Book Detail

Blurb:

Is it a mark of insanity when your life turns into a faerie tale? Or is it a sign of awakening? And how do you tell the difference?

Jessica Kendall thinks she is fleeing a nightmare, when she impulsively trades her promising but mundane career at a California university for the isolation of a tiny farming village in south-central Germany. She soon discovers, however, that it is not quite so easy to run away from a dream.

There is something odd about her stern but grandmotherly new landlady, Frau Totmüller, and something even odder—and more wonderful—about the old woman’s handsome, successful son. Drawn to the enigmatic Hermann, despite her fears and misgivings, Jessica soon finds herself immersed in a world of magic, ancient artifacts, and unimaginable power that seems to have been waiting for her all her life.

Excerpt

The grounds were laid out in the manner of an orchard. Young maples and oaks dotted the gentle slopes between the plots of plowed earth, while older, fuller pines lined the asphalt walkways, throwing their shadows like blankets across the eternal beds. The sun filled the whole place with a dreamlike light, the cool air tingled on her skin. She had to keep reminding herself that she was in a cemetery, the headstones just weren’t convincing enough.

It seemed an almost happy place. Perhaps those interred in the warm soil were just as glad to have been laid to rest, grateful for the end of short but ultimately unrewarding lives. Or maybe the end had taken them by surprise, in the midst of youth and important business, depriving them of the anticipated fear and dread and regret, of the struggle to stave off the dying of the light. Thus, the fear of death hadn’t had the chance to soak into the soil.

Or perhaps, for these, the light had never died at all.

It was there that she encountered her first small shock: The sight of her own name and birth date engraved on a simple gray concrete stone. Jessica Kendall *9.21. 77. The startle of recognition stayed her breath for a moment, drained her chest of a beating heart. But, the hollow gasping passed even before it registered in her consciousness, so that by the time she was aware of it, it was but a memory. An event she wasn’t even certain had happened. She was to experience such a state many times in the coming year. This first one was exquisite.

The odd sensation that accompanied the facing of what might have been her own death quickly subsided, when she discovered that, while the first name on the headstone was hers, the last name was not. It was merely a Freudian slip on her part, and when she realized this a moment or two later, she chided herself. She hadn’t been aware of just how taken up with herself her normal thinking life was, so that even a hint of resemblance was so easily exaggerated into complete identity. Still, it filled her with a strange pleasure to see that birth date carved there, to realize someone else had started out precisely when she had, and with the same sense of self. While she was still here to know that self, this one was not. She would not feel guilty about this. The electricity pulsing yet in her head, keeping her aware and reflective, buzzing behind her eyes like gentle bees hovering before a honeyed hive—this was not something to be ashamed of. In this place, guilt could not take hold. The sky was too blue, the sun too persistent, the graves too organized and full of the illusion of movement. She simply couldn’t condemn herself for being alive in this place of much too comfortable death.

But, death takes many forms.

About the Author:

T L Trevaskis spent five years in Germany visiting and researching the Celtic relics portrayed in this story, in between stints at his day job. Born in California, he now resides in Washington State.

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