DARK BREW
A time travel
romance
Learn from the past or forever be
doomed to repeat it.
Worldwide
release date July 22, with The Wild Rose Press.
Romantic Summer idea: Cook an authentic Italian meal: ravioli or linguini with homemade pasta sauce, bread with garlic butter, a salad with Italian olive oil, a fine Italian red wine, and a sweet gelato for dessert. Then put on some Sinatra CDs and dance the night away!
Romantic Summer idea: Cook an authentic Italian meal: ravioli or linguini with homemade pasta sauce, bread with garlic butter, a salad with Italian olive oil, a fine Italian red wine, and a sweet gelato for dessert. Then put on some Sinatra CDs and dance the night away!
An interview with Diana about Dark Brew
Where did the story come from?
This story took 11 years from start to finish. I’m a longtime member of
the Richard III Society, and in
the spring of 2004, I read an article in The
Ricardian Register by Pamela Butler, about Alice Kyteler, who lived in Kilkenny,
Ireland in 1324, and faced witchcraft charges. After her trial and acquittal,
she vanished from the annals of history. I couldn't resist writing a book about
her.
How did you
decide to make it a paranormal?
I’m a
believer in reincarnation, and I go on paranormal investigations whenever I
can. I’ve gone on several past life regressions. Cape Cod has a lot of history
and paranormal activity. I’ve been on many ghost walks and ghost hunts there. I
wanted to connect Alice in the past with someone in the present, her
reincarnation.
Was Alice
Kyteler famous in 14th century Ireland?
Not at all
but she was the richest woman in Kilkenny, and for that reason the villagers
hated her, especially the men. They accused her of killing her first husband,
but she was acquitted. Then they accused her of killing her fourth husband, John
LePoer, with witchcraft, the accusations more absurd than those of the 1692
witch hysteria in Salem, Massachusetts. Chancellor Edward de Burgh arrested Alice
because her stepsons claimed she had murdered John by casting a witch’s spell
with malefecia…and she used the enchanted skull of a beheaded thief as her
cauldron.
She went to
trial and her dear friend Michael Artson had her acquitted, but she vanished
into the annals of history. According to legend, she went to England. But no
one knows for sure.
Why did you
make it a time travel?
Kylah
McKinley lives on my beloved Cape Cod. She’s a Druid, a ghost hunter and owns a
new age store in a restored Revolutionary War-era tavern. She was also the
target of a hit-and-run. Another hit-and-run crippled her husband Ted. That’s
no coincidence—she’s convinced someone’s out to get them both.
From many
past life regressions, Kylah knows she’s the reincarnation of Alice, so she
brews an ancient Druid herb mixture, goes back in time and enters Alice’s life
to find out exactly what happened and who killed her husband.
These two months of hell change her life forever. Kylah’s
life mirrors Alice’s in one tragic event after another—she finds her husband
sprawled on the floor, cold, blue, with no pulse. Evidence points to her, and
police arrest her for his murder. Kylah and Alice shared another twist of
fate—they fell in love with the man who believed in them. As Kylah prepares for
her trial and fights to maintain her innocence, she must learn from her past or
she’s doomed to repeat it.
Have you ever spoken to Pamela Butler, who wrote the article
about Alice?
Yes, we’ve corresponded. She lives in New Mexico, so we’ve
never met in person. I asked Pam what inspired her to write about Alice. I’d never heard of Alice until I read her
article, “Witchcraft & Heresy. She replied:
“You
asked why I wrote about Alice Kyteler, who preceded Richard by a
century-and-a-half. I only wrote it because others on the listserv encouraged
me to write about witchcraft, a subject about which I knew very little. I
ordered three books from Amazon.com on the subjects of witchcraft, heresy,
Satanism, etc. for research reasons. That was my basis, plus I searched the
Internet. The Malleus Malleficarum
was published in 1487, just two years after Richard's death, so it's almost
contemporary. I chanced across Alice in this reading and thought that it
was an interesting case. Witch burning was fairly rare in Ireland, and wasn't
as bad in England at that time as it had been on the Continent. I wish that the
M.M. had never been published; still, the fact that it was published and
accepted may reveal the mindset of those times.”
An excerpt from Dark Brew
Kylah shut Ted’s den door. She couldn’t bear to
look at the spot where he gasped his last breath. His presence, an imposing
force, lingered. So did his scent, a blend of tobacco, pine aftershave and
manly sweat. Each reminder ripped into her heart like a knife. Especially now
with the funeral looming ahead, the eulogies, the mournful organ hymns, the
tolling bells . . .
These ceremonies should bring closure, but they’d
only prolong the agony of her grief. She wanted to remember him alive for a
while longer, wishing she could delay these morbid customs until the hurt subsided.
Throughout the house, his essence echoed his personality:
the wine stain on the carpet, the heap of dirty shirts, shorts and socks piled up
in the laundry room, the spattered stove, his fingerprints on the microwave.
But she couldn’t bring herself to clean any of it up. Painful as these remnants
were, they offered a strange comfort. He still lived here.
“I’ll find that murderer, Teddy,” she promised
him over and over, wandering from room to empty room, traces of him lurking in
every corner. “I’ll do everything in my power to make sure justice is served.
Another past life regression isn’t enough anymore. I know what I have to do now.
And I promise, it will never, ever happen again—in any future life.”
She inhaled deeply and breathed him in. “Go
take a shower, Teddy.” She chuckled through her tears as the doorbell rang. She
cringed, breaking out in cold sweat when she saw the black sedan at the curb.
“Not again.” No sense in hiding, so she let the
detectives in.
“Mrs. McKinley, we need your permission to do a
search and take some of your husband’s possessions from the house,” Nolan said.
“What for?” She met his steely stare. “I looked
everywhere and found nothing.”
“Mrs. McKinley, the cupboard door was open,
four jars of herbs are missing, and the autopsy showed he died of herb
poisoning. Those herbs,” Nolan added
for emphasis, as if it had slipped her feeble mind. “Foxglove, mandrake,
hemlock—and an as-yet unidentified one,” he read from a notebook. “The M.E.
determined it was a lethal dose.”
Sherlock
Holmes got nothin’ on him, she thought.
“Where’s this cupboard, ma’am?” Egan spoke up.
“Right there.” She pointed, its door gaping
exactly the way she’d found it that night. Nolan went over to it and peered
inside.
“Ma’am, it would be better if you left the
house for a half hour or so. Please leave a number where you can be reached,”
Egan ordered.
Nolan glanced down the hall. “Where is your
bedroom?”
What could they want in the bedroom? “It’s at
the top of the stairs on the right. But we didn’t sleep together,” she offered,
as if that would faze them. It didn’t.
After giving him her cell number, she got into
her car and drove to the beach.
An hour later, she let herself back in and
looked around. They’d taken the computer, her case of CDs, her thumb drive, her
remaining herb jars, Ted’s notebooks, and left her alone with one horrible fact:
This was now a homicide case and she was the prime suspect.
Purchase Dark Brew
Contact Diana
Looks awesome, Sheri, thanks so much! You're on my blog today, too....readers, visit Sheri at www.dianarubinoauthor.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteWhen you have your purchase links, let me know and I'll update this post. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for being my guest today!
A good read; I can guarantee it :)
ReplyDeleteI edited it :)
ReplyDeleteLove the cover. Time travels are so much fun!
ReplyDeleteI'm a sucker for a good time travel romance!
DeleteI'm a sucker for a good time travel romance!
Delete