key to the Vault of Kings. One step closer to unlocking the powerful secret that's been hidden from the world for over a thousand years. Gelendor has fallen to Darkness, but in the Light... there is still hope.

I'm a small town boy from Southeast Idaho. I've wanted to share my stories and wild imagination with the world for a long time, and finally decided that now is better than never. I have loved reading fantasy books ever since I was little, but there was always something missing, something that I wished that I could add to the story, to make it mine. Writing a book and putting yourself out there for the world to see is daunting to say the least, but the joy and sense of accomplishment you get from seeing your story out there, for all to read and enjoy is a feeling like none other. 
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I hope that you will enjoy the worlds of my mind, and take part in the adventures that have been hidden from the world, but are now finally being revealed.


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For those who don’t know me, my Name is Matt Taylor and I am the author of The Vault of Kings series. I started writing as more of a dream, really. I had always wanted to write a book and I had a good idea of what I wanted it to be about, but there was always something inside me that kept telling me, “You can’t do that.” “People will make fun of you.” “No one will like it.” Which discouraged me from ever starting. I finally got up the courage later in life, though I am still young, to just go ahead and do it, and to do it for me, not for anyone else. If people didn’t like it, it didn’t matter because I liked it. I have fallen in love with the writing process and I don’t think I’ve ever felt a greater feeling than holding a printed copy of a book that I have written.

One question that I get a lot from others who know me or are meeting me because they have read my book is, “How do you find the time to write?” I usually respond with, “Five hundred words at a time.” I currently have a full-time job at a software company in Idaho Falls called Docutech. I work a regular 8-5 job, and because it’s in the technology industry, we find ourselves working a lot of late hours when the software isn’t behaving like it should. On top of this, I have two children, a beagle, and the cutest salamander you’d ever see to take care of. Luckily, I have an amazing wife that takes care of most of that, but I still find that I don’t have a lot of free time; let alone time to write a book, do all of the editing, marketing, coordination of art, and all the other things that usually teams of people take care of. I find that the very best way to go about writing when trying to balance a normal life on top of that is to go “500 words at a time”. I make sure that no matter what, I at least get in 500 words every week night. I try to do more than that as often as possible, but I make it a goal that no matter what I am going to do at least 500 words; otherwise, you will lose motivation and it will just never get done.

I truly believe that The Vault of Kings is something special and lovers of fantasy should at least give it a try. It may never be the greatest fantasy story ever written, it will probably never even become very popular, but it’s special because it comes from an amazingly wild imagination and is dripping with true passion and love; not for how successful the story is, but that the story that is in my mind is simply written down to share with others if they would like to partake. I always wonder how others get inspiration for their stories and if they share any similarities with how I do it. For example, I needed to write a part that was creepy/scary for a certain character. I decided that the very best way to do this was for me to experience the horror myself, then immediately write about it. I watched a good, clean, horror movie to get my mind in the mood, then walked outside in the woods in the dark for about an hour, specifically trying to get my mind to see things, hear things, and just get myself scared. I would breathe in deeply to get my heart racing, and imagine what it would be like to be in a situation where these scary things that happen in movies could actually happen. Needless to say, it worked like a charm. After wandering around in the woods for about an hour, I immediately came back inside and began furiously typing. I didn’t stop to fix grammatical or spelling errors, I just wanted to get all of the thoughts, feelings, emotions, sounds, smells, everything all onto paper before it faded at all. I wrote the entire chapter that night, and it to this day is one of my favorite chapters that I have written.

What one can expect from The Vault of Kings series is a seven book epic fantasy story about a young boy and his friends learning a complicated and unique magic system, learning life lessons about friendship, trust, good morals, how to be dependable, and of course a fantastic and rich adventure in a magical land where secrets are kept, mysteries are uncovered, and good prevails over evil. I wanted to write a story that was clean and taught good morals and work ethics in a subtle manor that was fun for both young adults and adult audiences to read. A book that I wanted to read. A book that I think an ever increasingly distracted and confused world would enjoy.

Stuff about me… Well, I was born in Idaho, and still live here despite the fact that we have more months with snow than without it. One of my biggest pet peeves is when people talk during movies! Man that drives me insane! Especially when people are asking questions about stuff… I’m just like, you will probably find out who that guy is in the next ten minutes if you just shut your mouth and watch! Haha, speaking of movies, I think I’d have to say that my favorites are the entire MCU line of movies (all the marvel super hero movies) I think they have a great story and I love how all the characters have their own spin offs and come together in epic battles together and stuff, plus they are laced with the exact right amount of humor to just make them so awesome. I would absolutely LOVE to have my story become a movie someday, and if it did I would demand that I get to play a part in the movie. But I think I would have myself as a funny comic relief character that only shows up every once in a while type thing, I don’t think I’d want to take on a main part at all. And whoever did the movie would have to do a great job of it, I wouldn’t want it to turn out like Eragon, or Avatar the Last Airbender, that would just break my poor little heart. My Spirit animal is definitely a polar bear. One because they are awesome. Two because my favorite color is white, and I have lived in the cold my whole life so we would fit well together just off of that three four five etc. because I’m pretty dang sure there isn’t a creature on the planet that would want to mess with a polar bear, just sayin’.
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Something that inspired me to write this book was actually the idea behind both the crazy magic system that I came up with, as well as the idea of having to find and collect the stones of power in order to get to the main goal at the end. Ohh… and I guess you can add in there that the fourteen year old boys that I work with in our church group helped inspire me as well. I remember being that age, and from time to time I definitely miss it. I wanted to write a story that could put me back into a fourteen year old body again, but this time in a world where crazy magic stuff happened everywhere. To be honest, they are the reason I really did it, not what I said at the beginning haha. The characters actually reflect several of them in certain ways, as well as the friends that I had when I was young, and myself a little bit as well. I won’t get into everyone, but the main character Sylas, is kind of based off of me a little bit. He is a bit unsure of himself and isn’t quite sure how to come out of his box, yet he has friends that are really ‘cool’ all around him, and he wishes that he could be like them. Torren is the really cool friend that he has, and he is kind of a mix of several of my childhood friends. He is funny, outgoing, and just a hoot to be around. It’s funny, because as the story has progressed in books one and two, I have actually found that I am starting to like Torren’s story even more than Sylas’s and there are several who have read it that share that opinion haha. Sometimes its even a bit frustrating because Torren almost seems to be driving the way that the story is going. I’m like, Torren! I had an idea for how this was going to go, why you gotta be taking things into uncharted waters all the time!?And Samara, she is the really pretty girl that happens to be friends with the two main character boys. Sylas has an obvious crush on her, but she has decided long ago that the three of them are just friends and nothing else will ever come of that. She is sassy and super fun and a lot of times it is really hard to write her personality because I’m not a teenage girl, but I was lucky enough to have some good friends that she kind of reminds me of which help. I really just love this story so much, I know its probably because I am the one writing it, but honest to goodness, it is the exact thing that I wish I could have read when I was a teen. The humbling and mind boggling part about it too, is that I have had several young people, those who know me and those who don’t, tell me that it is among their favorite, if not their number one favorite book they have read, and that includes “harry potter, the hunger games” and other books like that. It just blows my mind that people would say that to me, even if they are saying it just to be nice haha.

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