Find out about why Anna Belfrage chose to write her new book, The Whirlpools of Time, as a time travel! #HistoricalFiction #TimeTravel #GuestPost #Excerpt @abelfrageauthor

Do you want to find out about Anna Belfrage's latest book? Come on over, sit down with a nice cup of tea, and read on! Not only can you grab yourself a copy, you can also read an excerpt and read about Anna answering the question: why time travel?!

The Whirlpools of Time
Anna Belfrage

He hoped for a wife. He found a companion through time and beyond.

It is 1715 and for Duncan Melville something fundamental is missing from his life. Despite a flourishing legal practice and several close friends, he is lonely, even more so after the recent death of his father. He needs a wife—a companion through life, someone to hold and be held by. What he wasn’t expecting was to be torn away from everything he knew and find said woman in 2016…

Erin Barnes has a lot of stuff going on in her life. She doesn’t need the additional twist of a stranger in weird outdated clothes, but when he risks his life to save hers, she feels obligated to return the favour. Besides, whoever Duncan may be, she can’t exactly deny the immediate attraction.

The complications in Erin’s life explode. Events are set in motion and to Erin’s horror she and Duncan are thrown back to 1715. Not only does Erin have to cope with a different and intimidating world, soon enough she and Duncan are embroiled in a dangerous quest for Duncan’s uncle, a quest that may very well cost them their lives as they travel through a Scotland poised on the brink of rebellion.  

Will they find Duncan’s uncle in time? And is the door to the future permanently closed, or will Erin find a way back?

Grab a copy HERE!

Why Time Travel?

First of all, thank you Beatrice for inviting me to visit your blog to talk about my latest release, The Whirlpools of Time. This my latest book baby is a time travel romance featuring Duncan Melville who somehow ends up in 2016 (a major feat, given he’s born in 1686) where he saves a certain Erin Barnes from being abducted and then, due to sequence of events, ends up back in 1715—with Erin. Let’s just say she has moments when she’s less than thrilled…

Many years ago, I was pitching one of my first books to an agent. He complimented my writing, expressed that he found the historical setting vividly depicted but couldn’t at all understand why I’d added a time travel ingredient. 

“What’s the point?” he asked, looking genuinely confused. 

The world is full of people who just don’t get the allure of a time travel ingredient in a novel. They wrinkle their nose and express they much prefer a “real” historical novel, one set firmly in the past. Fortunately, there are just as many who love a good time travel novel. For them, the time traveller is something akin to a guide into the past, a person from our time who reacts like we would do had we been thrown into a world without running water, electricity or chocolate. (Because seriously: a life without chocolate? Pass me the hara-kiri sword!) 

I love reading good time travel. I shiver all over when a writer manages to suspend disbelief and entice me into taking the plunge backwards with their characters. Just as much as I enjoy reading it, I like writing it: to write time travel allows me to get very up and close with the past, be it the lice in the bedding, the total lack of tomatoes and toilets. More importantly, I am submerged in a world where people had substantially different values than ours. This is where having a time traveller as your MC becomes very useful: if you’re born and bred in a period, you don’t react to values and behaviours as they’re the norm. But for the modern person who ends up in the 18th century, there are numerous challenges when it comes to values, be it the inferior status of women or the self-evident truth that God exists (and is Anglican). In The Whirlpools of Time, our modern-day protagonist has to navigate a society fundamentally different from the one she is familiar with. To further complicate things, Erin is of mixed heritage. How that works out for her? Well, you’ll have to read the book! 

EXCERPT

In which Duncan Melville has his first encounter with modern-day law enforcement.

He had thought he dreamt her, but when he woke she was still there, smiling at him. He managed to smile back, no matter that it hurt to do so. She fiddled with her hair, a mass of curls the colour of rich maple syrup. Lovely skin, he thought fuzzily, a shade or so lighter than her hair. And her eyes…Green, he decided, yes, a golden green. Lovely eyes. He licked his lips. Lovely eyes, lovely skin, lovely hair, lovely lady. Erin, he reminded himself, her name was Erin. 

“Good morning,” she said.

“Miss Barnes.” He gave her a nod.

“Erin. Miss Barnes makes me sound like some old schoolteacher.” It made him smile: the notion of a female teacher was utterly ludicrous. 

“And you are not a schoolteacher?” There was a small scar just to the left of her cupid’s bow and he wondered what had caused it.

“Me?” She laughed. “No way.” She leaned forward and her round bosoms brushed his arm. “The police want to talk to you.”

“Police?” he croaked, staring at how her pulse jumped in the hollow of her throat. What might that be?

“You need to make a statement.”

Statement? A strand of her hair tickled his skin and he suppressed the desire to wind it round his finger. This close, her hair was a mass of colours, from that deep syrupy colour to a golden honey. 

“They want your version of events,” she continued, lowering her voice. She glanced towards the door and leaned that much closer. “Don’t mention the sword, okay? I think it might complicate things.”

He almost laughed. Best not complicate matters more than they already were.

“Why?”

“Why what?” Her breath caressed his cheek, and this up close he could see a smattering of dark freckles on her nose. 

“Why do they need a…a…statement?” She smelled of something sweet, a discreet fragrance that had him thinking of warm evenings under blossoming apple trees.

“Because they can’t take my word for it.”

“No?” He struggled to sit. “Why not?”

She sighed. “They need someone else to corroborate what happened.”

“Ah.” He mulled this over, concluding that the police must be the equivalent of the constables in his time. “And—”

“Awake?” someone said. A large man entered the room. “What are you doing here?” he asked Erin.

“Visiting.” She stood. 

“Don’t go!” Duncan tried to take her hand.

“Dylan here wants to talk to you alone.” Erin smiled at him. “I’ll be back as soon as he’s gone.”

Duncan followed her out of the room with his gaze before turning his attention to the man now seated beside him. 

“I’m Dylan Clarkson.” He held up something. Duncan peered at the displayed document. A depiction of this Dylan, stating he was a Maryland Police Officer. 

“Duncan,” Duncan said. “Duncan Melville.”

“And you’re from where?”

Duncan gave him a helpless look. “No notion. I cannot recall much more than my name and that terrible lightning storm.” He shivered. 

“Hmm,” Clarkson said, scribbling something in his notebook. No quill, Duncan noted, instead an implement that looked like a pencil of sorts.  “And this so-called attack? Do you remember anything of that?”

“I do.” Duncan straightened up, ignoring the twinge in his ribs. “Nothing so-called about it. Out of nowhere, three men appeared and attempted to abduct a young woman.”

“The young woman being Erin Barnes?”

“Aye.” She didn’t look like a Barnes. She looked like someone who should have a far more exotic name, something like Figueroa or Hernandez. He’d seen women as beautiful as her before, usually on one or other of the plantations belonging to the Jones family. Women of mixed heritage, their mother slaves, their fathers their masters or the white overseers and he knew for a fact that many of those women ended up in brothels, their beauty fading as the years and an endless line of eager men took their toll. 

“Known her long?” the officer asked.

“Who?”

“Erin.”

“No. As I recall, she was helping me regain my feet at that crossroads when those rogues showed up.”

“Rogues?” The officer snickered. “So, what happened?”

It did not take long. Duncan described what had happened, omitting any mention of his sword, was somewhat taken aback when the officer scowled at him and told him to stop playing Superman. “Next time you see three men attacking a woman call 911.”

“Eh?”

“You shouldn’t interfere. Could get you killed.”

“If I hadn’t interfered, Miss Barnes—Erin—might not have been here.”

“Hmm.” Clarkson his lip. “Can you identify these men?”

“I can.” Duncan sank back against the pillows. 

“Here.” Something landed in Duncan’s lap. Some sort of large book, bound in stiff covers. He opened it and almost threw it to the floor. What sort of magic was this? Page after page of grim human faces stared up at him, remarkably lifelike. He’d never seen likenesses such as these before, amazed at the detail, the colours. 

“What, you’ve never seen photos before?” Clarkson asked, studying him intently.

“Of course I have,” Duncan lied, making an effort to stop staring at the glossy likenesses. “But I have never seen such a collection of unsavoury characters.”

“Yeah, because where you come from you’re all good law-abiding citizens, right?” Clarkson sneered. 

“I don’t remember where I come from,” Duncan snapped, congratulating himself on not having walked into that trap.

Had Anna been allowed to choose, she’d have become a time-traveller. As this was impossible, she became a financial professional with two absorbing interests: history and writing. Anna has authored the acclaimed time travelling series The Graham Saga, set in 17th century Scotland and Maryland, as well as the equally acclaimed medieval series The King’s Greatest Enemy which is set in 14th century England.  

Anna has also published The Wanderer, a fast-paced contemporary romantic suspense trilogy with paranormal and time-slip ingredients. Her September 2020 release, His Castilian Hawk, has her returning to medieval times. Set against the complications of Edward I’s invasion of Wales, His Castilian Hawk is a story of loyalty, integrity—and love. Her most recent release, The Whirlpools of Time, is a time travel romance set against the backdrop of brewing rebellion in the Scottish highlands.

All of Anna’s books have been awarded the IndieBRAG Medallion, she has several Historical Novel Society Editor’s Choices, and one of her books won the HNS Indie Award in 2015. She is also the proud recipient of various Reader’s Favorite medals as well as having won various Gold, Silver and Bronze Coffee Pot Book Club awards.

Find out more about Anna, her books and her eclectic historical blog on her website, www.annabelfrage.com or check out her Amazon page. 

Follow Anna on twitter or on FB. 

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