The Blue Knights: Blue Book III

The Blue Knights is the third in a series of books chronicling the magical exploits of Princess Blue, Princess Victoriana, and Lady Charlotte along with many other endearing characters. It is a fairy tale of the battle between innocent virtue and unholy wickedness in the spirit of the Brothers Grimm, the Oz stories by L. Frank Baum, and Mary Poppins, by P. L. Travers. Two young princesses and their lovely governess, banished from the Kingdom of the North for reasons beyond their understanding, find themselves in reversed roles far from home at Schloss Lichtenstein. The princesses are now relegated to the status of mere morning matrons at the bottom of the royal staff hierarchy. In contrast, Lady Charlotte is no longer a nanny, but instead the Senior Matron and virtual First Lady of the Schloss. Discovering hard work, long hours, and unseen dangers, the banished princesses, find special friendship and camaraderie with the other matrons, stablehands, pages, and squires. Lady Charlotte is no longer the fun-loving big sister to the princesses, but instead, she is an unrelenting taskmaster. Unbeknownst to these three special maidens, they are surrounded by unseen protectors known as the Blue Knights. Simultaneously, a secret sisterhood of mythical female warriors, work to protect the three maidens and foil the schemes of the wicked Aleksandrina, Queen of the Damodells. Known as the Sisters of the Ettol Rahc, they use their almost magical powers to thwart the evil plot against not only the Blue Sapphire, but all that is virtuous. Still, the first misstep by one of the Blue Sapphire occurs as the beautiful Lady Charlotte succumbs to her feral yearnings. She takes on the secret role as the Phantom Rider, a dark Spector of the night who brandishes her own particular justice on those malevolent souls who unwittingly cross her path. Originally written as a fairy tale to be read aloud at bedtime, the stories evolved into an exciting adventure about friendship, love, and the coming of age.Author's note on the inspiration for the stories,The story is a fairy tale adaptation of the real-world introduction of women into the newly formed Iraqi Police Service in 2003-2004. These unsung heroes believed in the cause of freedom and making their homeland a safer place. Unfortunately, the new female police officers ran into not only dangers from radical extremists and terrorists, but much more significantly, from their male counterparts. MISOGYNY. To personally psychologically cope with the terrible horrors inflicted on these valiant and courageous women, I created the Sisters of the Ettol Rahc. These fairy tale members of a legendary secret sisterhood of Women Warriors. They are trained in a myriad of skills, with some involving fighting, while others are more psychological. The Sisters of the Ettol Rahc are defenders of righteousness protectors of the innocent. Yet, in reality, they are the personification of the women of the Iraqi Police Service. Another group of courageous women, who I was honored to meet while serving in Iraq, are those of the female-led Iranian Resistance, known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq. About the author: C.B.Phillips was a career Soldier in the United States Army for 31 years and the Director of Security for the Army Staff in the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Deploying multiple times to Iraq, C.B.Phillips wrote the Blue Stories as a psychological escape from the realities of war. Periodically, combat disrupted the fantasy world and notations of rocket attacks, and other such dangers are annotated precisely where they occurred while writing.