From the author of the critically acclaimed Northwest Passage, American Journey, and Carson Chronicles series comes the first book in the Time Box saga.Virginia physicist Mark Lane has a problem. Weeks after privately creating two time machines, he learns his corporate partner wants to use the portable devices for nefarious purposes. Rather than give him the chance to do so, Mark takes the time boxes and escapes to the relative safety of 1865.For Mark, wife Mary, and their children, the adventure is a chance to grow. Mary runs a business. Jeremy, 19, and Ashley, 12, befriend escaped slaves. Laura, 22, finds her place as a nurse. Jordan, 25, falls for a beautiful widow. All hope to find peace in the past.Billionaire Robert Devereaux has other ideas. Shortly after Mark's betrayal, he sends an assassin to 1865 to retrieve his property and set matters straight.Filled with romance, suspense, and history, THE LANE BETRAYAL follows a modern American family as it tries to find security and contentment in the final weeks of the Civil War.

Readers' Advisory

:

The Lane Betrayal

is the first novel in a five-part family saga that spans several decades. While some storylines are resolved, others are not. They are addressed in subsequent books.

"A Tour de Force of Historical Fiction" ~Publisher's Weekly BookLife PrizeAmazon Best Seller Literary Biographical FictionToast to Resilience: Madame Pommery's Unyielding Spirit

1860, Reims, France. Grief threatens to consume Alexandrine Pommery's future. Widowed and burdened, she could easily surrender. But a spark ignites within her, a vision of a champagne unlike any other – dry, crisp, a rebellion against the sugary tradition.

Her vision is met with ridicule. "Who would drink such a thing?" But Alexandrine's spirit is unyielding. In the vineyards and cellars, she experiments tirelessly. Each trial, each misstep, fuels the fire of her creation – Pommery Brut, a champagne as dry as her resolve.

The Franco-Prussian War erupts in 1870. Her son and crew march off, leaving Alexandrine to train women in her revolutionary methods. But the Prussian invasion shatters all hope, pillaging her cellars of precious Brut.

Alexandrine refuses to be defeated. She excavates secret caves beneath the city dump, hiding her champagne from the enemy. Her cellars become a refuge, not just for bottles, but for the French resistance.

Amidst the chaos, two men offer her love. One, too young, improper, perhaps even scandalous. The other, a Scottish Baron, promises a castle, a title, a life beyond the relentless toil of champagne. Torn between two men, Alexandrine must find the courage to forge her own path.

Uncork the secrets and taste the audacity of a widow's dream. Experience the unwavering spirit of Madame Pommery.

In the fourteenth century, opportunities for women are limited to the home. But spirited young Madlen finds her calling as assistant to the city’s trusted midwife, Clara. Working alongside Clara, Madlen develops a surprisingly soothing technique and quickly becomes a talented healer.

After Clara’s tragic death, Madlen alone rushes to assist the birth of a local nobleman’s child. But rather than the joy of birth, Madlen walks into an accusation of murder and witchcraft because of her extraordinary gifts. Forced to flee her own town, she establishes a new identity in the home of her aunt. Yet even though it endangers her life, she cannot resist the urge to help the sick patients who seek out her miraculous treatment. When she meets handsome Johannes—an investigator hired by the Church to bring her to justice for sacrilegious acts—she becomes drawn to the very man that could destroy her.

Will Madlen’s gifts bring about her downfall? Or can love and reason prevail in a time of fearful superstition?

A

USA Today

bestseller!

‘a fascinating novel that gives a real sense of life as it might have been during one of the most turbulent periods in Irish history...'

Irish Examiner

Ireland 590 A.D.

Brutally beaten, she's lost her memory and found a new life. If she recovers, will she lose more than she gains? A woman is found by a track, nearly dead from appalling wounds and remembers nothing. Her terror and her injuries are so great that she is given sanctuary in Mother Gobnait's unusual community of nuns, while all around her a war is being waged in which she is a pawn. The women name her Aine.Disturbing fragments of Áine’s memory begin to surface, and in desperation she asks to remain in the safety of the community, but is it really safe for her anywhere? It is only after events take another terrible turn that Áine is forced to discover who she really is and make life-changing choices – but will they prove to be her undoing? A literary novel inspired by real women - complex female characters who strain against the cruel chains and crippling prejudices of a society where no woman has power. Except, perhaps, one…‘a fascinating novel that gives a real sense of life as it might have been during one of the most turbulent periods in Irish history….There is evidence of meticulous research, and it is difficult not to be impressed by how the author manages to blend fiction with legend, keeping faithful to the stories surrounding St Gobnait, but building a narrative against these given details, one that spins off in its own intriguing directions. ..Miss Gleeson’s natural storytelling guile and clear functional prose keeps the focus intact… Ultimately this is a fascinating story, one that not only shines a light on an often overlooked period of Ireland’s past, but also meditates on such fundamental facts of life as identity, family loyalty, love, faith and justice.’ Irish ExaminerKristin Gleeson has performed with admirable deftness the difficult trick of sweeping the reader back in time to the distant emotional and physical landscapes of 6th century Ireland. The result is a highly readable and continuously rewarding novel that the reader does not want to end—Tim Weed, author of "Will Poole’s Island."I found in this well-told story, the first strokes of paint on the huge, mostly blank, canvas that is our image and perception of our Irish or Gaelic past - the canvas of our increasingly dispossessed native culture. I found myself drawn into a realm that felt oddly familiar and full of cultural touchstones of the indigenous Irish past, faint echoes of which still linger in parts of this island today."In Praise of the Bees" is a good read. Guím faoi scáth is dídean Gobnait is Abáin tú – go mairir—Peadar Ó Riada