With ‘Lion of Fire,’ novelist Brittany Ranew opens a magic portal

The protagonists of Lion of Fire, the first novel in Brittany Ranew’s fantasy series Riley Jordan and the Fire Prophecies, are twenty-somethings who attend college in a place called Lestoria.

It’s kinda, sorta in Manhattan, but no GPS in the world will take you there. Lestoria is accessed through Central Park – through a magical portal only the “gifted” can open. “Kind of like an overlay of reality,” explains Riley, who easily goes back and forth between the (real) New York and the “parallel dimension” of Lestoria with his three besties Logan, Madeline and Caleb.