BYU-Idaho art professor Ryan Muldowney recently published his novel “Nicholas Quick and the Man from the Chaos Dimension.”

His book is a middle-grade fantasy adventure. It follows the story of a young boy whose parents go missing and finds himself pursued by magical gangsters. He runs into a magical private investigator who helps him escape and together they try to solve the mystery of his missing parents.

Muldowney said he’s published other books before, but never attempted a long form, fiction novel. He said the story came from independent ideas that worked their way together. The book is anticipated to be part one of a trilogy. Muldowney said there’s certainly potential for more.

“I wanted there to be a complex bad guy, I wanted there to be heart moments, I wanted there to be excitement and adventure, I wanted there to be edge-of-your-seat moments, I wanted there to be comedy. The book is, at heart, hilarious if it’s nothing else,” Muldowney said.

The book is written under the pseudonym H. L. Romquist. Muldowney said in one of the first books he wrote, he had a character named Hubert L. Romquist.

“He was a funny character that I remember with fondness, so it seemed like a fun name to use as the pseudonym for my first published fictional novel,” Muldowney said.

Muldowney said his publisher wanted him to make a fictional biography for the pseudonym. H. L. Romquist now has a social media presence that portrays his unique background. Romquist is known as a former cake wrestler, magic oils salesman, insurance salesman, cracker construction worker, backbench politician, and finally, an author for children’s stories.

“Almost all the points from the fictional bio are drawn from some funny gags in the book so at some level you read the book, and you read the author’s bio, and it almost feels like some of this is autobiographical even though it’s all fictional,” Muldowney said.

This book is a collaborative effort between Muldowney and his brother, Jacob. This is not the first project Muldowney and his brother have worked on together. Muldowney said he and his brother are close friends and work well together.

“My brother’s very smart, very savvy, clever and I completely trust his opinion,” Muldowney said. “He’s almost always right in his instincts.”

Muldowney said this book is pure entertainment. He said as he reads books to his own kids, he’s noticed that books try to communicate an idea and tell kids how they should be. He said this genre needs more fun, escapist reads.

“There’s a place for that. There’s a niche for that, but I remember growing up reading books for pure entertainment. Not because they were didactic or telling me how to operate in society,” Muldowney said.

When a child reads an entertaining book, they put themselves in the protagonist’s position and it stimulates their imagination and creativity, Muldowney said. People who have finished “Nicholas Quick and the Man from the Chaos Dimension” with their kids are sending pictures to Muldowney of their children making Lego creations with themes from the book or drawing pictures of how they imagined creatures in the book to look like.

“The reading itself stimulates the imagination, and the imagination turns into creativity when the book is gone. I think there’s something in that process that is particularly valuable,” Muldowney said.

“Nicholas Quick and the Man from the Chaos Dimension” can be found in most bookstores and online. To find locations and learn more about the book, visit https://www.hlromquist.com/.