Time Travel Romance – Rosepoint Publishing

Beyond the Moon: A Haunting Debut Novel of Time Travel and WW1 by Catherine Taylor – A #BookReview #timetravel

Rosepoint Publishing: Five of Five Stars

The CE read this one and loved it.

Book Blurb:

Outlander meets Birdsong in this haunting literary timeslip novel, where a strange twist of fate connects a British soldier fighting in the First World War with a young woman living in modern-day England a century later.

*A debut novel shortlisted for the Eharmony/Orion Write Your Own Love Story Prize 2018/19

Part WW1 historical fiction, part timeslip love story – and at the same time a meditation on the themes of war, mental illness, identity and art. An intelligent, captivating read, perfect for book clubs.

His Review:

Louisa Casson has had too much to drink! She is mourning the death of her beloved grandmother and is near a sea cliff. She passes out and wakes up in a dark rainstorm disoriented. The cliff she is near starts to crumble and she goes down with the slide. She is discovered partway down the cliff on a shelf and the doctors determine she must have been attempting suicide.

A mental hospital is a place to avoid, but she is placed there for her own safety. She cannot convince the medical staff that she did not commit suicide and is committed. The staff is less than helpful and is all overworked, unsympathetic and working in a place they should never be.

Medicines are administered though not necessary. The results are disorientation and further medications are administered to counter the effects of the first. The setting of the mental institution is horrific and part of the building scheduled for demolishing. The year is 2017.

Smoking is a diversion and she befriends a patient who shows her how to escape the smoking area. She wanders through the older part of the building and hears a voice. “Please help me!” She follows the sound and is transported one hundred years in the past to the building in its prime.

The voice belongs to Lieutenant Robert Lovett who has been injured in WW1 and is afflicted with hysterical blindness. Louisa helps him back into bed and stays and comforts him. A friendship and then love develops. The story is very well constructed and slips between time periods of 1916 and 2017. Louisa seems to be transported through a time loop. 2017 is not a particularly good time period for our heroine.

The writer has developed a keen insight into WW1 and the offsetting culture of 2017. The contrast between the two time periods is masterfully developed and a pleasure to witness. Louisa would like to stay and be with the Lieutenant. How can this be accomplished? As you enjoy the book you develop an affinity for the characters and hope the best for them. Louisa is enormously empathetic, her soldier as much so.

This page-turner will keep you on the edge of your seat. Schedule some time to read, you will not want to put it down. This was an author request, the digital download in anticipation of a review. This is my honest opinion. 5 stars CE Williams

(Amazon: *NB This novel contains graphic descriptions of war violence and injuries, as well as profanity and mild sex.)

Book Details:

Genre: Time Travel Romance, World War I Historical Fiction, British Historical Literature
Publisher: The Cameo Press Ltd.
Print Length: 496 pages
Publication Date: June 25, 2019
Source: Direct author request
Title Link: Beyond the Moon (Amazon)
Barnes and Noble

The Author: [Catherine Taylor] I was born and grew up on the small island of Guernsey, one of the British Channel Islands in the English Channel.

I’ve been obsessed with words and books since the day I first learned to read, and grew up on classic children’s authors like Enid Blyton and Edith Nesbit. As I got older I began to gravitate towards love stories with gripping plots, devouring novels like Jane Eyre, Rebecca, Katharine, Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice, about clever, independent women caught up in passionate affairs with complex, Byronic men. And equally I loved sweeping epics like The Thorn Birds and Gone With The Wind. I was a keen writer myself from an early age, and am one of those people who’s known since childhood that she wanted to be an author one day.

I’ve been obsessed with history, and particularly with WW1 for a long time – in fact I date my fascination with WW1 to the moment I first read Wilfred Owen’s poem “Strange Meeting” as a child. The literature of the First World War is the most moving I’ve ever read, and I defy anyone to read Vera Brittain’s A Testament Of Youth and not be moved to tears. As well as being a history obsessive, I’ve also always been a hopeless romantic. And I always knew that the novel I one day intended to write would be a historical love story, set during the First World War – one that would be intelligent, well-researched and have a big, emotional heart. Not only that, I always wanted my novel to have a touch of the fantastical about it too. As I child I loved to read books with magic in them, especially timeslips, and as I got older, I wondered why it was that most novels with elements of the paranormal in them were exclusively for children.

And then one night, after reading some WW1 poetry before bed, I had a dream where I wandered into some forgotten room in our house, and came across a young man, who told me that he was a soldier in the Great War. And the idea for Beyond The Moon was born. I often wonder if I dreamt about that soldier because, on some subconscious level, I longed to be able to transport myself back in time to the lost world of 1914-1918.

Of course, it’s not something – sadly – that I could ever do. But a young woman in a slightly different modern-day world could; a world where magic and fate were more powerful than in our own. A sensitive, intelligent and courageous young woman (for she’d need all those qualities), with faith in destiny, a great capacity for love, and a willingness to sacrifice everything for it…

The topic of mental health is one that has always held a huge fascination for me, and from the very beginning I knew that Beyond The Moon would be set partly in a psychiatric hospital. As I began to research people’s experiences in mental hospitals I was shocked to find just how common it is for patients to suffer neglect and abuse in such places. I can understand that modern-day Coldbrook Hall might seem far-fetched to some readers, but I assure you, you don’t have to look far on the internet to find some appalling stories. Just recently the following articles appeared in UK newspapers: ‘Firms cash in on psychiatric care crisis’ in The Times, and ‘Care Quality Commission [the UK regulator] places two Priory Group hospitals in special measures’ in The Guardian. They make shocking and depressing reading. If I, in my very small way through Beyond The Moon, can help shine a light on this modern-day scandal, then I am very glad.

I hope you enjoy Beyond The Moon as much as I loved writing it. I love to hear from readers, so please do get in touch at catherine@catherinetaylor.net. I’m currently working on a second novel set in 1900s Vienna, when the “imperial city” – as it was known – was at the heart of the enormous, cosmopolitan Austro-Hungarian Empire. It’s another smart historical love story, and I’m very excited about it. I can’t wait to try to conjure up that fabulous, forgotten world.

My website is at http://www.catherinetaylor.net, and you can sign up for my mailing list there. I have an author page on Goodreads, too, and you can also follow me on Instagram at @catherine_taylor_author. You can also find me (a bit less often!) on Twitter and Facebook.

I live in West London with my husband, two children, and two very cheeky chinchillas.

The Going Back Portal by Connie Lacy for Sage’s Reading Room #BookReview

I am especially delighted today to provide a review for you on my blog in the Reading Room for The Going Back Portal by Connie Lacy on the Sage’s Blog Tours.

Book Details

Title: The Going Back Portal by Connie Lacy

Genre: Native American Literature, Time Travel Romance
Publisher: Wild Falls Publishing

ISBN-10:0999608479
ISBN-13:978-0999608470
ASIN: B07N7MW7HW

Print Length: 328 pages

Publish Date: January 28, 2019

Book Blurb

The past is a dangerous place in this fast-paced time travel novel…Kathryn Spears is a skeptical producer for a TV investigative news team. So when her grandmother claims a Cherokee Indian woman is living on a neighboring farm, she dismisses it as early Alzheimer’s. Because, obviously, there is no farm nearby. Not in the present anyway. But when she follows Nana’s lead, Kathryn is transported back in time to the year 1840 where she finds a young Cherokee woman left behind when her family marched west on the Trail of Tears.

Forest Water is ensnared in a perilous struggle to keep her ancestral lands against a violent white man who claims the farm, and then claims her as well. Desperate to help her new friend, Kathryn becomes entangled in a battle between good and evil with much higher stakes than she imagines.

Each of these young women falls in love with a man from her own time, but there are threats, both seen and unseen, that could cost them their lives.

My Review

Time travel is such a whimsical thought–haven’t we all given it some consideration? This novel would give you that ride back in time, but more than that, the storyline picks up in 1840 at the time the Trail of Tears takes place, a sad indictment of the government against the native American population of the Cherokee.

Kathryn Spears is a producer for the local TV investigative news team. Her grandmother, Nana informs her that she has a new neighbor on her cottage property, a Cherokee woman with a baby. Because of her infirmity, her mother insists she would not be capable of making the march that her family is facing and she arranges a “marriage” with a white man who will help protect the homeland of her ancestors. Unfortunately, though Isham becomes a beloved husband and father to their baby girl, his unsavory, vicious brother forces his way in and Nana witnesses some of the resulting brutality. She begs Kathryn for help in getting police involvement.

Kathryn, however, is aware that Nana has been slipping and often confuses events or people. She suspects early Alzheimer’s but will accompany Nana to try and find the source of her delusions. They weren’t delusions though and she suddenly finds herself on Nana’s property more than two centuries previous with Forest Water who is struggling to survive the cruelty of Jonah.

The author draws a parallel to the subject scenario of both timelines, that of the sexual predator in her current investigation and Forest Water before her. There are a number of arguments presented with the idea of the grave consequences of messing with history. Is it set in stone? Can it be changed without changing every generation succeeding the event?

The narrative is so cleverly laid out in teasing diary entries that it’s easy to get swept up in the idea of passing through a time portal with the hopes of saving the young woman. Many native American beliefs, customs, and language are shared, the hardships of the time described, and tension mounts as Kathryn continues to make ill-informed decisions (which continued to frustrate me). In the meantime, the romantic interest she discovered through the translation of Forest Water’s diary puts her in unfavorable light when her co-worker suspects domestic abuse with Eric while actually stemming from encounters in 1840.

The twists continue in this well-plotted and fast-paced story, Kathryn battling with her current life situation and that of trying to help a situation far removed from her ability to resolve. Nana had insisted she possessed Cherokee blood and the timeline might indicate a great, great ancestor, in which case, is she messing with her own life as well? Some amazing arguments presented here from the conundrum of whether or not humanitarian issues have been made better or remain the same.

I was given this ebook download by the publisher and Sage’s Book Tours and greatly appreciate the opportunity for the read and review. Refreshingly different, raising more moral questions than can be solved, but for the magical time while reading the book allowing the fantasy that there are unexplainable events to which we may never have the answers. Maybe time travel is one.

Thanks to Sage’s Book Tours and her Reading Room for the opportunity to read and review this most unusual and delightful time travel odyssey! Please suspend your disbelief, enjoy the vision, and check out this one for yourself.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four point Five of Five Stars

About The Author: [Amazon] Connie Lacy worked for many years as a radio reporter and news anchor, with a couple of brief forays into TV news along the way. Her experience as a journalist shows up in some of her novels. She also dabbled in acting in college and community theater. She uses those experiences in some of her books as well.

[Goodreads] Her novels are fast-paced stories featuring young women facing serious challenges set against the backdrop of some thorny issues. She writes time travel, magical realism, climate fiction and historical fiction – all with a dollop of romance.

Growing up, she lived in Japan and Okinawa where her Army dad was stationed. She graduated from the University of North Carolina at Pembroke with a degree in Journalism and Creative Writing. She and her husband live in Atlanta.