Meet Steve Moretti, Author of Deep, Intriguing Time Travel Novels, Featuring MUSIC IS NOT BOUND BY TIME, Book One of the Song For A Lost Kingdom Trilogy

Having written several time travel novels, I'm always drawn to similar stories, and Steve Moretti far exceeded my expectations with MUSIC IS NOT BOUND BY TIME. This story drew me to it not only for the time travel element, but because his heroine Adeena Stuart is a musician. She plays cello and I play piano, but musician stories always connect with me. Meet Steve, read about MUSIC IS NOT BOUND BY TIME, and be sure to check out Books Two and Three of this trilogy, which I look forward to reading.

About Steve

I was a reader long before becoming a writer. 

The feeling of being swallowed whole by a great book is something I treasure. It is my goal with every book I write, to immerse the reader in the story – utterly and completely. 

I am drawn to music and art that transcend time, movies that don’t age, and novels that forever embed themselves inside you. 

My writing focuses on artistic creators and the passions that define them, often tragically, men and women who are inspired to the point of obsession with their art. They leave behind creations that render them immortal, free from the constraints of time.

My background in broadcasting, journalism, public education, and the technology business taught me that great accomplishments are the result of individuals who are not limited by limitations or afraid to face what they they most fear. 

I live in Ottawa, Canada, with my wife and a menagerie of dogs and cats. My four young grandchildren keep me in wonder at the mysterious world around us.

About MUSIC IS NOT BOUND BY TIME

A gifted musician, a priceless cello, and a love worth risking everything. A time-travel fantasy powered by music.

Even as a rebellious child, Adeena dreamed of becoming a professional cellist. Driven to perform and to compose, she forsakes almost everything else, sabotaging relationships at the altar of her quest for musical perfection.

But after yet another failed audition, she’s had enough. It is time to let go of her dream and get a real life. And then, a new hope arrives from her dying grandmother in Scotland – a lost music score written by an unknown composer in the 18th century.

When Adeena gets an opportunity to perform the lost score on the Duncan Cello, the oldest cello ever created in the United Kingdom, time transforms around her.

She is connected to Katharine, a young cellist living in 1745 Scotland. Both women are attracted to the Duke of Perth, James Drummond, a man history records as doomed to die the following year after the Battle of Culloden.

In Music is Not Bound by Time, the first book in the Song for a Lost Kingdom trilogy, the power of music transcends the limitations of the ordinary world for those who listen through their heart.

A fantasy that will sweep you away. Time travel powered by music.

An Excerpt

 Adeena wasn’t sure what to make of her situation.

An hour ago the music director of the National Arts Centre Orchestra was almost a stranger to her, more mythical creature than real person. Now, as she stood beside Friedrich Lang, with the pages of her score spread all over his piano, they were like old comrades.

She surveyed his private practice room. Baffles made the acoustics rich and pure. A row of spotlights lit a line of framed photographs highlighting Friedrich’s career, conducting and performing on stages around the world. One dramatic series of black and white photos captured him in performance at Carnegie Hall, dripping in sweat, entranced in what must have been a sorrowful violin solo.

“Ja! Ja! I see how this will work,” Lang shouted as he played parts of the score on the piano, getting a feel for the tone and tempo and muttering to himself.

Adeena began to worry that his interest was only in the music she had brought him.

“Would you like to hear me play, Mr. Lang?” she finally asked tentatively.

He suddenly stopped, looked up from the piano and stared at her, as if seeing her for the first time. “What?” he asked, focusing on her and then at her cello case, propped up in the corner.  “Yes, of course! Bring your cello over here. Let’s try playing this through, together.”

Adeena felt relieved as she unpacked the cello and lifted it carefully from the case. He stared at the old instrument.

“That’s your cello?” he asked. “No endpin? Where did you get it?”

Adeena felt her heart pounding through her chest like it might expose her at any second. She took a deep breath and spoke carefully.

“It’s the…the Duncan Cello,” she said matter-of-factly. “I work at the National Gallery and I have, uh, well…I have special permission to use it.”

Lang studied her carefully and Adeena wished she could read his thoughts.

“Really? I just saw a story about it on the news.” He examined it more closely and slapped his hands together in hearty approval. “Five million dollars? Scheisse! Okay, you’ve got my attention young lady.”

Lang stood up and moved a wooden stool near the piano. He motioned for her to sit.

“Let’s play, my dear. See what we can do with this piece!”

As the conductor focused on her music, Adeena glanced toward the open cello case and the original copy of the score, sealed in a plastic bag. An image of her grandmother flashed in her mind. She mouthed a silent “thank you” to her.

It had not been easy to “borrow” the Duncan Cello from the National Gallery. Indeed it had required a certain degree of deviousness on her part. But for the moment, cello and musician were together. At last, she could perform the music that seemed a part of who she was with an instrument that felt like it had always belonged to her.

Adeena listened to the opening bars of the music coming from the piano. The conductor was astute. He understood this music instinctively. The effect on his face was clear and his focus profound as his fingers touched the keys. Lang’s head began to sway, directing an invisible orchestra in front of him.

Adeena sat watching him on a wooden stool. She pulled the Duncan Cello between her legs. It somehow felt naturally comfortable. This instrument was her voice, its haunting timbre was able to bestir her nethermost emotions with a depth she had never experienced. It brought release to the creativity imprisoned within her. As she traced her fingers along the smooth wood grain of its weathered fingerboard, a rush of blood pounded within her trembling hands.

Lang looked up from the piano. He seemed entranced as well, as he gave a slight nod of his head for her to begin, closing his eyes to better concentrate on the music.

Adeena tightened her grip, ready to start the dark, timeless tango of cello and cellist.

Slowly, she began to play. As the strands of her taut horse-hair bow glided across the strings of the cello with a lush friction, an odd sensation swept over her. The harmonics of cello and piano combined to create a sense of yearning, enveloping the windowless chamber in a wave of sound that focused the emotions rising within her.

Purchase the Song For A Lost Kingdom Trilogy on Amazon

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Meet Barbara Best, Author and Civil War Reenactor

I met Barbara when I read about her debut time travel novel THE LINCOLN PENNY. A huge Lincoln and Civil War buff, I couldn't resist buying a book with that title. See my Amazon review here.
I thoroughly enjoyed it, and now Barbara is my guest. 

About Barbara

Barbara began her career as a copywriter and artist with over twenty-five years in the fields of Marketing and Graphic Design. Beginning in 2014, she took her love of writing to new heights with her debut novel, "The Lincoln Penny." In the following years and as her loyal readers asked for more, "The Lover's Eye, Book 2" and "The Celtic Key, Book 3" were released in her time travel trilogy. Barbara's novels reveal her genuine passion for history and innate ability to blend authentic detail with imaginative speculation. Living history, firsthand, she is an avid American Civil War reenactor whose need to bring the past to life eventually formed the backdrop for her absorbing and heartwarming tales.

About THE LINCOLN PENNY

History geek Jane Peterson, a small-town girl with a passion for antiques, has hit the refresh button on her life. She breaks ties with her childhood home and gives up on love to live in Savannah, Georgia, a city she is drawn to like a moth to a flame.

Landing her dream job, Jane makes friends and takes up a new hobby. Participating in a weekend Civil War reenactment with her co-worker, Sophie Downing, a devastating event thrusts her into a raging siege with brutal consequences. The year 2012 suddenly resets to 1862, during the bloodiest conflict in American history.

Jane's ghostly appearance is a bad omen to the doomed Confederate soldiers at Fort Pulaski. In a chilling twist, the charitable heart of a handsome lieutenant and arrogance of a Union general decide her destiny. She must cross hostile enemy lines and seek shelter with strangers. Cradled in the antebellum home of Lieutenant Hopkins’ family, lost and homesick, she struggles with her unbelievable circumstances.

Testing her modern-day experience in a primitive environment, Jane finds the lack of simple hygiene and practices of nineteenth-century medicine appalling. She challenges the attitudes and restraints forced upon her and all women of the period. She puzzles over a mysterious force that is powerful enough to turn her life upside-down.

In a story of good and evil, murder, intrigue, and the supernatural Jane must find a way to survive one hundred fifty years from everything she knows. And there is no escape from the grim truth. Her existence in the past alters the future and puts lives in danger.

Jane Peterson has vanished without a trace! Bryce McKenzie, a hard-driving pre-med student at the University of Georgia in Athens, has been Jane’s best friend since third-grade. They share a unique bond. But when did she capture his heart? Refusing to accept the possibility Jane is dead, Bryce vows never to give up on the woman he loves. With help from Sophie Downing, the only witness to Jane’s freak disappearance, he searches for the key to unlock an impossible mystery.

Excerpt

The hearty male guffaw that follows jerks Jane fully awake. An involuntary “oof” leaves her lips as she props on one sore elbow. She takes a deep breath to draw strength and calls, “Hey, out there.”

Dead silence.

“Hell-lo,” she sings irritably. Rolling to her side away from the wall, Jane pushes up to her knees.

“Am I hearin’ things?” comes Jeb’s rickety whisper.

“Hush!” the other clips, all joking aside. “Not another word, Jeb, ya hear. Watch’is door. I’ll be back.”

Jane feels rocky. Her dress is all over the place, but she manages to stand. Sticky dampness makes her shiver. The chill creeps under her clothes and she hugs herself. “My cape! Good Lord, Sophie’s goin’ to kill me.” Jane searches blindly, using the toe of her boot and not wanting to stray too far. She suppresses the fear of something crawling up her leg.

“Not funny,” she croaks her frustration at the barrier between her and the outside. Her throat is scratchy and her mouth tastes bitter. Not caring to wait, Jane feels for a door handle and finds one. She tugs the outline of a cool iron ring. Leaning, she thrusts forward with her shoulder. Her weight is no match for the heavy obstacle. “Seriously, open up and let me out of here!”

Jane rests her head against the hard wooden surface. Fortunately, it is not long before there is an absurd amount of scrambling on the other side. Among throaty grunts and scuffing sounds, she can hear objects being shoved across the floor to make way.

“Stand ready,” a gravelly voice orders in a thick Irish brogue. “Well, go on. Quit acting the maggot and open it. Careful now, gentlemen.”

The door creaks ajar and swings wide. Dim, dusty light inches along the floor where Jane has instinctively planted her feet to brace herself. For what, she is not sure.

“Step out.”

Jane’s eyes slowly adjust to her predicament. A row of muddy men in shabby garb huddle nervously, looking every bit like a gaze of wide-eyed raccoons. Three, have rifles drawn, the tips of their lethal bayonets pointed in her direction. She cautiously steps into the adjoining room with her hands up and feeling totally ridiculous for doing so.

Coming Soon: Books Two and Three of the Trilogy

The Lover's Eye: A Time Travel Series, Book 2 — A heated clash between modern-day thinking and nineteenth-century ideals emerges as Jane Peterson and Bryce McKenzie struggle to exist in 1863 war-torn America. Follow Jane as she lets go of her past, endures great hardships and makes tough choices that will alter history, including her own, forever. Encounter shocking truths Bryce must face in his harrowing search for Jane and the ominous plot that involves him in an unbelievable event. Discover the dark secrets of a supernatural force that will sweep you back, once again, to the vibrant people of the past and bloody backdrop of the American Civil War.

The Celtic Key: A Time Travel Series, Book 3 — Hop times and span continents in this final journey that unravels an incredible mystery and turns the course of history upside-down. Answering a call to duty, Jane and her Confederate Major are compelled to carry extraordinary facts to a famous General. In the midst of a tumultuous event and raging Civil War, their plans go terribly awry. Hit hard by tragedy, Sophie Downing's escape from an age-old faction plunges her deep into the dangerous ploy of an unknown enemy. She is stunned to learn her real destiny lies in the life of another. Heartbroken and disease-ridden, Bryce McKenzie returns to the future. Because of dramatic revelations and unfathomable change, he becomes convinced of his deep-seated connection to Jane. Are their lives forever entwined? 

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Meet My Friend and Fellow Ricardian, Joan Szechtman, Author of Time Travels and More to Come...

Every Ricardian (those of us interested—and usually fascinated—with Richard III) has a story about how they ‘discovered’ Richard. I “found” him in a book on the wrong shelf of the Cambridge Library, up in the stacks. I joined the Richard III Society, and the rest is “history”! This was 1992. Several years later, several dedicated Ricardians formed a New England Chapter of the Society, where I met Joan. We became fast friends, as kindred souls; not only did we write novels featuring Richard, but we wrote time travels in which Richard comes to modern times—even before we met.

Meet Joan, read about her time travel trilogy, and what’s on the drawing board.

About Joan

Tell us a little about yourself.

After retiring from a career in Computer Science and Data Communications, I accidentally reinvented myself as a writer because I read a book—THE SUNNE IN SPLENDOUR by Sharon Kay Penman. I found Richard III’s story so compelling that  I did a deep dive into his history. I just published my third and final book, STRANGE TIMES, about Richard III in the 21^st century.

While learning about the real Richard III, I found the Richard III Society and joined the American Branch. About six years after joining the society, I became the editor of the semi-annual magazine, RICARDIAN REGISTER, and the semi-annual newsletter, RICARDIAN CHRONICLE.

I like to read a variety of genres and styles. In no particular order, an incomplete list of my reading ranges from science fiction, science, humor, historical fiction, and biography.

Your trilogy is about Richard III in the 21^st Century. Why did you bring him forward in time?

Once I discovered the real man was not Shakespeare’s arch-villain I loved to hate, I began to wonder about him as a person and imagined sitting across from him at dinner. What would he tell me about his nephews—the infamous princes in the Tower, his family, and his friends and enemies.

One of the facts deeply affecting me about Richard III was his age—thirty-two—when he was killed in his final battle. I felt his story wasn’t finished and I wanted to examine his character in a modern light, without forcing our modern sensibilities onto his fifteenth-century actions. To do this, I had to let him speak for himself.

What were your conclusions about his nephews?

Despite the rumors the princes had met an evil end and Tudor’s willingness to parlay these rumors to his advantage, extant documentation and contemporary reports show only that the boys disappeared. Setting aside the lack of documentation, I also took into consideration the behaviors of both Richard III and Henry VII. Then, it was standard operating procedure to display bodies to “prove” that their reigns were without credible challenge. Despite the way Henry had Richard’s body mistreated immediately after the battle, he nevertheless had it put on display to show that he was now the undisputed king. I have to think that if Henry had killed the princes or knew where their bodies were, he would have displayed them and blamed Richard for their deaths. If Richard had had them killed, he could have easily first blamed Welles for their deaths during the botched attempt to “free” them from the tower, and then later, Buckingham, when Richard had him executed for treason.

Richard had far less reason to want the princes dead than did Henry. Through “Titulus Regius” parliament declared Richard the rightful king and bastardized all of Edward IV’s children. As bastards, the princes could not inherit any title. Henry VII had his parliament revoke “Titulus Regius” which enabled his marriage to Edward IV’s oldest daughter, Elizabeth Woodville. If the princes were alive, they now had more claim to the crown now that their impediment had been removed. In fact, based on how he handled the man he called Perkin Warbeck, I think he was more than a little afraid that Warbeck was really Richard of York, the younger of Edward IV’s two sons. Interestingly, Warbeck claimed to have been in Edward Brampton’s household in Portugal. Now Brampton was a Portuguese Jew who converted soon after Edward IV first became king and served both Edward and Richard. Among the many awards that Richard gave Brampton, he knighted him in 1484—the first monarch to knight a converted Jew. As much as Richard may have liked the guy, I think there had to have been an extraordinary reason for him to grant Brampton knighthood. I think a strong reason was that Richard had entrusted Richard of York’s care to Brampton.

What device did you use to effect time travel and what limitations did you employ?

Having something of a scientific background, I decided to “invent” a time travel machine and to follow the physical laws as closely as possible. Therefore, one could not just go back into the past or come forward into the future without an equal exchange of mass/energy (the law of conservation of mass/energy). Additionally, without the equal exchange, the time displaced mass would soon disintegrate. So, for my Ricardian team to bring Richard III forward at the moment he would have been killed in battle, they had to exchange an object of equal mass with him fully armored. It also meant that a person or object could not travel through time and remain without being damaged to the point of death.

A second limitation to time travel is the position of a particular object—such as the planet—in the universe. Because the universe is expanding at increasing speed, every object is hurtling through space. The calculations to go to a specific point on the earth either back or forward in time would be quite complicated and have to account for trillions of miles displacement.

Since STRANGE TIMES is the third book of the trilogy, please tell us a little about the first two.

THIS TIME starts moments before Richard III loses to Henry Tudor on the field of Redemore near Leicester, England on August 22, 1485. In THIS TIME, a team of Ricardians substitutes an armor-clad corpse for the king and brings Richard into Portland, Oregon. He awakens August 21, 2004 to an alien world where even the English he speaks is different.

The story follows two parallel paths: the present where Richard must learn how to adjust to not only the technological advancements but also the more difficult cultural differences; and looking back at the past to solve some of the mysteries that have haunted and maligned his image for over 500 years.

The second book, LOYALTY BINDS ME, continues Richard III's story. Richard has married a divorcee, adopted her two daughters, and with the help of his new wife, has been able to rescue his son Edward, who had predeceased him in the 15th-century. Richard has lived in the twenty-first century for two years, and his son has been with him for the past year. At the start of the novel, they have just arrived in London, when Richard is brought in by the Metropolitan Police for questioning about the alleged murder of Richard III's nephews in 1483. Richard must now find a way to clear his name and protect his family while concealing his true identity.

STRANGE TIMES starts immediately after Richard and family return to Portland, Oregon.

What are your thoughts on historical accuracy?

I think it is important to respect the lives and histories of those who have gone before us. Therefore, I try to stay as close to the known history as possible, given that not all references are themselves accurate and in some instances are in conflict with other respected sources. In addition, there are often gaps of knowledge, where important details are unknown. So, as a novelist, I try to learn and understand as much as I’m able about certain events and actors and fill in those gaps based on my understanding of the material I have absorbed.

Part of my research goes to formulating what may have motivated a character to behave the way he or she had in real life to find a way of letting me into that character’s head.

How has the discovery of Richard’s Remains affected this trilogy?

While I was able to follow Richard’s 15^th century history as reported, only adding my own speculation where there was no extant or conflicting documentation, the same could not be said for his 21^st century history. The remains were found at a unique time, where the remains could be confirmed as his through DNA and isotopic tests, which without employing a massive deus ex machina, could not be reconciled with what would have been found in the remains of the body that was substituted for Richard.

Many time-travel novels ignore language differences, but you didn’t. Yet, Richard was able to adjust rapidly to modern English.

Richard was probably fluent in three or four languages, and although today’s English would have at first sounded foreign to him, I felt that there were enough similarities—based on my reading of THE PASTON LETTERS, for example—between Early Modern English and today’s English that he would have been able to understand a lot of what he heard fairly quickly. I also provided a linguist that was able to help him over the inevitable speed bumps.

Do you have other projects in mind?

Yes. I have a paranormal languishing on my back burner about Catherine Howard’s spirit invading a young woman who is studying American History at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA. She’s an intern at Agecroft Hall, a late 15^th century manor. Thomas C. Williams Jr., a wealthy Richmond entrepreneur, transported timber by stone to his twenty-three acre estate overlooking the James River. The modified reconstruction was completed in 1928 and is now in the U. S. National Register of Historic Places.

Two other projects that are in more nascent states of development are a science fiction story and an anecdotal family history with lots of photos.

How can readers find out more about you?

Visit my website and find me on Facebook. My books are available at the usual suspects including Amazon, and Barnes & Noble, where you can read samples.

New Time Travel Novel STRANGE TIMES Continues Richard III's Life in Our Modern Day

My friend and fellow Ricardian author Joan Szechtman has written the 3rd book in her time travel series in which 
Richard III comes to modern times, STRANGE TIMES. I also wrote two time travels involving Richard, one in which he comes to the 21st century. It was very amusing to see that in both our books Richard encounters a few mishaps with modern conveniences. We each wrote those books before we ever met. STRANGE TIMES just went on sale for Amazon Kindle.

My Time Travel Murder Mystery Romance Reviewed in Cape Cod TImes

My time travel romance murder mystery DARK BREW was reviewed in the Cape Cod Times last Sunday, along with HAUNTED SOULS by my author friend Kathryn Knight, and several other novels set on 
Cape Cod.
See the reviews here

Purchase Dark Brew

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My Time Travel Romance DARK BREW is Now On Sale! "Learn from the past or forever be doomed to repeat it."

I'm happy to announce the worldwide release of my time travel romance DARK BREW with

The Wild Rose Press.

 

Accused of her husband’s murder, druid Kylah McKinley travels back through time to her past life in 1324 Ireland and brings the true killer to justice.

This story took 11 years from start to finish. I’m a longtime member of the Richard III Society, and in the spring of 2004, I read an article in The Ricardian Register by Pamela Butler, about Alice Kyteler, who lived in Kilkenny, Ireland in 1324, and faced witchcraft charges. After her trial and acquittal, she vanished from the annals of history. I couldn't resist writing a book about her.

I made it a paranormal because I’m a believer in reincarnation, and I go on paranormal investigations whenever I can. I’ve gone on several past life regressions. Cape Cod has a lot of history and paranormal activity. I’ve been on many ghost walks and ghost hunts there. I wanted to connect Alice in the past with someone in the present, her reincarnation.

Alice Kyteler wasn't famous in 14th century Ireland but she was the richest woman in Kilkenny, and for that reason the villagers hated her, especially the men. They accused her of killing her first husband, but she was acquitted. Then they accused her of killing her fourth husband, John LePoer, with witchcraft, the accusations more absurd than those of the 1692 witch hysteria in Salem, Massachusetts. Chancellor Edward de Burgh arrested Alice because her stepsons claimed she had murdered John by casting a witch’s spell with malefecia… and she used the enchanted skull of a beheaded thief as her cauldron.

She went to trial and her dear friend Michael Artson had her acquitted, but she vanished into the annals of history. According to legend, she went to England. But no one knows for sure.

I made it a time travel because my heroine, Kylah, is a druid and has done many past life regressions, she knows she’s the reincarnation of Alice. So she has to go back and find out what happened to Alice, because too many weird things are happening to her in this life that parallel Alice’s life.

Kylah lives on my beloved Cape Cod. She’s a ghost hunter and owns a new age store in a restored Revolutionary War-era tavern. She was also the target of a hit-and-run. Another hit-and-run crippled her husband Ted. That’s no coincidence—she’s convinced someone’s out to get them both.

She brews an ancient druid herb mixture, goes back in time and enters Alice’s life to find out exactly what happened and who killed her husband.

These two months of hell change her life forever. Kylah’s life mirrors Alice’s in one tragic event after another—she finds her husband sprawled on the floor, cold, blue, with no pulse. Evidence points to her, and police arrest her for his murder. Kylah and Alice shared another twist of fate—they fell in love with the man who believed in them. As Kylah prepares for her trial and fights to maintain her innocence, she must learn from her past or she’s doomed to repeat it.

Pamela Butler, who wrote the article about Alice, and I have corresponded. She lives in New Mexico, so we’ve never met in person. I asked Pam what inspired her to write about Alice. I’d never heard of Alice until I read her article, “Witchcraft & Heresy. She replied:

“You asked why I wrote about Alice Kyteler, who preceded Richard by a century-and-a-half. I only wrote it because others on the listserv encouraged me to write about witchcraft, a subject about which I knew very little. I ordered three books from Amazon.com on the subjects of witchcraft, heresy, Satanism, etc. for research reasons. That was my basis, plus I searched the Internet. The Malleus Malleficarum was published in 1487, just two years after Richard's death, so it's almost contemporary. I chanced across Alice in this reading and thought that it was an interesting case. Witch burning was fairly rare in Ireland, and wasn't as bad in England at that time as it had been on the Continent. I wish that the M.M. had never been published; still, the fact that it was published and accepted may reveal the mindset of those times.”

An excerpt from DARK BREW

Kylah shut Ted’s den door. She couldn’t bear to look at the spot where he gasped his last breath. His presence, an imposing force, lingered. So did his scent, a blend of tobacco, pine aftershave and manly sweat. Each reminder ripped into her heart like a knife. Especially now with the funeral looming ahead, the eulogies, the mournful organ hymns, the tolling bells...

These ceremonies should bring closure, but they’d only prolong the agony of her grief. She wanted to remember him alive for a while longer, wishing she could delay these morbid customs until the hurt subsided.

Throughout the house, his essence echoed his personality: the wine stain on the carpet, the heap of dirty shirts, shorts and socks piled up in the laundry room, the spattered stove, his fingerprints on the microwave. But she couldn’t bring herself to clean any of it up. Painful as these remnants were, they offered a strange comfort. He still lived here.

“I’ll find that murderer, Teddy,” she promised him over and over, wandering from room to empty room, traces of him lurking in every corner. “I’ll do everything in my power to make sure justice is served. Another past life regression isn’t enough anymore. I know what I have to do now. And I promise, it will never, ever happen again—in any future life.”

She inhaled deeply and breathed him in. “Go take a shower, Teddy.” She chuckled through her tears as the doorbell rang. She cringed, breaking out in cold sweat when she saw the black sedan at the curb.

“Not again.” No sense in hiding, so she let the detectives in.

“Mrs. McKinley, we need your permission to do a search and take some of your husband’s possessions from the house,” Nolan said.

“What for?” She met his steely stare. “I looked everywhere and found nothing.”

“Mrs. McKinley, the cupboard door was open, four jars of herbs are missing, and the autopsy showed he died of herb poisoning. Those herbs,” Nolan added for emphasis, as if it had slipped her feeble mind. “Foxglove, mandrake, hemlock—and an as-yet unidentified one,” he read from a notebook. “The M.E. determined it was a lethal dose.”

Sherlock Holmes got nothin’ on him, she thought. 

“Where’s this cupboard, ma’am?” Egan spoke up.

“Right there.” She pointed, its door gaping exactly the way she’d found it that night. Nolan went over to it and peered inside.

“Ma’am, it would be better if you left the house for a half hour or so. Please leave a number where you can be reached,” Egan ordered.

Nolan glanced down the hall. “Where is your bedroom?”

What could they want in the bedroom? “It’s at the top of the stairs on the right. But we didn’t sleep together,” she offered, as if that would faze them. It didn’t.

After giving him her cell number, she got into her car and drove to the beach.

An hour later, she let herself back in and looked around. They’d taken the computer, her case of CDs, her thumb drive, her remaining herb jars, Ted’s notebooks, and left her alone with one horrible fact: This was now a homicide case and she was the prime suspect.

Purchase DARK BREW from Amazon (Kindle)

Purchase the paperback (from The Wild Rose Press)

My Time Travel Romance DARK BREW is Now On Sale! "Learn from the past or forever be doomed to repeat it."

I'm happy to announce the worldwide release of my time travel romance DARK BREW with

The Wild Rose Press.

Accused of her husband’s murder, druid Kylah McKinley travels back through time to her past life in 1324 Ireland and brings the true killer to justice.

This story took 11 years from start to finish. I’m a longtime member of the Richard III Society, and in the spring of 2004, I read an article in The Ricardian Register by Pamela Butler, about Alice Kyteler, who lived in Kilkenny, Ireland in 1324, and faced witchcraft charges. After her trial and acquittal, she vanished from the annals of history. I couldn't resist writing a book about her.

I made it a paranormal because I’m a believer in reincarnation, and I go on paranormal investigations whenever I can. I’ve gone on several past life regressions. Cape Cod has a lot of history and paranormal activity. I’ve been on many ghost walks and ghost hunts there. I wanted to connect Alice in the past with someone in the present, her reincarnation.

Alice Kyteler wasn't famous in 14th century Ireland but she was the richest woman in Kilkenny, and for that reason the villagers hated her, especially the men. They accused her of killing her first husband, but she was acquitted. Then they accused her of killing her fourth husband, John LePoer, with witchcraft, the accusations more absurd than those of the 1692 witch hysteria in Salem, Massachusetts. Chancellor Edward de Burgh arrested Alice because her stepsons claimed she had murdered John by casting a witch’s spell with malefecia… and she used the enchanted skull of a beheaded thief as her cauldron.

She went to trial and her dear friend Michael Artson had her acquitted, but she vanished into the annals of history. According to legend, she went to England. But no one knows for sure.

I made it a time travel because my heroine, Kylah, is a druid and has done many past life regressions, she knows she’s the reincarnation of Alice. So she has to go back and find out what happened to Alice, because too many weird things are happening to her in this life that parallel Alice’s life.

Kylah lives on my beloved Cape Cod. She’s a ghost hunter and owns a new age store in a restored Revolutionary War-era tavern. She was also the target of a hit-and-run. Another hit-and-run crippled her husband Ted. That’s no coincidence—she’s convinced someone’s out to get them both.

She brews an ancient druid herb mixture, goes back in time and enters Alice’s life to find out exactly what happened and who killed her husband.

These two months of hell change her life forever. Kylah’s life mirrors Alice’s in one tragic event after another—she finds her husband sprawled on the floor, cold, blue, with no pulse. Evidence points to her, and police arrest her for his murder. Kylah and Alice shared another twist of fate—they fell in love with the man who believed in them. As Kylah prepares for her trial and fights to maintain her innocence, she must learn from her past or she’s doomed to repeat it.

Pamela Butler, who wrote the article about Alice, and I have corresponded. She lives in New Mexico, so we’ve never met in person. I asked Pam what inspired her to write about Alice. I’d never heard of Alice until I read her article, “Witchcraft & Heresy. She replied:

“You asked why I wrote about Alice Kyteler, who preceded Richard by a century-and-a-half. I only wrote it because others on the listserv encouraged me to write about witchcraft, a subject about which I knew very little. I ordered three books from Amazon.com on the subjects of witchcraft, heresy, Satanism, etc. for research reasons. That was my basis, plus I searched the Internet. The Malleus Malleficarum was published in 1487, just two years after Richard's death, so it's almost contemporary. I chanced across Alice in this reading and thought that it was an interesting case. Witch burning was fairly rare in Ireland, and wasn't as bad in England at that time as it had been on the Continent. I wish that the M.M. had never been published; still, the fact that it was published and accepted may reveal the mindset of those times.”

An excerpt from DARK BREW

Kylah shut Ted’s den door. She couldn’t bear to look at the spot where he gasped his last breath. His presence, an imposing force, lingered. So did his scent, a blend of tobacco, pine aftershave and manly sweat. Each reminder ripped into her heart like a knife. Especially now with the funeral looming ahead, the eulogies, the mournful organ hymns, the tolling bells...

These ceremonies should bring closure, but they’d only prolong the agony of her grief. She wanted to remember him alive for a while longer, wishing she could delay these morbid customs until the hurt subsided.

Throughout the house, his essence echoed his personality: the wine stain on the carpet, the heap of dirty shirts, shorts and socks piled up in the laundry room, the spattered stove, his fingerprints on the microwave. But she couldn’t bring herself to clean any of it up. Painful as these remnants were, they offered a strange comfort. He still lived here.

“I’ll find that murderer, Teddy,” she promised him over and over, wandering from room to empty room, traces of him lurking in every corner. “I’ll do everything in my power to make sure justice is served. Another past life regression isn’t enough anymore. I know what I have to do now. And I promise, it will never, ever happen again—in any future life.”

She inhaled deeply and breathed him in. “Go take a shower, Teddy.” She chuckled through her tears as the doorbell rang. She cringed, breaking out in cold sweat when she saw the black sedan at the curb.

“Not again.” No sense in hiding, so she let the detectives in.

“Mrs. McKinley, we need your permission to do a search and take some of your husband’s possessions from the house,” Nolan said.

“What for?” She met his steely stare. “I looked everywhere and found nothing.”

“Mrs. McKinley, the cupboard door was open, four jars of herbs are missing, and the autopsy showed he died of herb poisoning. Those herbs,” Nolan added for emphasis, as if it had slipped her feeble mind. “Foxglove, mandrake, hemlock—and an as-yet unidentified one,” he read from a notebook. “The M.E. determined it was a lethal dose.”

Sherlock Holmes got nothin’ on him, she thought. 

“Where’s this cupboard, ma’am?” Egan spoke up.

“Right there.” She pointed, its door gaping exactly the way she’d found it that night. Nolan went over to it and peered inside.

“Ma’am, it would be better if you left the house for a half hour or so. Please leave a number where you can be reached,” Egan ordered.

Nolan glanced down the hall. “Where is your bedroom?”

What could they want in the bedroom? “It’s at the top of the stairs on the right. But we didn’t sleep together,” she offered, as if that would faze them. It didn’t.

After giving him her cell number, she got into her car and drove to the beach.

An hour later, she let herself back in and looked around. They’d taken the computer, her case of CDs, her thumb drive, her remaining herb jars, Ted’s notebooks, and left her alone with one horrible fact: This was now a homicide case and she was the prime suspect.

Purchase DARK BREW from Amazon (Kindle)

Purchase the paperback (from The Wild Rose Press)

I Was Pleasantly Surprised to see my Time Travel DARK BREW Now Available for Pre-Order--and Already Has Sales!

Thanks so much, pre-order readers!

My upcoming time travel, DARK BREW, is set around the 14th century Irish woman Alice Kyteler who was accused of witchcraft. The modern heroine, Kylah, lives on Cape Cod.

I first read about Alice in the Spring 2004 issue of The Ricardian, the Richard III Society's magazine; Pamela Butler wrote an article about her. This was 2004. Alice caught my fancy, and that's when I started researching and writing the book. Yes, it was 12 years in the making. Alice was accused of witchcraft in Kilkenny, Ireland, in 1324; she was a wealthy woman, and vanished before her trial. To this day it's a mystery where she went.

 

DARK BREW, published by The Wild Rose Press, is available for pre-order:

 

Amazon

The Wild Rose Press

Barnes and Noble

My Time Travel DARK BREW Set in 1324 Ireland and Modern Cape Cod

Thanks so much, pre-order readers!

My upcoming time travel, DARK BREW, is set around the 14th century Irish woman Alice Kyteler who was accused of witchcraft. The modern heroine, Kylah, lives on Cape Cod.

I first read about Alice in the Spring 2004 issue of The Ricardian, the Richard III Society's magazine; Pamela Butler wrote an article about her. This was 2004. Alice caught my fancy, and that's when I started researching and writing the book. Yes, it was 12 years in the making. Alice was accused of witchcraft in Kilkenny, Ireland, in 1324; she was a wealthy woman, and vanished before her trial. To this day it's a mystery where she went.

DARK BREW is published by The Wild Rose Press

Amazon

The Wild Rose Press

Barnes and Noble

I Was Pleasantly Surprised to see my Time Travel DARK BREW Now Available for Pre-Order--and Already Has Sales!

Thanks so much, pre-order readers!

My upcoming time travel, DARK BREW, is set around the 14th century Irish woman Alice Kyteler who was accused of witchcraft. The modern heroine, Kylah, lives on Cape Cod.

I first read about Alice in the Spring 2004 issue of The Ricardian, the Richard III Society's magazine; Pamela Butler wrote an article about her. This was 2004. Alice caught my fancy, and that's when I started researching and writing the book. Yes, it was 12 years in the making. Alice was accused of witchcraft in Kilkenny, Ireland, in 1324; she was a wealthy woman, and vanished before her trial. To this day it's a mystery where she went.

 

DARK BREW, published by The Wild Rose Press, is available for pre-order:

 

Amazon

The Wild Rose Press

Barnes and Noble

A Visit With Kim Headlee--and Mark Twain!

Thank you, Diana, for hosting Mark Twain and me on your blog today!

The dear boy turns—can you believe it??—180 years old on November 30th, and to celebrate, I am releasing the print edition of King Arthur's Sister in Washington's Court! Retail links for the hardcover and paperback aren't available yet, but please sign up for my monthly newsletter The Dawnflier to be among the first to learn how to preorder a personalized, specially discounted copy of one of the most important novels to be published in the last 126 years.

Like the original 1889 edition of Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, #KASIWC features more than 100 original pen-and-ink illustrations to complement my satiric sequel. 

Here's a peek at what readers may expect in both print editions:

Art c2014 by Tom Doneske.
The time on the pocket watch represents
Mark Twain's time of death
(6:21 p.m. April 10, 1910).

PREFACE.

M GIVEN TO understand some of my posthumous critics have intimated that I was jealous of Jules Verne—that maybe I even felt threatened by him. I have never heard such cocky popping beetle dung in my entire death.

Verne was a hack of the First Order whose publisher (engaged after he had inflicted two decades of the most unengaging whining and pleading, pining and wheedling upon all the other High Lords of Bookdom) viewed it necessary to transform his dyspeptic drivel into something within shouting distance of palatability for the reading public. Jules Verne didn’t invent science fiction; his publisher, Pierre-Jules Hetzel, did,—and I’m sorry I wasn’t born a couple of decades sooner to save everyone the time, trouble, and confusion.

As for this book, here I confess it’s long past overdue. I buried one clue in the joined opposites of Hank Morgan, Technology-Wielder, and Morgan le Fay, Magic-Wielder. Furthermore, Mrs. le Fay was the only important character in A Connecticut Yankee whom I didn’t kill off, of the thousands I did lasso, hang, shoot, electrocute, explode, drown, torpedo, and otherwise murder. Unfortunately, certain Weightier Matters contravened my intent, and I never put pen to parchment to commence the duologue’s conclusion within my lifetime. That nobody acted upon my clues in the hundred years since my sadly unexaggerated demise, speaks to the fact that I’ve been waiting till I’m well and truly dead before whispering my words into the quick and able ear of my chosen Ghost-Writer. For the matters depicted herein, of course, are things which ought to be settled. I don’t have anything else in particular to do in eternity anyway.

 

Written upon the occasion of my
175th birthday,  

November 30th, 2010

Wytheville, Virginia.

P.S. by K.I.H. For decades I’ve admired Verne’s ability in Michael Strogoff to transport the reader to nineteenth-century Tsarist Russia, especially considering the author never stepped on the steppes. Yet Twain/Clemens still selected me for this project. Go figure.

BUY LINKS (Digital edition)

Kindle Worldwide | Nook | iPad/iPhone | Kobo | Smashwords

TITLE – King Arthur’s Sister in Washington’s Court (#KASIWC)

AUTHOR – Kim Iverson Headlee

GENRE – Science Fiction/Fantasy Time-Travel Romance

PUBLICATION DATE – 1 November 2014 (e-book); 30 November 2015 (hardcover and paperback)

LENGTH (Pages/# Words) – 350 pages/70K words

PUBLISHER – Lucky Bat Books

COVER ARTIST – Jennifer Doneske

INTERIOR ARTISTS – Jennifer Doneske and Tom Doneske

FEATURE-LENGTH SCRIPTS – Registered trilogy: adaptation of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain, adaptation of KASIWC, and original script The Once and Future Queen; all available upon request.

SYNOPSIS

Morgan le Fay, 6th-century Queen of Gore and the only major character not killed off by Mark Twain in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, vows revenge upon the Yankee Hank Morgan. She casts a spell to take her to 1879 Connecticut so she may waylay Sir Boss before he can travel back in time to destroy her world. But the spell misses by 300 miles and 200 years, landing her in the Washington, DC, of 2079, replete with flying limousines, hovering office buildings, virtual-reality television, and sundry other technological marvels.

Whatever is a time-displaced queen of magic and minions to do? Why, rebuild her kingdom, of course—two kingdoms, in fact: as Campaign Boss for the reelection of American President Malory Beckham Hinton, and as owner of the London Knights world-champion baseball franchise.

Written as though by the old master himself, King Arthur’s Sister in Washington’s Court by Mark Twain as channeled by Kim Iverson Headlee offers laughs, love, and a candid look at American society, popular culture, politics, baseball... and the human heart.

***