Chanticleer Book Reviews

Tag: time travel

WRITING IS MURDER: An Emlyn Goode Mystery by Susan Lynn Solomon – Cozy Mystery, Paranormal Mystery Series, Women Sleuth

A perfect seasonal read, Susan L. Solomon’s mystery, Writing is Murder: An Emlyn Goode Mystery delivers a witty, intuitive red-headed writer who has many connections in her community, a handsome police detective-maybe-lover, a mouthy cat who keeps her grounded, and a Wiccan BFF whom she can trust with her most profound concerns. And, of course, magical abilities inherited from her ancestor, Salem’s legendary accused witch Sarah Goode, adds layers of mystique.

When Roger Frey interrupts Emlyn Goode battling her recalcitrant muse, she can’t be upset. Roger, aka Police Detective Roger Frey, her next-door neighbor and sometimes sleep-over boyfriend, stumbles on the hunt for coffee, a good-morning kiss, and a sympathetic ear, in that order. He’s bored at work and wants to complain.

She’s heard it all before. But soon, she sees something remarkable.

When Emlyn goes to her writers group, she experiences an out-of-body experience that takes her back in time. She travels across to the Crystal Beach amusement park, across the lake in Canada, where modern-day condominiums grow. There, she glimpses two couples, one unfamiliar to her, the other, her parents. Before she can process what she sees, one of Em’s writing cohorts jerks her away from the action, asking her a question.

The group takes a break, and Emlyn has a curious talk with Daniel Bennett, the newest writer in the group. Daniel shares with her a copy of an old document he found in his deceased grandfather’s possessions. She catches only a glimpse of it before Daniel gets spooked and puts it away – but she won’t forget.

The mystery sparks to life.

A few days later, on Halloween night, Em joins her writing cohorts for a ghost hunt. Their good fun turns to horror when they discover Daniel’s murdered body in an empty, historic home. Emlyn, to her dismay, might be implicated.

Susan Solomon skillfully uses a prologue to set Writing is Murder’s theme and mood. She introduces the reader to “perhaps one of the most haunted areas in the country,” relates the legend of an ancient Tuscarora curse and seemingly related murders, and includes accurate descriptions of historical places and events in western New York State. All this pulls the reader into the story and keeps them there.

As the story progresses, Emlyn realizes that the past and present must somehow converge before solving the murder. Thanks to Emlyn’s unique gifts, along with her friend Rebecca Nurse’s witchy knowledge and advice, she might do just that.

Writing is Murder: An Emlyn Goode Mystery will entertain readers who love their mysteries with a bit of paranormal in the mix. The plot twists and turns to satisfy even the most ardent sleuths. In addition, the burgeoning romance coupled with sometimes glib banter, and the notion that potions and spells may really work, highlight the characters’ charm.

Susan Lynn Solomon’s Writing is Murder: An Emlyn Goode Mystery won 1st Place in the 2019 CIBA Mystery & Mayhem Book Awards for Cozy and Not So Cozy reads.

October 25, 2021
The DEVIL PULLS the STRINGS by J. W. Zarek – Young Adult Epic Fantasy Adventure, Young Adult Fantasy Action Adventure, Young Adult Urban Fantasy

The protagonist and all-around decent guy, Boone Daniels, is in a heap of hurt in JW Zarek’s new Young Adult novel, The Devil Pulls the Strings.

One would think being plagued by an evil spirit wendigo since age six would be enough inconvenience to last a lifetime, but when Boone jousts with his best bud at a Ren Faire and accidentally deals a mortal blow, the hurt he experiences suddenly lands on a sliding scale of 1 to 1 million. And Boone Daniels becomes a millionaire, so to speak.

No ordinary guy, Boone makes a living as a handyman and swashbuckling knight at Renaissance Faires around Missouri. He’s also uniquely gifted with a form of eidetic memory coupled with synesthesia. What’s that? Simply put, synesthesia allows people to see colors and taste things when they hear music – and an eidetic memory allows folks to memorize whatever they’ve seen or heard one time. But that’s not all. Boone can time-travel, make friends with almost any feline or shapeshifter, and convince a certain immortal he’s worth more as an ally than a snack. No kidding, Baba Yaya loves human meat.

After wounding his best friend, Boone promises to fill in for him as lead vocalist in the band, The Village Idiots, for a major gig in New York City.

The gig caps off the Dragons and Nymphs Annual Charity Ball – a blood drive. (The irony of this will make readers chuckle.) After the band plays, a mysterious score of music by Niccolò Paganini will be played by the best violinist of the time, who also happens to be Boone’s fast-friend-confidant-maybe-girlfriend-we’ll-have-to-see, Sapphire Anjou. Sapphire, the French Ambassador’s daughter, has connections that tie her deeply to the Lavender and Rose Society. There’s more to these societies. The Dragons and Nymphs want nothing but destruction and chaos, while the Lavender and Rose Society maintain order and work to keep people alive. And both societies seek the magical score. You see, no one actually has the Paganini sheet music. It’s a mystery and plenty of people die and get maimed in the pursuit of the piece, but finally, just in the nick of time, Boone and Sapphire obtain it.

What’s so special about this piece of music?

It’s magic, of course! Whoever plays the Paganini score can summon anyone they want. The Dragons and Nymphs want it to summon Ambrogio, their Vampire All-Father, who now resides in Hell. One immortal wants it to free her sister, who’s been caught in a pocket universe (you’ll have to read the book to figure out what that means). And then there’s the nefarious all-around baddie, Ambrozij Sinti, humiliated as a young boy, who now seeks his revenge by using the Paganini piece to summon the Devil himself and destroy the world. The stakes are high, and there’s no time to lose.

Told in first-person by hero Boone Daniels, J. W. Zarek spins an epic fantasy with tons of action, adventure, and folklore.

His writing peppers readers with alliteration in trios, that serve to tighten phrasing to speed up action scenes, evoking visceral responses. Readers feel the panic Boone feels as the world closes in around him. Does it work? Like a charm. Almost perfect, readers will surely love this first in series, epic fantasy world and fall in love with Zarek’s leading man because of it.

Somewhere between The Librarians meets The Magicians – mixed with the flawed hero archetypes of Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden and Harold Hearne’s Atticus O’Sullivan, Zarek’s hero brings fans of the genre something new to dig their teeth into – and that’s an excellent thing. Fans will be thrilled to learn that the novel will release in Graphic Novel format soon!

The Devil Pulls the Strings won a whopping four Ribbons at the 2021 CIBA Ceremonies, a First Place Ribbon in both Ozma and Cygnus, as well as the Grand Prize in Paranormal, and the Overall Best Book of 2021 for the Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards!

July 12, 2021
VICTORIAN TOWN by Nancy Thorne – Y/A Time Travel, Y/A Historical Fiction, Y/A Historical Romance

There isn’t much to do in Little Current, Abby Parker’s hometown. Desperate to escape her alcoholic mother and absentee father’s drama, Abby Parker takes her dog Riley for a walk near the local tourist attraction, Victorian Town, a restored settlement from the 1800s. When Riley unearths a silver filigree ring engraved with the initials “BB,” Abby doesn’t hesitate to slip the ring onto her finger. In a haze of white, Abby is transported back to 1876.

Abby’s strange clothes and unfamiliar words quickly warrant a visit to the town doctor, Albert Edgecombe, where she meets Martha, his teenage daughter. With Martha’s kindness and easy nature, the girls form a fast friendship despite Abby’s confusion and constant questions. Soon she realizes when the ring is removed from her finger, she returns to her own time. Though warned repeatedly by her modern friend Jess, Abby cannot resist returning to 1876 and Martha’s family. Martha’s older sister, Elizabeth, seemingly left town though no one can confirm her leaving. The mystery of the missing Edgecombe sibling and a connection to the local blacksmith, Ben Dunstone, piques Abby’s interest until she can’t resist defying the laws of nature and returning frequently. However, the ring’s power is draining, and Abby will soon have to choose between the twenty-first century and the new family she has found.

The place of women in 1876 creates an issue for Abby and a theme within the novel. Abby is clearly a modern girl, independent and opinionated. In typical late-teen fashion, she arrives unabashed and uncensored in the quiet Victorian town. Even after she finally understands her “transport,” she refuses complete conformity, continuing instead to both shock and scandalize Martha Edgecombe. Her struggles exemplify most women’s lives and are symbolized in many ways by the simple task of dressing to fit in. In a time of corset, pantalettes, and bustles, Abby is a “shorty-short” girl. Just as she fights her garments in what should be an easy task–dressing for the day–she fights the notion that women should settle, not in their attire and certainly not in their life choices. When Martha mentions women’s roles, those of mother and wife, Abby scoffs and is even disgusted by the suggestion that that should be a good life for a woman. Repeated references to the fairytale Cinderella and Abby’s refusal to want the rescue of a handsome prince highlights her feelings and her appreciation of the place of modern women.

Friendship is another important notion within the novel. Jess, Abby’s modern bestie, is a significant part of Abby’s life. Abby has little to no family support; her mother is an alcoholic, while her father stays gone most of the time. Even Abby’s brothers, who are adults, are absent from Abby’s life. Other than her sheltie, Riley, Abby is alone. Jess is her only real human connection until she develops a close bond with Martha. Both friendships mean more to Abby than anything. She turns to Jess for advice in her time travels. Martha becomes a sister to her when the Edgecombe family welcomes Abby into their family after her abrupt arrival in 1876.

Abby’s closeness to Martha keeps her returning to the past, though her chances of being stuck there increase with each trip. Moreover, she is hurting Jess by venturing into the past. This pull keeps bringing Abby back to the present even when she begins to feel drawn to the past. Though she must eventually choose between Jess and Martha, both girls have a firm claim on Abby’s heartstrings and give her the family she chooses instead of the one into which she was born.

Abby’s sense of purpose is an admirable trait that gives her character a strong, heroic feel. Abby cannot let go of Elizabeth’s disappearance. She refuses to stay safely tucked into her own time when a possible murderer is wandering around in the distant past. Nearly from the first trip, Abby feels she was “chosen” for a reason and beyond determined to discover what that might be even at significant physical and mental risk to herself. What begins as a mystery becomes a rescue mission when Abby finds her friends’ fate through historical documents. Abby cannot leave the fate of Martha and Ben to chance.

Victorian Town won First in Category in the CIBA 2019 Dante Rossetti Awards for Young Adult fiction novels.

January 15, 2021
GALACTICAB CATASTROPHE by Zoe Hauser – Young Adult Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Time Travel

Time travel isn’t just for Dr. Who! When four teens try to solve the puzzle of the mysterious wormhole at their school, friendships are tested, reality is checked, and danger is never far away. Hauser delivers a fast, fun debut novel for the YA crowd.

Something extraordinary is going on at the Cuniculum Performing Arts Middle School. Well beyond the emotions of the artistic kids trying to find their own direction as artists and performers, far beyond the raging hormones of kids falling in, out and through the throes of first love, some other-worldly happenings are making life at the St. Augustine, Florida school more than a bit weird.

For example, circus animals abruptly appear in the school’s hallways. A 17th Century French courtesan, smelling like a skunk, slaps a student in front of the girl’s horrified mother. Let’s not forget the disappearance of the school’s beloved principal. Then, to top it off, the Bubonic Plague sweeping out of the school’s science labs and forcing the school to close for a month to be disinfected.

To four students, Sephie, Zander, Rori and Iggy, the events are not only abnormal but super-normal, a situation that could only be explained as a wrinkle in time, or more appropriately a wormhole, that allows these strange figures from the past to travel in time to their school. Even more exciting, and perhaps a bit disturbing, the students go back in time using one of the wormholes buried in the school. But can they return to the present, or will they be trapped in the past? Will they ever get home?

This Y/A novel is a clever mixture of facts, fantasy, and teenage angst, plus a healthy dollop of Greek mythology. As strange events keep the school on high alert, the four students plus a teacher travel through time. Some loop to the site of a 1942 circus disaster in Cleveland; others are held hostage in a 1915 entrapment by a nefarious group of astrophysicists. The scientists know the students are from the future but want to keep time travel to themselves.

Sephie, short for Persephone, the Greek goddess of the spring, more or less narrates the book, infusing the novel with her deep attachment to mythology. Her personal story ties the book together. It’s complicated by the complexity of her love life—she loves a boy who loves someone else—but even more pressing is her desire to use the wormhole to go back in time and try to prevent her mother’s death.

Y/A readers will admire this book on several levels. One is the sheer audacity of a book that ties puppy love angst with time travel. Another side is the insertion of historical events and an ongoing treatise about the lives of the ancient Greek gods.

Part of the fun in reading this novel is its inventive characters and locations. Many readers will find their Internet browsers heating up as they check out whether certain situations were authentic and characters were real. (Hint: This reviewer especially liked a character named Alfred Ulixes. Look it up!)

Enjoy reading Galacticab Catastrophe – but watch out for the snakes in Morocco.

December 20, 2020
BUT NOT FOREVER by Jan Von Schleh – Y/A Value & Virtues, Y/A Clean & Wholesome Romance, Y/A Time Travel

Like most fifteen-year-olds, Sonnet McKay loves a good adventure. Still, when she, her siblings, and cousins discover a deserted Victorian mansion in the middle of the woods outside a ghost town near Seattle, they get much more than they bargained for. In an upstairs bedroom, Sonnet inadvertently steps inside a time travel portal and is whisked away to 1895. In her place stands Emma Sweetwine, an identical doppelganger for Sonnet.

Emma’s family was prominent when Monte Cristo was a booming mine town, but life is not what it seems for the oldest of the Sweetwine children. With a mother who seems to despise her and a secret engagement, Emma’s life is oppressive and controlled – a sharp contrast to the spirited, independent Sonnet. With no idea how or why they were switched, Sonnet and Emma must quickly adjust to their new environments and rely only on their closest friends and family. But like any good story, time is running out for the girls as both of their lives rush in opposite directions. They must find a way back to their own times before their chance is gone forever.

Family, both those of birth and those of choice, is a significant theme of this novel. Sonnet has a close familial support system in her twin brother Evan, older sister Jules, cousin Niki, and best friend and cousin Lia. She has been surrounded by a loving family her entire life and spends part of each summer with her Aunt Kate, her father’s sister. Without doubt or hesitation, Evan, Jules, Niki, and Lia spring into action to both cover Sonnet’s absence and find the impossible path back to 1895. Rapp, a boy who has only known Sonnet for a day before her disappearance, is also a seamless part of the rescue brigade. This group instantly takes Emma into their embrace and makes her feel safe and loved, a first in her life. Though Sonnet has little help from Emma’s family, she quickly builds that friendship network she enjoys in her modern life. It is only with the support of the sixteen-year-old Sweetwine family nanny Kerry; Maxwell the teenage family driver; and Tor Emma’s secret betrothed, that Sonnet will hatch an escape plan. Both groups vow to take care of each girl, respectively, and help them keep the faith to make everything possible.

The difference between Sonnet and Emma will highlight the struggle and growth of women in the world. Sonnet isn’t burdened by the many stifling rules, both spoken and unspoken, that Emma must endure. Emma is forced to hide her true self, her true feelings, none so much as those she has for Tor. As an immigrant tasked with a life of menial labor, Tor should never be a part of Emma’s social circle, much less her fiancé. She has no close female friends and must remain docile and meek even when her mother demeans and abuses her. She is stifled by all who should love and support her. Sonnet, with her modern mind and outspoken nature, fights all of those restrictions and leaves Emma’s life better.

Sonnet makes Emma stronger, and Emma teaches Sonnet how to appreciate love in her life. In the very oppression, Sonnet finds the enjoyment of her freedom, and Emma’s liberation will create a connection to Sonnet that she can’t even imagine.

But Not Forever won the CIBA 2019 Grand Prize in the DANTE ROSSETTI Division for Y/A novels.

November 17, 2020
INSYNNIUM by Tim Cole – Science Fiction, Dark Humor, Time Travel

The dramatic premise explored in a new novel, Insynnium, is a wild, immersive leap into a world-changing (but fictional) drug. In other hands, what could be a dystopian thriller goes one step further in author Tim Cole’s capable hands. He focuses on the humans who first discover and use the drug and weaves his story with a devilish charm.

This is somewhat Bill Murray/“Groundhog Day” territory, a film exploring one man’s reliving a day in his life over and over until he learned new behaviors, new skills, and came out of it a better man. Unlike “Groundhog,” Max McVista takes multiple doses of the drug against all advice, then somehow expands time itself in what he calls an “AUE” or “Alternative Universe Experience,” enabling him to spend months and sometimes years becoming or experiencing whatever he wishes. When returning to real-time, he’s only missed a day or two. (For E=MC squared fans, it’s basically reverse engineering of Einsteinian physics.)

From a man with few basic skills, a drunk who all but abandons his wife and sons, he returns to his family with outsized skills as a musician, entrepreneur, carpenter, medical savant, and pilot. Skills he could not have learned in any traditional manner. He lies about how he learned everything, tracing it back to an accident, choosing to bury his drug-induced years of time-traveling across the world, spending concentrated periods exploring whatever he fancies with no time “penalty” in the real world.

Of course, it’s not all happy stories and roses for those who take the Insynnium drug. What fun would that be?

A large cast of characters populates this book, including Max’s beleaguered psychic Native American wife Rachel, Duncan, a Lenny Kravitz look-like who is Max’s best friend, their families, the oddballs responsible for introducing Insynnium to the public. And, of course, the multiple storylines and subplots enrich the already fertile premise of the life and multiple times of Max McVista.

Appropriate to a novel about time travel, there is considerable time-shifting from chapter to chapter that will require readers to stay on their toes as they work through this 500-page novel. And like any skilled author who plants clues neatly in the text – clues that are keys to resolving the overarching mysteries in the book – Cole does the same. What can we say? Here’s an impressive novel by a major new talent, and one we highly recommend keeping an eye on.

November 12, 2020
The SELAH BRANCH by Ted Neill – African American Science Fiction, African American Thriller/Mystery/Suspense, Time Travel

The Selah Branch combines two surprising stories into one enthralling whole.

It begins with a ripped from the headlines feel, diving deeply into issues of race, class, poverty, and hopelessness in Selah Branch, WV. A town whose brighter future of uplift, integration, opportunity, and prosperity was wiped out one summer night in 1953 when a chemical explosion destroyed the promising university town and replaced it with a hazardous waste site. Like Chernobyl, only with a smaller footprint and chemical residue substituting for nuclear waste. But just as deadly.

The story views Selah Branch through the eyes of Kenia Dezy, an African-American public health student on a summer practicum. She’s to determine if a simple app can steer people towards healthier food choices and better health outcomes in a town empty of jobs, filled with poverty and hopelessness, marooned in the middle of a food desert.

At first, the current state of Selah Branch and its sharp contrast with the hopefulness of its past confuses Kenia. Then she finds herself there, in that past, with the ability to re-write the history that she sees as already written in her present.

A past that contains not the tragic accident that everyone believes destroyed the town, but instead a deliberate act of sabotage designed to eliminate the beacon of hope and integration, Selah Branch. The participants mostly wanted to obliterate a place where blacks and white really were treated equally. Although some wanted to end a centuries-long family feud by murdering the bodies and the dreams of those they despised.

It is up to Kenia to use her un-schedulable, unplannable trips to that past nexus point to change the future. But there are descendants of that past who are just as willing to kill to maintain the status quo. Even if it only brings them death and destruction.

These are two great plots that shouldn’t blend well together, and yet they do, as all of the action in both the past and the present is seen through Kenia’s sharp eyes. The reader experiences her despair at the conditions in the 21st century Selah Branch and feels both with and for Kenia as she comes to the depressing conclusion that no matter how much she wants to, there are some things she simply cannot do. The situation they are living in is just too big for one person to even make a dent in, no matter how well-intentioned she might be.

And as a well-educated and relatively affluent black woman in a poverty-stricken, rural, mostly white town, Kenia is confronted with the contradiction of her economic privilege and racial and gendered lack of it at the same time.

The reader feels for Kenia’s hopelessness in the present and is swept away with her into a past where there is one desperate chance to make things better. Kenia’s journey in 1953 becomes a dangerous but determined thrill ride, facing enemies at every turn while finding surprising friends along her fast and furious way.

Readers can’t help but be caught up in Kenia’s there and back again quest to change the past and shift the present, to bring about a hope for a brighter future. Readers will cheer for her and despair with her, but they will desire, more than anything, that she succeeds.

The Selah Branch won 1st Place in the CIBA 2018 CYGNUS Awards for Science Fiction novels.

September 1, 2020
The TIME TRAVELER PROFESSOR, Book Two: A POCKETFUL of LODESTONES by Elizabeth Crowens – Alternate History/Sci-fi, Time Travel, Steampunk

A musician-turned-time-traveler is in for more than he bargains for during his World War I experiences in book two of Elizabeth Crowens’s The Time Traveler Professor, Book Two: A Pocketful of Lodestones.

John Patrick Scott volunteers for the Royal Scot Army. His life drastically shifts from one of comfort in Germany to misery in no-man’s-land trenches in Belgium and France. Fortunately, he has in his possession his grandfather’s heirloom timepiece (his time-travel device), his journal, and the mysterious red book, which is the essential item that connected him to Arthur Conan Doyle in the first place. Now separated from the famed author, John uses his middle-of-the-night sentry duty to delve into the metaphysical and psychic world, while Arthur does his time-traveling in hopes of finding the red book.

Because of John’s prophetic abilities, he is known by his fellow soldiers as a fortune teller and Le Conteur (storyteller); the latter due to the red book’s magic of creating impending tales (often horrific) veiled in allegory. Strange things occur when John begins seeing soldier ghosts, and the name Aliskiya Lleullne, his future self, pops up in various situations, especially among an enigmatic man who goes by the moniker of Benedyct Boniface. A battlefield accident produces more supernatural weirdness for John. After recuperating, he takes on a military-intelligence position in London, where he and Arthur reunite. The two reignite their time-traveling passion, intending to go back to feudal Japan. Instead, they are in for a big surprise when they end up in London’s Elizabethan era.

Award-winning author, Elizabeth Crowens, opens A Pocketful of Lodestones with an author’s note, explicitly encouraging steampunk readers to read Silent Meridian, book one of the Time Traveler Professor Trilogy, before probing into book two. While Crowens sprinkles aspects of Silent Meridian’s plot, the references are too light and do not offer an in-depth understanding. Thus, her cautionary note warrants merit.

That said, there is a lot more going on in this novel compared to the first book. Having first-hand experience with the horrors of war, John’s arrogance all but disappears. He spends more time meditating on humanity—focusing on the plight of his military comrades—and less on himself, except unresolved issues from his past and future time travels. John also discovers that his penchant for predicting the future and storytelling acts as a healing balm for his struggling troop.

A Pocketful of Lodestones is a meal of a read, which will surely satisfy Sherlock Holmes and history aficionados.

Author, Elizabeth Crowens won 1^st Place for her novel in the CIBA 2017 Paranormal Awards.

August 2, 2019
BREACHING the PARALLEL by MWAnderson – Military Sci-Fi, Alternate History, Time Travel

A one-way trip from the near future to the distant past forces one army unit to adapt to a life they could never have dreamt. Their flight into history will forever change the future that they know. Once there, they discover they are not the first to make the journey, and history as they knew it, has gone far, far off course.

As the story opens, the U.S. 4th Armored Cavalry Regiment is conducting an incursion into North Korea during the Second Korean War – an event that seems all too plausible based on 21st-century tensions between North Korea and the rest of the world. But their journey is interrupted by an explosion that interacts with time and space, instantly transporting the 500 men and women from the 21st century A.D. to sometime between 1,000 and 500 B.C.E. Their world is gone – and there’s no way back.

Their initial contact with a nearby village is peaceful until they are forced to decide whether to attempt to preserve the future, a future they are familiar with, or whether they should integrate themselves into their current circumstances and let future history take care of itself.

A local warlord has been regularly raiding their village and conscripting young men for soldiers. None have ever returned. This time it’s the warlord’s men who don’t make it back to camp. They are wiped out by 21st-century weaponry in a matter of seconds. It comes as no surprise, then, when a more substantial unit arrives on the scene to investigate.

Just as the soldiers begin to settle in, building homesteads, relationships, and new lives for themselves, they discover that they are not the first people to travel back in time. Those who have come before are enemies – old enemies.

As the story begins, the circumstances in which the 4th Armored Cavalry finds themselves in are reminiscent of two classic works of alternate history/time travel science fiction, Island in the Sea of Time by S.M. Stirling and 1632 by Eric Flint. In both of those series openers, an unexplained event transports a location, leaving the time travelers to adapt to their changed circumstances and figure out a way to thrive in the past.

The setup is a good basis for a Sci-fi. What makes Breaching the Parallel stand out from the rest is the interesting approach MWAnderson takes, by revealing that our protagonists are not the first to arrive and that people who traveled to the past before them, have become the dominant power in their brave new/old world. Breaching the Parallel sets the characters up for renewed conflict in a future book in this prospective series – a pretty interesting set of characters at that.

Breaching the Parallel is a military sci-fi with a clever twist that both thrills and intrigues. MWAnderson shows his knowledge in detailing how an explicitly military mission would conduct itself in a situation where the mission has changed out of all recognition. Those who love a good military sci-fi need look no further – MWAnderson delivers in spades.

Breaching the Parallel by MWAnderson won 1st Place in the CIBA 2017 Cygnus Awards for Science Fiction.

July 15, 2019
HIGH FLYING by Kaylin McFarren – Time Travel, Action/Adventure, Psychological Fiction

Stunt-pilot, 21-year-old Skylar Haines, honed by a childhood of adversity and trauma, is ambivalent about flying eight new maneuvers for which she’s had little preparation and no in-air practice. A lot could go wrong.

Her father, a pilot, was killed in a plane crash before she was born, triggering her mother’s downward spiral into a life of booze, drugs, and prostitution. When Skylar was seven, her mother died. As an orphan, Skylar fell into the system until her grandfather stepped in — no bed of roses there. Although she emerged an independent, savvy, and street-smart survivor who’d learned to fly along the way, those painful memories of her youth are always fresh in her mind.

Why had she agreed to fly in tandem with her mentor, Jake Brennen, for this performance? She might have said it was a lifelong dream. Or, that she did it out of love. Both would be true, but, of course, there is more…

Before she realizes it, she’s flown into the bowels of a storm, loses radio contact with Jake, and struggles to keep her plane aloft. After a near miss with another aircraft, she regains radio contact. A stranger talks her down into a world before her time.

Skylar uses everything she knows, and everything she’s learned to survive. Dylan Haines, who’s not yet her father, saves her, and she becomes entangled in his life in ways that stretch the imagination. He is caught in a web of danger and deceit destined to kill him. Skylar is tempted to intervene, but she knows his fate is set. Her father has to die, in order for her to live.

Like a modern-day H.G. Wells, Kaylin McFarren’s High Flying, ventures boldly into the fourth dimension, where history is reimagined, and epiphanies come in three-dimensional, real time. This gritty, emotionally penetrating story, set in Nevada, that not only touches upon social concerns with roots in the past but reaches into the future. The characters have depth, and the dialogue is sparkling authenticity. Here’s a story where everyone has an agenda, there are more crooks than cops, and bullets fly with abandon. In other words, a deliciously twisted sci-fi mystery with plenty of danger and romance!

May 10, 2019