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WorldWind: A YA Portal Fantasy Adventure
The green flash is real. In WORLDWIND, it opens.
Zuma “Z” Alexander has lost her father, her footing, and just about all patience with her life on land.
So when the legendary green flash appears at sunset, Z follows it the only way she knows by kite.
Bad idea.
Pulled through the light and into Vindurheim, a brutal ocean world of warring fleets, strange creatures, and dangerous beliefs, Z has no map, no signal, no easy way home, and no choice but to survive.
But the farther she sails into this new world, the more Z begins to suspect her arrival was no accident. The green flash did not just take her somewhere else.
It may have brought her exactly where she was needed.
WORLDWIND is a YA portal fantasy adventure about grief, resilience, climate anxiety, survival, and the dangerous hope of starting over.
Zuma “Z” Alexander has lost her father, her footing, and just about all patience with her life on land.
So when the legendary green flash appears at sunset, Z follows it the only way she knows by kite.
Bad idea.
Pulled through the light and into Vindurheim, a brutal ocean world of warring fleets, strange creatures, and dangerous beliefs, Z has no map, no signal, no easy way home, and no choice but to survive.
But the farther she sails into this new world, the more Z begins to suspect her arrival was no accident. The green flash did not just take her somewhere else.
It may have brought her exactly where she was needed.
WORLDWIND is a YA portal fantasy adventure about grief, resilience, climate anxiety, survival, and the dangerous hope of starting over.
217 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 17, 2026
About the author
Brett Schneider
1 bookI’m a Peabody Award and eight-time Emmy-winning television producer, best known for my years working on Jeopardy!, before turning my attention toward fiction and cinematic storytelling.
Originally from Massachusetts and now based in València, Spain, I’m also the co-creator of https://voyagersescape.com/originals, where travel, storytelling, and visual narrative intersect. My work explores identity, displacement, survival, obsession, and the uneasy line between wonder and fear.
My debut novel, WorldWind, is a cinematic YA fantasy adventure inspired by the ocean, kitesurfing culture, mythology, war, and the strange feeling that reality may be thinner than we think.
When I’m not writing, I’m usually overthinking sunsets, or trying to convince people that the green flash is real.
Originally from Massachusetts and now based in València, Spain, I’m also the co-creator of https://voyagersescape.com/originals, where travel, storytelling, and visual narrative intersect. My work explores identity, displacement, survival, obsession, and the uneasy line between wonder and fear.
My debut novel, WorldWind, is a cinematic YA fantasy adventure inspired by the ocean, kitesurfing culture, mythology, war, and the strange feeling that reality may be thinner than we think.
When I’m not writing, I’m usually overthinking sunsets, or trying to convince people that the green flash is real.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 17, 2026
If you love Pirates of the Caribbean, with a sprinkle of Avatar, a seasoning of The Hunger Games, and a heavy topping of Mad Max, then you are in for an absolute treat!This high-stakes adventure takes readers into a fascinating interdimensional world that hits incredibly close to home, perfectly intertwining our actual climate realities—like rising sea levels—with a brilliant sci-fi premise. At the heart of the story is Z, a young protagonist who faces far more than just dangerous physical obstacles. Forced out of the comfort of modern technology, she must learn entirely new ways to communicate, adapt, and think on her feet.Watching Z grow from a sheltered young adult into someone shaped by the harsh, gripping realities of conflict and war was easily the highlight for me. It’s a powerful, deeply human coming-of-age journey that shows what it truly means to survive and evolve.I absolutely loved this book. In fact, reading it a second time was even better than the first! I truly hope Hollywood picks this up because it has all the ingredients for an incredible movie adaptation. Highly recommended!
May 30, 2026
The world of Worldwind introduces us into a fantasy unlike others I’ve read before giving it a fresh lens to read through. Love the witty banter written throughout and reading through Zs perspective along with all the other characters. The war itself is full of action and love how they utilize the main characters love for kite surfing into the war. I would have loved to learn more about the war itself and more details about the Paskari and Vin Paskari so I hope there are sequels and perhaps prequels to this!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 19, 2026
I may be slightly biased because the author is the love of my life, but unfortunately for everyone else, he also happens to be annoyingly talented.
Living with Brett means enduring long walks where he suddenly stops to explain cloud formations, sunsets, the history of some obscure war, or why the green flash is “totally real and scientifically possible.” Somewhere between all that and his dramatic sighing over coffee, he apparently wrote an entire cinematic fantasy novel.
WORLDWIND feels big in the way old adventure stories used to feel big. Dangerous oceans, grief, mystery, momentum, strange mythology, and an emotional core that sneaks up on you while you’re busy imagining this thing as a movie.
Also, yes, he is very dreamy. Suspiciously dreamy for a man this emotionally invested in wind patterns.
But what surprised me most is how emotionally honest the book is underneath the spectacle. Z feels real. Her grief feels real. The relationship with her father hit me especially hard because I know how much of Brett’s own heart lives inside those pages.
Anyway, I’m proud of him. Even if I now have to spend the rest of my life hearing the phrase: “Technically, it’s not a flash. It’s an atmospheric phenomenon.”
Read the book. Support dreamy men with emotional damage and outrageous imaginations. Great job B!!!
Living with Brett means enduring long walks where he suddenly stops to explain cloud formations, sunsets, the history of some obscure war, or why the green flash is “totally real and scientifically possible.” Somewhere between all that and his dramatic sighing over coffee, he apparently wrote an entire cinematic fantasy novel.
WORLDWIND feels big in the way old adventure stories used to feel big. Dangerous oceans, grief, mystery, momentum, strange mythology, and an emotional core that sneaks up on you while you’re busy imagining this thing as a movie.
Also, yes, he is very dreamy. Suspiciously dreamy for a man this emotionally invested in wind patterns.
But what surprised me most is how emotionally honest the book is underneath the spectacle. Z feels real. Her grief feels real. The relationship with her father hit me especially hard because I know how much of Brett’s own heart lives inside those pages.
Anyway, I’m proud of him. Even if I now have to spend the rest of my life hearing the phrase: “Technically, it’s not a flash. It’s an atmospheric phenomenon.”
Read the book. Support dreamy men with emotional damage and outrageous imaginations. Great job B!!!
Review of advance copy
As the author, I know reviewing your own work is a little strange, but after years of living with WORLDWIND, rewriting it, doubting it, and fighting to finish it, I wanted to share a few thoughts personally.
At its core, this story was never just about fantasy or worldbuilding. It was about grief, identity, belonging, and the feeling of being pulled between worlds emotionally, culturally, and literally. Z’s voice came from a very real place, and I wanted her to feel sharp, funny, angry, vulnerable, and human before she ever became “heroic.”
The kitesurfing, the green flash mythology, the ocean imagery, and the emotional connection between Z and her father are the heart of the story for me. Everything else grew outward from there.
WORLDWIND became much larger and stranger than I originally intended, but I always tried to keep the emotional core grounded in loss, survival, and the search for connection.
If you take the journey with Z, I sincerely hope some part of it stays with you after the final page.
Thanks for reading.
Brett Schneider
At its core, this story was never just about fantasy or worldbuilding. It was about grief, identity, belonging, and the feeling of being pulled between worlds emotionally, culturally, and literally. Z’s voice came from a very real place, and I wanted her to feel sharp, funny, angry, vulnerable, and human before she ever became “heroic.”
The kitesurfing, the green flash mythology, the ocean imagery, and the emotional connection between Z and her father are the heart of the story for me. Everything else grew outward from there.
WORLDWIND became much larger and stranger than I originally intended, but I always tried to keep the emotional core grounded in loss, survival, and the search for connection.
If you take the journey with Z, I sincerely hope some part of it stays with you after the final page.
Thanks for reading.
Brett Schneider
May 18, 2026
As the author, I know reviewing your own work is a little strange, but after years of living with WORLDWIND, rewriting it, doubting it, and fighting to finish it, I wanted to share a few thoughts personally.
At its core, this story was never just about fantasy or worldbuilding. It was about grief, identity, belonging, and the feeling of being pulled between worlds emotionally, culturally, and literally. Z’s voice came from a very real place, and I wanted her to feel sharp, funny, angry, vulnerable, and human before she ever became “heroic.”
The kitesurfing, the green flash mythology, the ocean imagery, and the emotional connection between Z and her father are the heart of the story for me. Everything else grew outward from there.
WORLDWIND became much larger and stranger than I originally intended, but I always tried to keep the emotional core grounded in loss, survival, and the search for connection.
If you take the journey with Z, I sincerely hope some part of it stays with you after the final page.
Thanks for reading.
Brett Schneider
At its core, this story was never just about fantasy or worldbuilding. It was about grief, identity, belonging, and the feeling of being pulled between worlds emotionally, culturally, and literally. Z’s voice came from a very real place, and I wanted her to feel sharp, funny, angry, vulnerable, and human before she ever became “heroic.”
The kitesurfing, the green flash mythology, the ocean imagery, and the emotional connection between Z and her father are the heart of the story for me. Everything else grew outward from there.
WORLDWIND became much larger and stranger than I originally intended, but I always tried to keep the emotional core grounded in loss, survival, and the search for connection.
If you take the journey with Z, I sincerely hope some part of it stays with you after the final page.
Thanks for reading.
Brett Schneider
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews