I am old and I have no illusions
I have not yet succumbed to confusion
But when you ask me ‘why?’
I can see in your eye
That you think me the prey of delusion
© jane jago 2017
Delusion
Sunday Serial – XI
CHAPTER THREE
At about the time Bill was calling his parents, a man went into a pub in Edinburgh. He was broad-shouldered, bulky, exquisitely tailored, and obviously deeply annoyed.
“Where is she?” he snapped at the skinny little man behind the bar.
“She’s in the snug. Says to go in. But your goons stay out here.”
“I go nowhere without my bodyguards.”
“So fuck off then” the little man said without any particular heat. As he spoke he brought a sawn-off shotgun out from under the bar, and pointed it at the biggest of the ‘goons’ who had his hand inside his jacket.
He smiled, showing a mouthful of very bad teeth.
“I’m no a very good shot, and I’m worse if I’m nervous. So just keep your hands where I can see them. I’m sure nobody wants a nervous man blasting around with a six-gauge in this confined space.”
Whether or not he would have been obeyed became immaterial as the man with his hand in his pocket gave a queer cough and collapsed. His companions looked down briefly to see a dart sticking out of the side of his neck.
“Double top,” a jeering voice said. As one man they turned their eyes towards a raddled-looking whore and a couple of beefy young men who had moved their attention from the dartboard to the entertainment at the bar. One of the men cracked his knuckles, and the sound it made fell loudly into the now silent room.
“Well then, big man. Are you going in to see herself? Or are you leaving? Choice is yours.’
For a moment the besuited man’s reaction hung in the balance. Then he shrugged.
“Wait here” he snapped then walked through the half glazed door into an almost dark room, where a woman sat nursing a large drink.
“You decided to be sensible then,” she said in a husky half-whisper.
The man ground his teeth together as he visibly fought for control.
“I have business with you.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“My principal is not pleased. We paid you for protection. And what happened?”
She spat accurately between his highly polished shoes.
“You paid me so that the local plod would look the other way, and so that nobody from Edinburgh would interfere with you. I kept my end of the bargain. If you were stupid enough to piss off people from elsewhere who play very rough, that’s your problem.”
“Why you…”
He took a step forward and found himself literally looking down the barrel of a very businesslike gun, held in a perfectly steady hand.
“It’s a Glock. And at this range it would actually shoot off your face. I’d quite like to see that.”
The man stood very still. His companion laughed harshly.
“Whatever possessed you to think you’d get away with it?”
“Why not? It was only some Rom kid whose father had annoyed the wrong people. It would have made a change to mix business with pleasure. The little bastard would have screamed for a very long time.”
He licked his lips, then shrugged his heavy shoulders. His hot eyes met the woman’s cold gaze, and he flinched, but he spoke with undiminished arrogance.
“We aren’t here to talk about some brat. I’m here to tell you that my boss isn’t pleased with you. And to explain what the consequences will be if you fail him again…”
“Don’t bother yourself. I have absolutely no interest in anything you might have to say. You are actually here because I have something to say to you.”
The man tensed.
“If you move, I’ll shoot off your testicles. Now. Back off, sit in the chair behind you, and listen.”
He sat, more than a little unnerved by the unwavering eye of the big, black pistol. For a moment there was silence, and the man had to fight an urge to break and run. His tormentor must have seen something in his eyes as she laughed again.
“Testicles” she reminded him. “You are here because there are some people who need to learn what is and is not acceptable. Torturing wains to death comes under is not.”
He opened his mouth and the Glock swung unerringly towards his crotch.
“Unacceptable. Intolerable. So. An example needs to be made. It looks as if you just volunteered.”
He surged from the chair, only to be caught and held fast by two pairs of iron hands.
“Take him away, and do to him what he was going to do to that wee lad. I’ll be interested to know how long he screams for. And when he can scream no more, bleed him out. We’ll be sending his remains to his boss in a body bag and we wouldn’t want it leaking would we?”
“No boss,” the voice was deep and cold, and seemed to be barely masking huge anger.
“We’ll see he feels the full benefit before we tidy him up for transportation.’
“You do that.”
As he was being dragged away the bulky man screwed his head around to look at the woman by the bar.
“You are a dead person walking,” he hissed.
“Aren’t we all you evil bastard. Aren’t we all?”
When the door closed behind her unpleasant guest, the woman at the bar went grey under her make-up, and she seemed to sag on her barstool.
“I’ll have a wee sniff of that oxygen now, if nobody minds. It was a bit of a strain not shooting that creature. Only the knowledge that he needs to suffer stayed my hand.”
A younger woman in a nurse’s uniform came out from behind the bar an put an oxygen mask on the face of her suffering patient.
“Dead person walking indeed… Here, let’s get you back in your wheelchair you stubborn fool.”
A big soft-footed man came quietly into the room. “Bodyguards deceased. Mister X is being taken somewhere where nobody can hear him scream. Now. Will you please go home and rest?”
His boss lifted her oxygen mask.
“Aye. I will. But I want to know how long bigmouth lasts.”
He smiled grimly.
“Me too.”
The Train
In Devon, the railway runs right by the beaches
Past small sandy inlets and bright golden reaches
Then follows the river whose tides are so steep
Over salt-smelling marshes and waters so deep
In summer the sea is as blue as the sky
And reflects the white seagulls as they hover by
But in winter the waves crashing over the line
Carry the feeling of wildwind and brine
And over the railway the white salty spume
Collects in a way that defies any broom
In Devon the railway runs right by the sea
Which is almost as nice as you think it might be
©️jane jago 2017
A Walking Shadow – Out Today
From A Walking Shadow, the final book in Haruspex Trilogy of Fortune's Fools by E.M. Swift-Hook.
“How long you friend to Avilon?” In the flickering light from the fire, it was hard to see the other man’s face clearly, but there was genuine curiosity in his tone. It was odd, though, how he pronounced the name with the emphasis on the wrong syllable.
Jaz gave a slight shrug. “If you add it all up – including our time in the Specials I’d say around fourteen, fifteen years.”
The other man seemed thoughtful.
“Avilon have many?”
Friends, presumably. That was easy.
“No. I think I was about the only one for most of that time. Now – he has more. And a woman too.”
“He is – change? Not the same?”
There was clear concern in the question. Concern Jaz couldn’t lay to rest. He nodded briefly and felt his breath escape in a slight sigh.
“Yeah. Much changed. Not the same at all.”
“But – he is Avilon?”
Jaz had no idea how to answer that. It was something he struggled with himself over the past few years. There had to be something or he wouldn’t have kept with the grindingly thankless task of nurturing the empty shell he found in the Specials. But sometimes – and more often now than before – he was left wondering how much of that had been wishful thinking and how much had been real. How much he needed it to be Avilon as opposed to how much it actually was.
“Sometimes it’s like you can see a ghost of who he was,” he said, at last.
“Ghost?”
“Uh – yeah – like a shadow of who he was.” Jaz moved his arm so the firelight sent his own shadow reaching away and gestured to that with his other hand. “He’s like a walking shadow of the man he used to be.”
“Shadow – yes.” The Overlord nodded, moving his hand to match the shadow. Jaz noticed the triple line of scarring on the back of the hand, identical to the scarring Avilon had brought back from Temsevar. He put a finger towards it, running his hand through the air as if drawing three fast lines.
“What is that about? Avilon has it also.”
The Overlord looked at him as if he wasn’t sure that the question could be a serious one, but he must have seen from Jaz’s expression that it was. Then he nodded slowly and shrugged off his coat, pulling at the sleeve of his shirt so his shoulder was exposed. Jaz saw a crude raised mark that he took a moment to realise was caused by some kind of strike branding process. He knew Avilon was similarly scarred but not with the same design. The other man covered his shoulder again and pulled his coat back on. “Slave mark,” he said. Then closed his fist so the three scars on his hand stood out. “Fighting slave mark.”
Jaz had no idea what he could say to that, but the other man went on, hunting for words. Clearly struggling, but wanting Jaz to understand. His gaze intense with it.
“Avilon make him – made him -” The Overlord broke off and started again. “He made his choice. To be fighting slave – to find me. To free me.”
Something shifted in Jaz and he suddenly understood what this man must have meant to Avilon and had no doubt at all what Avilon was to him. He held the intense gaze and gave a slight nod, then reached out his hand. The other man took it, his grip strong.
“You’re my brother’s friend,” Jaz said, making each word clear so he could be sure he was understood. “That makes you my friend.”
The other man nodded.
“My friend.”
A Walking Shadow is out now on Amazon and free to read on KU.
The Thinking Quill
Dear Reader Who Writes,
As I must always – please let me introduce myself. I am Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV author of both this loquacious and erudite series of lessons on ‘How To Write a Book’ and of the increasingly highly-regarded and hard to put down, soon-to-be classic in the genre of speculative fiction “Fatswhistle and Buchtooth”.
The formalities out of the way, let me tell you how I came upon the theme of today’s peregrination into the perfection of prose. I had ventured forth from my writing space and after blinking a little in the overbright sunshine of a winter’s afternoon. I found Mumsie seated in front of that obnoxious rectangle of recreation known as the television. By seated, I mean she was lounging as might a Roman courtesan upon the more well cushioned of our settees and by ‘television’ I mean a high-tech, high-definition, high-priced object which covers a goodly portion of one living room wall.
I do not recall what was showing on the screen, something with children and dogs I think because I was too distracted by the gentle burps and sniffles emanating from my maternal parent as she dabbed her eyes. “So sad,” she was murmuring to herself, oblivious to my intrusion. “So, fucking sad.”
Not wanting to disturb her evident immersion and enjoyment in some overacted televisual drama, I retreated back to the sanctuary of my writing cavern and realised it was time to initiate you, my beloved students into the dark arts.
How To Write A Book – Lesson 15: The Write Emotion.
You, my dear RWW, must be as a magician and a puppet-master. Your prose must produce profound palpitations deep within the psyche of your reader. You have only words with which to weave this wonder but fret not, for I shall make plain the mysteries for your eyes only.
The secret lies in the profuse and prodigious application of adverbs and adjectives. Let dozens of delightful descriptors dance from your fingers. They shall be as the flash of lightning which brought life to Mary Shelley’s creature of parts. By that same magic, they will bring the glory of gut-churning emotion to your predictably flat writing.
Allow me to demonstrate.
Tears flowed from her eyes.
This tells your reader nothing of what is occurring within the breast of your beautiful heroine. Mayhap she was chopping onions or perchance these are tears of mirth. No, it needs the artistry of a literary maestro to tease out the subtle nuances that allow your reader to enter into the moment and feel as one with the character.
Like soft pellucid rain-drops flowing freely and unstoppably in the grim dark deluge of a bitter summer storm, slow and copious tears ran from her reddened eyes achingly, ardently and arrestingly, sliding slowly down her curvaceous cheeks, glistening as they glided gracefully drawn by both the gravity of this blessed earth and the gravity of her perilous situation.
But, I hear you say, sometimes I need to set the mood in a moment, what should I do then, oh sensei of the written word? First, I would chide you for your impatience and for selling both yourself and your reader short. You owe it to your art to take the time and the words needed to amply fulfil the emotional needs of the story. But yes, I hear you riposte, we don’t all have the effing time to dance around with all this fancy crap, Ivy. So I shall lift my hand in silent admonition and admit there is another way. The punchy, no-nonsense give-it-to-them straight style:
She felt shite.
I hope you have read and learned my dear RWW. If not, go back to the top of the page and start again.
Bon ecrit.
Friday Friends – A Rude Awakening from ‘The Arbiter’
Pain pierces through me, it’s a familiar feeling but it’s been a while since I’ve had it this badly. I can feel flesh and bone shift, warp and knit back together as if I’m made of wax.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have a jumper,” I manage to mutter as my jaw pops back into place and my vision begins to clear.
I’m right, of course. I’m lying alongside the road, the shadow of a bridge blocking out the moon above. For a harrowing second I think it’s the same bridge I was just on, but I realise that one was over a river, not a road. It’s also not a full moon back home.
Thank God for small favours. I grunt as my spine clicks back into place and feel around my body. I’ve lost a lot of blood, apparently, no wonder I’m dizzy. Damnit. It’s the face last, always the face. I sit still as my nose, lips and brow rework themselves, forming into a perfect imitation of whoever had just ended their life. And, thankfully, nothing like me. Not yet, anyway. I don’t feel too bad.
It’s not like they had a use for the body anymore, anyway.
Vaguely, I wonder what I look like and who this person was. A woman, I discover, as I run my hands down my neck and across a pair of large breasts. Then, pain receding, I try to take a few steps. I manage, but something in the corner of my vision has me spinning around.
“Who are-”
No one. Something wavers in my other peripheral and I spin a second time, catching sight of something pale that disappears the moment I turn.
Standing incredibly still, I make no move as the pale thing slides into my vision once more to my left. And to my right. I tilt my head up and back until I can see the grey, leathery frame stretching above my head.
I reach out and tentatively run my hand across the thin material. A small sensation shivers through me as the wing twitches. My wing. Of course… I had forgotten what this place was like. The wings seem prehensile, and I doubt they’ll carry my weight. Upon further inspection, I realise they also end in sharp, metallic curves. They flex at my will. Well then… I’ll deal with that later. With any luck it’ll make this murder a lot easier if I get disarmed.
For now, I need a new change of clothes and to get an idea of what this place is like. I think I’ve been here before, but things get hazy after the first few trips and this isn’t the only place with winged patrons. Two places stand out in my memory, however – one bad and one worse.
As I begin my trek down the road I glance up a nearby sign, barely visible in the night.
Barning RoadForstmuth City Centre Ahead
The least my client could have done was warn me where I was going… No matter, I just hope this poor girl had the decency to take her wallet with her before jumping. Fumbling through the pocket of a long, baggy coat, I see that luck is on my side. Hotel, new clothes, get my bearings, then a nice spot of murder and I’m home free.
It’s usually not that easy but I’m an optimist, obviously.
So I trot towards the distant lights and hope the nearest hotel is only a few miles away. And that this place even has hotels…
The Arbiter is the upcoming series opening novel from Brhi Stokes.
A Bite of… Page McAlaster from ‘the Arbiter’
Q1. Who are you and what do you do?
My name is Page McAlaster and I guess you could call me a Fixer. This might surprise you, but there’s plenty of other planes of existence out there. I hop between them, do a bit of work for the things that run our plane. I call them things, but I think they generally prefer ‘Masters’. They’re not going to be thrilled that I’m sharing this, but you’re not going to believe me anyway, right?
I’ve been doing this job for a few months now. Before that I was a corporate mediator. Guess you could say I’m used to dealing with demons.
Q2. What’s the strangest place you’ve ever been to?
Have you ever read any H. P. Lovecraft? Because he talks a lot about the phrase ‘non Euclidean’. I read a lot as a child, and I always found the idea interesting. Until I experienced it. Or near enough to it, at any rate, since beholding non Euclidean shapes is supposed to send you insane, and I’m at least sixty per cent sure my mind’s still in one piece.
Anyhow, I hopped over to this plane to retrieve an item for the Masters and when I got there the world was just… blank. There was nothing except a grey emptiness through time and space. And then I began to fall. I’m not entirely sure how long I was falling for, but by the time I hit some sort of ground – made up of shapes I couldn’t begin to describe – I just wanted out.
Apparently the ‘item’ they wanted was my brainwaves after visiting a place like that. Charming.
Q3. A ‘fixer’ normally involves theft and murder, are you okay with that?
Look, I do what needs to be done. I don’t particularly have a choice – after all, these aren’t the sort of people you can say ‘no’ to. So yes, if they want someone dead, I kill. If they want something stolen, I steal. I’ve never really thought about it in terms of being a ‘bad person’ or not. If I didn’t do it, they’d probably just replace me, right?
I don’t really sleep well anymore, though…
A budding author, Brhi Stokes has been writing ever since she could put pen to paper and daydreaming in every spare second. C A L I G A T I O N, her first published novel, is an urban fantasy about a young man lost in a strange city – the likes of which he never could have imagined – while he tries to dodge unnatural threats and search for a way home. The Arbiter is the first book in a new series. In her spare time, Brhi enjoys reading, video games, tabletop RPGs, going for long, solitary jogs and music.
The Night Librarian – II
The girl waited until every trace of reptilian hunger had left before stepping out of her area of protection and muttering a few words under her breath. The pentagram disappeared and she walked back to find the oddly assorted creatures still clustered in the pool of light around her desk.
“Back to your shelves now. The creature is gone.”
The tiggywinkle shook her spiny head. “Isn’t ma’am” she declared. “Is hiding. In Erotica.”
“Are you sure?”
“We is. And please ma’am you gots to banish it before sunrise or it will stay. It eats tiggywinkles.”
The Librarian patted her spikes then sighed. This wasn’t going to be some bewildered dragon pulled from its own reality, it was going to be darker and nastier, and stronger.
“You people stay here and keep very quiet please.”
They all nodded and the girl rooted in her handbag. She came up with one object that she shoved into the pocket of her neat, beige cardigan. Then she squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and headed for Erotica.
Passing Romance she was surprised to be accosted by a gentle hand on her shoulder. The Heroine stood at her side, misty and insubstantial, But a vision of beauty and desirability nonetheless.
“Can I help?” the beauty asked humbly.
“It may be that you can, if you are brave.”
“I am the Heroine, of course I’m brave. Now if you were asking for clever…”
The Librarian huffed out a little laugh and muttered a word under her breath. The Heroine became real living flesh, became the entity known as Beauty. She smiled, and the ephemeral beauty and her prosaic earthbound sister shared a moment of purely female communication.
“Do you know what to do?” the Librarian asked.
“Oh yes. And I know what will happen to me.”
“I’m sorry for that.”
“You need not be. I am not really alive. Shall we?”
The Librarian swallowed a lump in her throat and nodded wordlessly.
Beauty walked quietly, some ten paces ahead of the little Librarian, and her allure was such that it completely hid her quiet sister beneath trailing clouds of glory. They had almost reached Erotica when a male voice accosted them.
“Who walks?”
The bearer of beauty stopped but made no reply.
“Who walks?” The voice grew angry, but Beauty merely chuckled. It was a sound that appealed to the needs of all creatures, and the Librarian could feel the breeze that ran through the stacks as each book took an indrawn breath.
Then there came the sound of footfalls, big heavy footfalls, and a man stepped out from between the shelves of erotic literature. He was a distillation of everything that genre demands in a male. He was as beautiful as an Arctic snowstorm, with a body that looked as if it had been chiselled from marble then animated by demonic forces, and the face of a fallen angel. He looked as if to be the object of his desires would be both agony and fulfilment. And every female in every book in the library wanted him.
He walked towards the beauty with a twisted smile on his perfect lips.
“What have we here?” he sneered, although his nakedness left very little doubt of his interest.
The beauty smiled, and deepened the dimple at the corner of her rose pink lips.
“What would you have me be?” she asked softly but her voice flowed around the library like molten honey, it soothed and it cheered and it stirred deep longings all without effort or stress.
The man shook his noble head as if the voice hurt something buried deep within him, but he kept coming, stepping with slow deliberate grace. Beauty seemed to be welcoming him, but the Librarian noticed that she was backing away, backing without moving a hand or a foot. This meant the girl had to creep backwards too, so as to remain within the aura of loveliness and sexual availability that kept her hidden from the eyes of whatever was inside the man’s skin. As they moved away from the Erotica stacks, the simulacrum weakened, and there began to be flashes of that which hid beneath the masculine glory that was stalking its prey with a sneer on his perfectly sculpted lips and a cruel look in his eyes.
At first it was just a flicker, a glimpse of grey scales beneath the golden skin, a flash of a horned head, a suggestion of a barbed penis. But as they inched away from the place where the illusion had been formed the creature’s grip on itself grew weaker. Normally one such as this would have noticed the slippage in its garment of falsehood, but Beauty drew it so far into her toils that it had no eyes or ears for anything but pink skin, golden curls, and a song to put the sirens to shame. As his eyes grew less and less human and more and more fixated on the tender flesh before it, the Librarian crept closer and closer, until she was right behind the beauty, so close she almost thought she could feel the texture of that perfect skin.
She brushed such thoughts aside and concentrated on the oncoming creature. He was almost within touching distance now, and she would have but one chance. Dropping the illusion of humanity altogether, the creature that stood before Beauty with saliva dripping from its fangs was like nothing anyone could imagine whilst taking cues from each child’s fear of the dark and every adult’s worst nightmare. It reached out a clawed and cicatrised hand to grasp Beauty by the rounded flesh of her upper arm. The smell of burning flesh was choking but Beauty neither flinched nor uttered a sound. The Librarian reached a hand into the pocket of her neat little cardigan and closed her fist around the object hiding in the beige wool. The monster bent his head, and breathed in the faint scent of crushed roses that came from Beauty’s very skin. As his demonic countenance came closer, even Beauty shrank a little, but her courage kept her in place. Just as the pointed metallic teeth were about to fasten themselves in her shoulder, the Librarian’s small freckled hand came over that shoulder. She held what looked like a small knobbly stick with which she tapped the monster on its beak of a nose. It looked at her and she placed the end of the stick right between its hircine eyes. There was no dramatic invocation, and nor did she mutter any arcane words beneath her breath. She just sighed and said.
“Go home.”
For an instant, the creature resisted her, then there was a bang and an overwhelming stench of rotten eggs as it disappeared, leaving a sense of hunger and reluctance behind it.
Beauty stood with her head bowed, there was a black, burned mark about her arm, where a six-fingered hand had grasped her and she rubbed it reflexively.
“I hope,” she said with a brave attempt at humour, “that he didn’t bring his brother.”
The Librarian smiled her rare smile.
“No. It came alone. Fortunately. And the gateway is now closed.”
“Good.” Beauty briefly rested her cheek against that of her plain sister before seeming to dissolve like ice in a warm bath. In the end, nothing was left but a voice. A voice that whispered,“farewell…”
Then even that was gone, leaving the stacks empty and echoing with small movements as the books dared to breathe again.
The Librarian put her wand back in her pocket and went to reassure the small ones that their place of sanctuary was now safe.
Again Tomorrow
It’s better to have loved and lost
is that not what they say
Who have not loved to count the cost
of one heartbroken day
A day when time and tide are out
a day to stand alone
A time to understand the doubt
the lie in the word home
Naked born and shed we tears
upon the barren earth
Cry, is it better yet to love
no matter what our birth
Should we turn our back on chance
for fear of bitter sorrow
Or open up our hearts and minds
and love again tomorrow
Review Feature: Druid’s Portal: The First Journey
S. Thomas rated it – ‘It was amazing’
Okay, so normally I don’t go out of my way for a romance. I fear spending a dozen pages talking about feelings and passion. I gave this a shot the synopsis sounded good. I was not disappointed! There was a mystery, a prick with a magic time traveling pendant, and lots of Roman and Celt sword fights. There was a strong romantic theme, but I’ve read plenty of stuff with this much romance that simply listed as fantasy, or action. Even my man Clive Cussler has Dirk Pitt playing kissey face when he isn’t being tougher, richer, and a better mechanic than you.Kicking butt and secretly really wanting to read a romance while pretending I’m in it for just the sword fights is not the only draw here. I love the history lesson entwined into the story. The Roman invasion of Celtic Britain is a fascinating time and one I feel a connection to since most of my heritage (I’m an American mutt) is Celtic and I have a swirling blue tattoo.
Janet is an archaeologist specializing in Celtic and Roman history. She is helping her cop friend find out who has been robbing her museum. It’s her friend’s way of helping her get over her abusive ex-boyfriend and Druid scholar, Damon. After she prevents the burglar from stealing a pendant, she begins having a vision of Trajan, a Roman hunky dude, getting murdered. She falls in love, then the fun begins. There’s also a tasteful amount of time travel…
I received a free Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for a review. Any review. That fact that it’s a good one is because the book is good. Which has nothing to do with how awesome I am. You’ll have to find that out for yourself @S_Shane_Thomas on Twitter.
I was so stoked to read and review this book before its release that I downloaded the app eReader Prestigo, put Druid’s Keep in .mobi form into the app, and had the funky GPS lady read it to me while I drove as far north in Maine as you can go without stopping for taters and gravy. It was worth the trouble! I highly recommend this book if you love smoochie stuff, gory swordfights, magic, mystery, or simply a well-crafted piece of fiction.
You can find more of S. Shane Thomas' reviews on his website.
E.M. Swift-Hook rated it – ‘It was amazing’
A Magical, Roman Era, Time-Travel Romance
“History may be just bones and ruins to you, but it is people, Janet. People loving, hurting, and dying.”
This is a story about love and time-travel, evil gods and evil people, magical and mundane events, all woven tightly into a brilliant multi-hued tapestry. Janet is an archaeologist working in a small museum at Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland. She was raised by nuns (this was something I raised an eyebrow at, but one assumes they got legal custody of her somehow) having been abandoned by her unknown parents. Her heart broken by her last, violent, boyfriend Daman, she starts having dreams of a Roman soldier following a break-in at her museum. Trajan is in deadly danger and she wishes she could help him. Then a portal opens her way to the distant past and she finds herself in Roman Britain.
What I loved most about this book is it highlights the way that when we look at the past, we often do so with a very patronising and diminishing filter. We really do forget that history is about what happened to real people living their real lives against incredible odds, with much less in the way of technology, but with just as much intelligence, skill and imagination as we have today – often more. This is a book that is about our concept of history as much as about the fictional events it describes and it makes a reader stop, think and question those kinds of assumption.
‘That he had never heard of TV didn’t make her brighter or better. It wasn’t as if she could build one. She doubted she could even explain how it worked.’
The writing is good and the pace cracking – I found it hard to drag myself away from wanting to turn the next page. The characters are all well thought out and very convincing – even the evil Daman avoids being a stereotype and although unexplored in depth, the reader is left with a sense that he is in some ways as much a victim of events as those he persecutes. The clever blending of mythology, magic and hard history is truly a potent mix.
I really enjoyed the historical detail which is slipped into the story not in any heavy-handed way, but lightly in small daubs and dashes, where appropriate and fitting, to flesh-out the story and give depth and substance to the world in which the events unfold. But this is not straight-up history as much as it strives for – and to a high degree achieves – a sense of period verisimilitude. This is a fantasy, with all the potential of magic, with dark gods and soul stealing, mystical visions and of course, time travel.
“Without you, I’ll have to settle for some local girl—and who could measure up to a time-travelling goddess?”
So what if anything, is there not to like? Well for me very little. The only issue I had was with the classic romance format of Janet and Trajan’s relationship. I don’t normally read romance stories for this very reason as I never really understand why a romance has to be written that way. There has always to be inevitable misunderstandings and both people having some illogical internal dialogue in which they create false assumptions around the behaviour and words of the other – and then refuse to speak of it when one word or two would resolve the problem between them. Maybe that is how some people run their romances in real life, but to me, it always comes over as just a device to create tension in the story. But that is still a very minor gripe against the richly woven back-cloth to that romance and it is not there in sufficient quantity to spoil an otherwise wonderful read for me.
I loved this book. I’d recommend it especially to those who enjoy time-travel romance stories, as Cindy Tomamichel is giving Diana Gabaldon a run for her money. But I would also recommend it highly to those who enjoy a good historical read with added magic and anyone who enjoys Roman era books of all varieties.
