Award Winning and fan favorite author,
Lizzy Ford,
introduces us to a new time travel romance, with
WEST
which Outlander fans are sure to love.
If you could change history, would you?
WEST is the first installment in a series of standalone novels in the History Interrupted series featuring four women sent back to different time periods to modify historical events. Fans of Diana Gabaldon's OUTLANDER series will cherish this new series from Bestselling Author Lizzy Ford! Look for EAST, NORTH, AND SOUTH in 2015!
Synopsis:
If you could change history, would you?
College graduate Josephine “Josie” Jackson answers ‘yes’ to the question on a survey while visiting an Old West tourist trap. The next morning, she wakes up in Indian Territory in the 1840s, where she’s given a mission to complete before she can return to her time: to reset history by finding and stopping the man responsible for a horrific massacre.
It seems easy enough, until she discovers that three other women have been sent back to the same time period. When Josie uncovers what happened to them, she realizes the chances of her getting out of the past alive are not good.
To survive, she’ll have to trust the very man she’s there to stop, someone who has every reason to distrust her and only one reason to help her - to prove he’s not the monster she claims he’ll become.
Excerpt: Moldavite
Gasping for air, my eyes flew open, and I flung my arms wide, too fevered to touch my own skin. Cold rain poured from the skies, shocking me at first. Lightning tore through the night, brilliant and bright, before it vanished and just as quickly plunged me once more into darkness.
The world smelled funny, like the area in Tombstone where a man had been super heating and blowing glass by hand. Raindrops pelted my face. The surface beneath me was hard, cool, and smelled of dirt. I was definitely not in bed, and the sensations were too real for me not to be awake. I was on my back, gazing up at a night sky. It took a moment for the fast moving clouds to take shape beyond the sunspots left over from the brilliant light.
Disoriented, I pushed myself up and looked around. I lay in the bottom of a steaming crater, right at its center. At first I thought I was surrounded by water, until I recognized the glassy, green rock.
“Moldavite,” I recited. “Occurs when dirt and dust are thrown into the atmosphere after a meteorite hits the earth.”
Moldavite was rare – and sold for a huge price. If I took some back to my aunt, I knew her jeweler could make me something from it and I could sell the rest to pay down my student loans. A thrill went through me at the discovery and I stretched towards the nearest pile. It was still soft. The weird sensation of malleable glass made me withdraw. Wiping my hand self-consciously on my wet yoga pants, I took a second look around.
How did I get to the center of a crater? Beneath me was earth, and surrounding me, moldavite. As if I had been there when the meteorite struck. As if I were the meteorite. I touched the edge of a thick chunk of moldavite near one foot. It was still soft enough for me to push an indent into but cooling rapidly. No longer super heated, it had not yet frozen into its permanent shape yet, either. This shit is worth a fortune. And there was a ton of it. If I weren’t somewhere I shouldn’t have been, I would have been calculating how to transport the rare rocks to the hotel before someone else found them.
More than the chilly rain caused the shudder that ran down my spine. Aside from feeling fevered, I was in the pajamas I normally went to sleep in. I seemed healthy or at least, uninjured.
Beyond the moldavite and patch of dirt were natural, rock-dirt walls about six feet tall topped by swaying grasses battered by the winds of the storm.
Had a meteorite hit Tombstone and flung me out of harm’s way?
Confused, I shifted to my knees. I felt … weak. As if my muscles were having difficulty remembering how to walk.
That makes no sense! Frustrated, I climbed to my feet. One pocket of my pajamas was heavy, and I reached in to see why. My cell phone was there. Satisfied I could call for help, once I was out of the crater, I ventured onto the moldavite. My feet sank into the soft glass, and I grimaced. Wobbling, I caught myself twice as I made my way to the edge of the meteor pit. Rain quickly filled my footsteps, leaving behind an eerie trail. I made it up the slope and over the edge of the crater before pausing at my second obstacle: the dirt wall that was my height.
Fevered and tired with the mild throb of an alcohol-headache, I leaned against the earthen wall standing between the prairies and me. It was much cooler than I expected, and I pressed my forehead to a flat stone for a moment. The rain was cold, and it felt good against my burning skin.
How did I survive being flung out of the city into the grasslands? I wasn’t hurt that I could tell. The last thing I really remember was staggering through town with Carter. Had he been thrown out of the town, too? What if he was hurt? What if my aunt and uncle were?
Someone’s hand stuck out over the edge of the crater. I blinked, uncertain if I was seeing things or not. It was a strong hand, with a wide palm and long fingers. Definitely a man’s hand by its size. What looked like a thick bone and leather bracelet was around his wrist.
I had been talking to Carter and then …
About Lizzy Ford:
Lizzy Ford is the author of over thirty books written for young adult and adult romance readers, to include the internationally bestselling “Rhyn Trilogy,” “Witchling Series” and the “War of Gods” series. Lizzy has focused on keeping her readers happy by producing brilliant, gritty romances that remind people why true love is a trial worth enduring. Lizzy’s books can be found on every major ereader library, to include: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, Kobo, Sony and Smashwords. She lives in southern Arizona with her husband, three dogs and a cat.
Guest post!
If you could change history, would you?
Part 1
I was brainstorming for a guest post topic and started thinking about my time travel series and how, by writing it, I’m living out some of my own fantasies about time periods I’d love to live in or visit.
The series motto is, “If you could change history, would you?”
The heroines are placed in positions where they have the power and knowledge needed to do so – but will they actually do it?
The series as a whole explores different eras in human history while also challenging the reader and heroines about what they would do if they really could go back and make changes in the historic timeline of humanity. Sometimes, the heroine goes back and realizes that what we know about history today is so different from what happened, that she has to re-evaluate everything she knows. Sometimes, she learns that the man orchestrating the change of history has a personal – rather than humanitarian – reason for wanting history changed. Sometimes, the heroine changes history – but in a different way than she intended when she initially goes back.
I love history, especially ancient history, and I love imagining what life in those times would’ve been like. I also love Doctor Who and how he changes the world wherever he goes. The idea of taking his companions everywhere in space and time is amazing to me, so I wanted to create a series where the wonder of Doctor Who meets my love for history and romance! The books can all be read as standalones, as each is a different adventure into a different time period.
The first book, “West,” occurs in the Old West, an era of great tumult, change, growth and chaos in the history of the United States. It seems like a fascinating time to explore – and an era I’d like to visit but not necessarily remain in for long! Which is exactly what my heroine, Josie, ends up doing as well. She spends two weeks in the Old West with the intention of trying to stem the violence towards, and near annihilation of, indigenous Native Americans, only for her journey to end in tragedy. She changes history – but not in the right way, and as a result, more people die than were originally supposed to.
Heartbroken and horrified, she learns a tough lesson about when, where and how to change history. Rather than stay in the Old West, she decides to accept a second mission with the hopes of making a better choice the second time around. (“West” releases December 1!)
The second book, “East,” occurs in an era I had no idea I was interested in until I heard a podcast by Dan Carlin. He’s an amateur historian who has a series called Hardcore History. Before a road trip, my husband had downloaded “The Wrath of the Khans,” a series of podcasts about Genghis Khan and how his Mongols nearly took over the known world in the 1200s. For those unfamiliar with Dan Carlin, he has an incredible way of bringing ancient history to life through enigmatic storytelling. I was so intrigued by his version of events during the time of Genghis Khan, that I started reading more about that era and decided that my heroine, Josie, needed to go to Mongolia in the second time travel novel.
In “East,” Josie is given the mission of saving the life of one child – a life that was otherwise snuffed out, according to the version of history she knows. Without knowing the motivations of the man who sent her back in time, and without the ability to foresee how her actions will change the course of human history, she has to make a choice that’s much tougher the second time around, since she knows from her first adventure that her actions have very far-reaching consequences. (“East” releases mid-2015.)
The third and fourth books (“North” and “South”) will feature two more eras of history. I have an idea of which eras for both but am finalizing my plans!
If you could change history, would you?Part 2
College graduate Josephine “Josie” Jackson answers ‘yes’ to the question on a survey while visiting the Old West tourist town of Tombstone. The next morning, she wakes up in Indian Territory in the 1840s, where she’s given a mission to complete before she can return to her time: to reset history, and prevent the deaths of hundreds of thousands over the next century, by convincing the man responsible for kindling the war between settlers and natives to stay home on the day he’s supposed to start the war.
But someone is hunting down time travelers and killing them. Three other women have been sent back to the same time period with Josie’s mission. When she stumbles upon what happened to them, she realizes the chances of her getting out of the past alive are not good.
To survive, she’ll have to trust the person who’s there to stop her from changing history, someone who has every reason to distrust her and only one reason to help her – to save her from the mysterious man who sent her back in time to start with.
Wrapping Up Of Series
I’m wrapping up multiple series in 2015 (Damian Eternal, Voodoo Nights, Witchlings, Anshan Saga, and the 101 Nights written under my pen name SE Reign) which means I’ll have room to launch a few more series! I’m super excited!
I’ve outlined four of the new series and/or subgenres I’m testing out next year!
History Interrupted series, featuring books: “West” (December 2014); “East” (April 2015); “North” (TBD); and “South” (TBD)
Fans of Outlander and Doctor Who will dig this series about a college graduate named Josie who naively goes back in time to try to change history, only to find she can’t return to her own time. She then embarks on a journey across four books, each one a mini-adventure, where she travels through a different time period in search of a way home. She also learns more about history, tests her limits and finds love along her travels.
“Highlander Enchanted” (standalone) (June 2015)
This is my foray into the historical romance subgenre, and I’m starting with Highlanders – with a supernatural twist, of course! Lady Isabel de Clare is on the run – and out for revenge against the man she blames for her brother’s death in the Crusades and her father’s descent into madness. When she finds Black Cade, she isn’t expecting him to protect her from the English fiancé she’s fleeing. She also doesn’t believe the tales of fae and magic, until she uncovers a secret one night while under Black Cade’s protection.
Omega Series “Omega” (September 2015); “Theta” (2016); “Alpha” (2016)
In a twenty first century setting, under the thumb of the Greek gods and their appointed human dictators, the next Oracle of Delphi is born and hidden away to prevent her horrific fate at the hands of the Olympians and their underlings. The son of a Titan is turned human with the task of hunting her down and bringing her to the gods, only for him to discover she is the harbinger of a prophecy that will soon expel the gods from Earth. She’s meant to lead the humans in a revolution to overthrow the gods, and he alone can stop her and save his kind – but something about her makes him question whether godhood is worth all he’ll lose as a human.
Unnamed Series, featuring books: “Unnatural,” (November 2015); “Unmade,” (2016)
A woman with no memory or name is the key weapon for a team of paranormal investigators intent on finding monsters, demons and the like before they wreak havoc on the human population. When a new agent joins the team, he’s skeptical of the supernatural, until he sees her in action and must admit there are things out there that defy rational explanation. The more he gets to know her, the clearer it becomes she’s one of the monsters he hunts. Worse, he’s the only one who can stop her if her power continues to grow.
The giveaway
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