Today it’s my pleasure to introduce another author from The Wild Rose Press and present her latest time travel adventure, Beyond the Fall, on sale for only 99 cents until April 12th. (See link below)

In 2018, Tamara is dumped by her arrogant husband, travels to Cornwall, England and researches her ancestors. In a neglected cemetery, she scrapes two fallen headstones together trying to read the one beneath, faints, and wakes up in 1789, the year of The French Revolution, and grain riots in England. Young Farmer Colum Polwhele comes to her aid. Can a sassy San Francisco gal survive in this primitive time and fall for Colum, a man active in underhanded dealings or will she struggle to return to her own time?

Excerpt:

Why had the village been abandoned so completely? Sadness hung over the area like a fog.

At least one of her ancestors had a manor house in the vicinity that was still intact: the Elizabethan Roscarrock House from the pamphlet. She’d try to locate the place when she left the cemetery. The Trembeth family had settled in this area in the fifteenth century, mostly involved in mining.

Approaching a fallen headstone, she bent, brushed away dirt, and swore the name Trembeth was etched in the mossy granite. But the years were difficult to decipher. Another stone appeared to be buried beneath this one.

She kneeled and strained to move the top stone, scratching her fingers. The wind swirled her hair again. She blew strands from her mouth and continued to scrape the top stone across the bottom to jar it off, the sound strident. Her arm muscles started to ache. A burning smell reached her nostrils, and she glanced up.

Suddenly, she grew lightheaded. Dampness soaked through the skirt where her knees pressed the earth. The ground trembled beneath her. An earthquake, in Cornwall?

Nausea bubbled up inside. The church and churchyard shimmered around her, like an out of focus photograph. She tried to pull back her hands, but they seemed glued in place. Stifling a cry, she felt what seemed an electric shock pierce along her spine. She grew dizzier, her heart pounding, and then crumpled over like a rag doll into the moist grass.

Let’s meet the author!

Diane Parkinson (Diane Scott Lewis) grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, joined the Navy at nineteen, married in Greece and raised two sons all over the world, including Puerto Rico and Guam. A member of the Historical Novel Society, she wrote book reviews for the Historical Novels Review. Diane worked from 2007 to 2010 as an on-line historical editor. She had her debut novel published in 2010, and has had several historical and historical-romance novels published between 2010 and 2018. She lives with her husband in western Pennsylvania.

Tell us about your inspiration for this story.

I’ve always wanted to travel back in time. Watching historical movies on the big screen fascinated me since I was a child. Since I write primarily in the eighteenth century, I decided to send a modern woman from the San Francisco Bay Area (my childhood home) to 18th c. Cornwall, England. How would she cope in a primitive time?

What do you love about the genre you write in?

The research. When I find just the right detail about the eighteenth century, for the common people, I love to integrate that into my story. It makes the past come alive, the characters more believable.

What do you do for fun when you’re not writing?

I like to read, do graphic arts, go camping with my husband, and play with my two beautiful granddaughters.

Any advice for aspiring writers?

Keep learning your craft, attend workshops and conferences. And never give up. Even negative feedback usually has a kernel of truth. Learn from that.

Authors always seem to have a teetering To Be Read pile. What’s in yours?

Mostly research books, 18th c. life, medical, travel, clothing. But I have several historical novels that I have yet to get to because I used to do book reviews for the Historical Novel Society. Now I’m in a book club, and the choices aren’t always great (for me) but I need to read them.

I love all sorts of fiction and nonfiction, but I can’t abide a protagonist who keeps making dumb, self-destructive decisions. What makes you put down a book without finishing?

I feel the same. When the characters do stupid, out of character actions and you want to ring their necks, lol. I also hate it when historical novels get their facts wrong. It’s so easy to research these days with the internet.

For more historical adventure and romance, visit Diana Parkinson here: http://www.dianescottlewis.org