The Fascination With Time Travel
Who knows when it first began? Who first dreamed of visiting the past or coming to the future? It's anybody's guess but the idea of time travel remains a popular one in modern culture. Everything from the zany, wacky Back To The Future movies to Audrey Niggenegger's beautiful novel (and the movie it spawned The Time Traveler's Wife to Diana Gabaldon's wildly popular Outlander series and more delves into time travel. One of my ultimate favorites is the film Somewhere In Time based on Richard Matheson's classic novel Bid Time Return.
And who hasn't dreamed of going back in time to find a new love or to reconnect with the lover we knew in a past life? Or taking a sneek peak into a future unknown?
In my time travel novel (let's make that first time travel novel if you please) In Love's Own Time, my hero lives a reclusive life until a woman appears in his life with, well, the speed of lightning....oh let's just do the deets, the blurb, and then an excerpt (and stay tuned we'll do the book trailer too)
A Time To Love Master Sheet
October 2011
ISBN # 9781926996561
Champagne Books
Time Travel romance
180 pages
73,500 words
$5.99 eBook format
Blurb:
Reclusive songwriter Samuel Baird lives on a remote Arkansas mountain in the Ouachita forest where he’s drinking his life away. The last thing he wants is a woman to complicate things but during a spectacular thunderstorm a woman arrives just in time to save his life. Annie says she’s from the late 1800’s and Samuel thinks she’s crazy. Even so, Annie manages to gain his attention and affection. In time she convinces him she did travel through time. To reach a happily ever after, Samuel and Annie must overcome several obstacles both past and present. Annie must reveal the secret she’s keeping and it’ll take a trip home to meet his family in Nashville to work out all the issues. The couple shares joy, tragedy, and family ties along the way.
Excerpt:
Leaving Mena, he took State Highway 88, the best route, up Rich Mountain. He could smell the grease-laden fries and the tantalizing aroma of the cheeseburgers but restrained himself from diving into the bag. There were multiple scenic turnouts along the road and he chose one with a southern view midway up the mountain. The tailgate of the pickup made a temporary table as they ate, gazing out at the spectacular view.
“I’ve always wondered how far I can see,” he mused, resisting an urge to put an arm around her shoulder.
“I wouldn’t know but I remember walking beside the wagons when we came and we could see Rich Mountain for days before we got here.”
“You walked?” Her memories--real or faux--surprised him.
“Aye, we did.”
“How old were you?”
“Eight.”
“And you came because your mother was sick?” He attempted to sort it out in his mind. “Did she improve?”
Annie sighed and stood up, crumpling the sandwich wrapper with one hand.
“She did for a bit but then she began to fail. She died when I was fifteen.”
Her voice quavered on the words and he ached to offer comfort.
“I’m sorry, Annie. Were you the youngest?”
A snort came from her nose and she smiled.
“Hardly! There were nine of us--three older and five behind me. I had the raisin’ of them, the four least boys anyway, after Ma died.”
He stood up, surprised.
“You brought up your younger brothers?”
“I did.”
It was easy to imagine her as a girl saddled with a mother’s responsibility.
“Didn’t your father help you with them?”
“I told you, my Pa was a drunkard. He did what he could but that was little enough.”
Her speech tinged with uncharacteristic bitterness. She turned away, arms wrapped about her body to contain old anguish as she walked over to the very edge of the turnout
Quick eagerness fired his curiosity and he thought he might unlock the enigma she represented. Her emotions were so profound that he almost believed she had come through time. Willing to consider the possibility, he asked the first of many questions crowding his mind. “What did you do when they all left home?”
She spun to face him, scowling. “I went to work at the Queen Wilhelmina Inn.” Her clipped tone guarded secrets. “And I’ll answer no more prying questions.”
She whipped around to face south with so much force that the barrette that held her hair slipped.
“I apologize. I didn’t mean to be nosy.”
“Humph.”
“Don’t be mad, Annie.” The pleading note in his voice was real and she turned around. He wasn’t sure if she wanted to avoid him or just admire the view.
Her feet were at the edge of the sheer drop to the thick vegetation below and when she moved, she lost her balance and teetered. She struggled to gain solid footing but failed, going to her knees in an effort to keep from falling. Her hands flailed out with panic.
He grasped her beneath each arm and stayed her. She clung to him and he jerked her away from the brink. Without time to analyze his actions or emotions, he acted on instinct and gathered her to him. She trembled in his arms and he tightened his hold to reassure her.
“It’s all right now.” He made the phrase a mantra by repeating it three times. Her breath slowed as she stopped shaking. With the danger past, he felt an intense awareness of her body against his. Every pliable curve was a fit against his frame. He knew the cadence of her heartbeat and smelled the fragrance of her hair. His body quickened as she moved against him, verification that she felt it too, and the strange pull that could make strangers into lovers.
Annie put her mouth to his. He could not move for one long moment as he felt her warm, sweet mouth moving over his and he kissed her back. The act restored something that had been dormant within and he was the old Samuel, healed and unharmed. He was free of the dark animal lust that once carried him to strange beds, a man reborn and made whole.
No embrace had been so intimate since the early years of his marriage and his senses marked each nuance, each sweet facet of the kiss. His loins engorged and his soul ached to fill its hungering need. Before he lost his ability to stop, he checked himself. He took his lips from her mouth and pulled away, leaving her to stare at him with haunting pain.
“I can’t do this.” He choked out the sentence with anguish and shame. No words existed to explain to this woman that he did not dare risk his heart again. He could not tell her that he was a coward. That would require courage, which he lacked and so he withdrew.
“Let’s go.” When she didn’t move, he stalked past her. He waited until she was seated and pulled out, driving too fast on the twisting road. He did not speak and neither did she. Full dark had fallen by the time he parked the truck but he did not wait to walk her into the cabin. By the time she came in, he had downed his first glass of straight bourbon and poured a second. He gulped it, daring her to react but she ignored him.
Instead, she put away clean clothes and tidied the few dishes left in the sink. Although his eyes followed her, Samuel could not speak. His lips still tingled with the feel of her mouth on his and he drank with grim purpose to eradicate it without success. His mind raced in rapid circles as he struggled to understand his emotions. He felt caught, trapped by his history, and hopeless. All of it was more than he could face and he drank far into the night.
Buy and contact links:
Available at
http://champagnebooks.com/shop/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=511 Amazon.com and other retailers
Find me at
A Page In The Life
Five star review here:
And the link to the book trailer, a Murphy Girls Production, here:
http://youtu.be/kNJWcSfcmvs
Sounds like a great novel. I love the idea of time travel!
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