Elemental Journey
The Elemental Journey Series – Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Ether. One protagonist, five books, a journey around the world in search of authenticity, purpose, and spirit.
Originally published by Booktrope in Seattle, the first four books are complete -- and all have won Independent Publishers awards.
The most recent novel, WATER, was awarded a 2021 Gold Medal for Visionary Fiction from Independent Publishers.
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“Caroline Allen winds her writing into dark places where thorns will scratch at your skin and your blood will boil. The captivating detail of her writing moves you so deeply you’ll find yourself questioning your own existence. Is your story your own?” – April Davis, Writer’s Edit Magazine
Earth
Air plunges readers into Pearl's flight from her traumatic Missouri upbringing to the neon-lit chaos of 1980s Tokyo.
Haunted by visions and desperate to escape a legacy of violence and broken dreams, Pearl discovers that running halfway around the world can't silence the mysterious forces calling to her.
When she meets Usui, a former Jesuit missionary who has chosen homelessness as his path to enlightenment, their unlikely friendship becomes the catalyst for Pearl's profound awakening.
Air is an exploration of what it means to find home when you've been displaced not just geographically, but spiritually.
Air
In the heart of rural Missouri, thirteen-year-old Pearl Swinton experiences her first devastating vision—the earth cracking apart, crops withering, and a mysterious Osage woman appearing with an urgent message she cannot quite hear. Born into a family where silence reigns and brutality masquerades as love, Pearl must navigate her father's rage, her mother's denial, and her own visions.
As Pearl grows into adolescence, her gift becomes both blessing and curse. Torn between the pull of her visions and the harsh reality of survival in a world that labels difference as madness, she watches her family fracture and her farm slip away.
Earth weaves mysticism and realism, environmental consciousness and human resilience.
FIRE
Pearl Elizabeth Swinton embarks on a transformative year-long odyssey across Southeast Asia with her enigmatic British lover, Finn.
From the coral reefs of the Philippines to the smoke-choked cities of India, from the sacred peaks of the Himalayas to the underground music scene of London, Pearl's journey becomes a brutal reckoning with her own mysterious gift—visions that blur the line between reality and the spirit world.
As forest fires rage across continents and ancient cultures clash with modern exploitation, Pearl must confront the question that has haunted her since childhood: Where, truly, is home?
WATER
We follow Pearl as she returns to America after a decade abroad, only to discover that "home" has become a foreign concept. Stripped of her international journalist career and thrust into the gritty reality of minimum-wage jobs in rainy Seattle, Pearl must confront the psychic gifts she's spent years trying to suppress.
When a devastating dark night of the soul nearly destroys her, she's forced to surrender to a calling she never wanted—one that will lead her through tarot reading, shamanic journeys, past-life regressions, and ultimately to her authentic voice as both writer and artist.
Water is a raw, unflinching exploration of what it means to be a highly sensitive soul in a world that values profit over spirit.