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He hoped for a wife. He found a companion through time and beyond.
It is 1715 and for Duncan Melville something fundamental is missing from his life. Despite a flourishing legal practice and several close friends, he is lonely, even more so after the recent death of his father. He needs a wife—a companion through life, someone to hold and be held by. What he wasn’t expecting was to be torn away from everything he knew and find said woman in 2016…
My latest release saw the light of day on June 11. Now and then, I take a moment to consider that I have now published my nineteenth book. It makes me smile rather goofily, while at the same time my mind (and my VERY demanding muse, Ms Inspiration) is already on book twenty—and twenty-one. Ms Inspiration does not believe in slackers. Time off is for ninnies, according to her, going on to add that “we can all sleep after we die”. Seeing as Ms Inspiration doesn’t exist outside my head(not that I tell her so: it might hurt her feelings and then where will I be?) I’m not all that sure she needs to worry about death. Alternatively, she dies when I die. Hmm…
Before this post goes truly morbid, let us get back on track. Right, where were we? Oh yes: my new release. Allow me to introduce The Whirlpools of Time, a time travel romance set mainly in Scotland during the year 1715. Not a good year if you were a die-hard Jacobite, determined to see George of Hanover replaced as King of England and Scotland by the rightful heir, James Edward Francis Stuart. Quite a good year if you’d thrown your hat in with George…
For my characters, caught in the middle of this rather stormy event, it was a much too exciting and dangerous time. Especially for poor Erin Barnes. After all, not only is she coping with a brewing rebellion, she’s also trying to get her head round the fact that she’s somehow dropped three centuries backwards in time.
“It wasn’t that easy for me either,” Duncan Melville protests. Well, no: the poor man was first dragged forward in time to 2016—where he propitiously saved Erin from some baddies—only to then be hauled back again, this time with Erin. But at least he’s back in his time, in a world he’s familiar with.
Here’s the blurb:
He hoped for a wife. He found a companion through time and beyond.
It is 1715 and for Duncan Melville something fundamental is missing from his life. Despite a flourishing legal practice and several close friends, he is lonely, even more so after the recent death of his father. He needs a wife—a companion through life, someone to hold and be held by. What he wasn’t expecting was to be torn away from everything he knew and find said woman in 2016…
Erin Barnes has a lot of stuff going on in her life. She doesn’t need the additional twist of a stranger in weird outdated clothes, but when he risks his life to save hers, she feels obligated to return the favour. Besides, whoever Duncan may be, she can’t exactly deny the immediate attraction.
The complications in Erin’s life explode. Events are set in motion and to Erin’s horror she and Duncan are thrown back to 1715. Not only does Erin have to cope with a different and intimidating world, soon enough she and Duncan are embroiled in a dangerous quest for Duncan’s uncle, a quest that may very well cost them their lives as they travel through a Scotland poised on the brink of rebellion.
Will they find Duncan’s uncle in time? And is the door to the future permanently closed, or will Erin find a way back?
And here’s a little excerpt: Duncan has just taken his first ever ride in a car…
Once the contraption had come to a halt, Duncan carefully released his hold on his seat. His head throbbed but most of all his brain ached, trying to make some sense of all these new impressions. Erin opened her door and got out. He studied the door on his side, not knowing just where the locking mechanism was. She made no move to help him. Mayhap she intended to keep him here, confined in this box of metal on wheels.He groaned and hid his face in his hands. What had happened to him?The door opened.“Need help?” she asked.“Aye.” With everything, really, starting with an explanation of where he was and how he came to be here. But he didn’t say that. He just took her offered hand and gingerly dragged himself out of the vehicle. Part of him—the rational part—was intrigued by it, wanting nothing more but to understand how this piece of advanced engineering worked. The other part quivered with fear. This was some sort of magic and he’d ended up in a time of powerful sorcerers. Except that Erin did not look like a witch should look. That curly hair of hers framed a face in which the most distinctive feature were her eyes, at present studying him with concern.“Are you alright? That gash on your forehead is bleeding.”“It is?” He lifted his hand to his head, surprised at discovering she was right. Blood coated his fingers. “No great matter,” he said. But the world was spinning and he gritted his teeth, willing the dizziness to abate.She slipped an arm round his waist, holding him steady. “It’s the concussion,” she said. “The nurse said you might feel the effects for some more days.”“Likely.” He’d had one several years ago when he’d stolen a ride on one of Michael Connor’s precious brood mares and been thrown for his efforts. That time, it had been Grandma Alex looking after him.She helped him to the door, had him steady himself against the wall as she unlocked, fiddled with something that emitted several strange high-pitched sounds, and then invited him inside. He drew in a surprised breath when she set her finger on a little protuberance and flooded the interior with light.The room was huge. On the opposite side, large windows replaced what should have been walls and even on a day as overcast as this, Duncan could not tear his gaze away from the large expanse of water that lapped at the shoreline a stone’s throw from the windows.“Stunning, isn’t it?” she said, and he could hear the pride in her voice.“It is.” Truth be told, everything about the space they were standing in was stunning. White walls were hung with paintings that were mostly a collection of colours, there was a thick Turkish rug on the floor that would have had Kate Jones turning green with envy. The thought brought him up short. Was she dead yet? And then he shivered: everyone he knew was dead—since centuries back. He shook himself free of these thoughts and concentrated instead on the huge hearth with wood neatly stacked to the side and a pelt spread out before it, the wide-open mouth of the cat who’d once owned the hide frozen in a permanent snarl. Beside him, she shifted on her feet.“I inherited it,” she said, sounding apologetic. “I’d never have bought a tiger skin.”“Ah.”“I guess my great-grandfather shot it before tigers became an endangered species,” she added and he didn’t understand one word of that but nodded all the same, kept on nodding as she chattered on about how few tigers there were left and how much she despised trophy hunters. He found her voice soothing even if he had never heard of trophy hunters and as to the poor tigers, how could one possibly know how many such ferocious beasts roamed the jungles?Other than the fireplace, the room contained a large table to one side, something resembling an overgrown settle on the other. Bright red cushions and matching throws added gaiety to a room otherwise dominated by wood and black leather. An opulent space, along the lines of the Jones’ residence in Annapolis, and Duncan threw Erin a look. In her revealing breeches—very revealing—a pink shirt that barely covered her midriff and shoes in brightly coloured fabric that covered her ankles, she did not quite match the furnishings. She reminded him of a butterfly, all bright colour and flitting movements as she darted from one side of the room to the other, plumping up a cushion here, tweaking at a coverlet there.
Anna Belfrage
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