Title: A SHAPE ON THE AIR
Author: Julia H. Ibbotson
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Pages: 267
Genre: Medieval Timeslip Romance
Unlocking
a love that lasts for lifetimes … and beyond …
Dr
Viv Dulac, a lecturer in medieval studies, is devastated when her partner walks
out (and with her best friend too) and it seems that she is about to lose
everything. Drunk and desperate, her world quite literally turns upside down
when she finds herself in the body of the fifth century Lady Vivianne. Lady V
has her own traumas; she is struggling with the shifting values of the Dark
Ages and her forced betrothal to the brutish Sir Pelleas, who is implicated in
the death of her parents. Haunted by both Lady Vivianne and by Viv's own
parents' death and legacy, can Viv
unlock the mystery that surrounds and connects their two lives, 1500
years apart, and bring peace to them both? Can the strange key she finds hold
the truth? A haunting story of lives intertwining across the ages, of the
triumph of the human spirit and of dreams lost and found.
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Prologue
1500 years before
Lady Nymue, her
mother, is rising from the mere like a spirit: tall, slow like a dream,
over-gown falling in slim folds from her waist. Vivianne sees her in a haze of
mist, like magic, an illusion. She feels it, that enchantment, and it is
enfolding her, but making her shiver, too. Her life-giver, robes dry despite
the water, is coming towards her as she stands anxiously on the bank, waiting
impatiently, calling out urgently, hopping from one foot to the other, tangling
her feet in her earth-sweeping kirtle, longing to rejoin her playmates who are
chasing around the village pretending to be Roman soldiers. Her mother,
reaching out a hand to her, is shaking her head, but laughing. Be more patient,
my little Lady Vivianne, she says, I have not completed my rituals, but let me
wrap you in my cloak, for I must return to the mere. But she is only a little
girl and something is making her feel cold, frightened. No, she calls, sticking
out her lower lip, I want to play! I want to be Honorius this time! They
promised! Eleanor will play my wife - or maybe my lady servant.
Her mother is
ruffling her soft curls. Well, then, she smiles, I will return later to finish.
She is lifted onto her mother’s horse, in front, held close. Dry, warm,
comforting. Riding back to the village. Her care-giver is taking her back to
play with her friends again. Her mother turns to the special hall which her
father, Sir Tristram, called “sacred” and where she is only allowed to go
sometimes.
And then, fire,
flames, the acrid smell of smoke. Looking across to the great hall, terror
strangling her heart, stealing her breath. Running towards the wooden building,
through the ash and cinders and the roaring, screaming now, choking. Someone
holding her back, pulling her.
Darkness.
Waking up in her
little bed. A big red-faced man in the shadows, haloed with a fair unruly beard
and thick wild hair, telling her that her parents were dead, burned in the
fire. Her mother and her father, both of them. An accident with tallows. She
knows those tallows; they are always on the altar in the sacred hall. They are
only spoken of in whispers. But this man is speaking in a strange way, loud,
too loud, and it seems to her, sneering, as she peers at him through the
darkness.
Julia Ibbotson is giving away a PDF copy of ‘Drumbeats’!
Terms & Conditions:
- By entering the giveaway, you are confirming you are at least 18 years old.
- One winner will be chosen via Rafflecopter
- This giveaway ends midnight September 29.
- Winner will be contacted via email on September 30.
- Winner has 48 hours to reply.
Good luck everyone!
ENTER TO WIN!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Award-winning author Julia Ibbotson is obsessed with the medieval world and concepts of
time travel. She read English at Keele
University, England
(after a turbulent but exciting gap year in Ghana)
specialising in medieval studies, and has a PhD in linguistics. She wrote her
first novel at 10 years of age, but became a teacher, lecturer and researcher,
and a single mum. Julia has published
four books, including a children’s book S.C.A.R.S (a fantasy medieval time
slip), a memoir, and the first two novels of her Drumbeats trilogy (which
begins in Ghana). Apart from insatiable reading, she loves
travelling the world, singing in choirs, swimming, yoga, and walking in the
English countryside.
Her recent release is A
Shape on the Air.
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