April showers bring May flowers, but in the meantime, we need something to do when the clouds let go of their heavy burdens.

Enter my book club pick for the month, "A Time Traveler's Masquerade", by Sian Ann Bessey.

"Romance blossoms when Isla Crawford steps into McQuivey’s Costume Shop in London and is swept back in time to 1605, where she and Lord Bancroft attempt to thwart Guy Fawkes’s Gunpowder Plot.

One moment, Isla Crawford is inside McQuivey’s Costume Shop trying on a Jacobean-style gown for the parliamentary Autumn Ball, and the next, she is standing in an unfamiliar garden, barefoot, coatless, and at the mercy of a fierce storm. Confused, she seeks refuge in a Tudor manor, where she discovers that she has inexplicably traveled back to 1605, mere weeks before the culmination of Guy Fawkes’s infamous Gunpowder Plot.

Simon Hartworth, Lord Bancroft, finds his orderly seventeenth-century life disrupted when a mysterious woman appears on his sister’s doorstep during a storm. Intrigued by the stranger’s quirks and bewildering speech, he feels compelled to protect her and heed her warnings about a fatal plot against Parliament. As Simon is drawn into Isla’s dangerous scheme to stop the evildoers, he can’t help but also feel drawn to her."

How will Isla get back home to her own time? Does she want to? Will she unknowingly alter the course of history? Four centuries out of place, thrust into the midst of a treasonous plot, her heart and her head aren’t always in sync with one another.

A fantastic fantasy, perfect for an Easter basket and for an afternoon when spring rains keep us out of of the garden but a book can transport us to another time and place!

Find your copy here: A Time Traveler's Masquerade

A Kingdom To Claim

Ready to escape reality for a little bit, letting the noise of the world fade into the background, and the roar and excitment of a Viking battle take its place? My book club pick for July will take you there!

“A Kingdom To Claim”, by Sian Ann Bessey, will immerse you in ancient culture, clashes, and a kingdom on the brink.

Wessex, AD 878

“Aisley’s young life was changed forever when her father accompanied King Alfred into battle and lost his life in a deadly skirmish with the Vikings. Now, almost seven years later, the Vikings are once again rallying on Wessex’s borders, and Aisley fears that her older brother may have treacherous plans to betray the king by aligning himself with the invading Norsemen. But when Aisley encounters a handsome nobleman in the market, she feels the first stirrings of hope. Though they met only once when Aisley was a little more than a child, she recognizes him immediately as one of King Alfred’s most trusted men.”

I enjoy my life so much, especially the chaotic parts, but I still need an escape every once in a while. Books, more than anything else, provide it. A few pages into “A Kingdom To Claim” and I am walking in Aisley shoes, sharing her doubts and desires, experiencing her insights and feelings as she practices her healing arts, falls in love, and fights for the future of her Saxon home.

Welsh born, Idaho state resident, author Sian Ann Bessey, transports us to a time and a place that is the stuff of legends, but really DID exist.

The lives of the Viking and Saxon people during the time of King Alfred’s reign, and the Viking invasions of the British Isles will fascinate you as it does me. Rich in detail and masterfully told, “A Kingdom To Claim” is historical fiction at it’s best.

The Time Traveler's Masquerade | April Book Club