By Time Divided...Elaine Jeremiah

Happy Halloween to everyone. We have no tricks, but we do have Elaine Jeremiah stopping by, and she has some special treats for us. She is giving away two eBooks, too. How's that for a fun way to end October!

Elaine's latest book, By Time Divided, is the second book in her JA-inspired time travel trilogy. The first book in the trilogy is Love Without Time. Elaine first visited my blog in February of this year. to talk about Love Without Time. If you would like to take a look at that post, click here.

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Thank you for having me on your blog today Janet. I wanted to briefly share some thoughts about the writing of this book, ‘By Time Divided’.

In this second book, I decided to change the location, and the city of Bath was the ideal choice. I know Bath quite well – I’ve lived in the nearby city of Bristol for the best part of 20 years and so I felt qualified to write about it in some detail. It’s still an obviously Regency city, with beautiful buildings and a real atmosphere to it. Visiting Bath is like stepping back in time. That made it easier to imagine how it might have felt to live or visit there in Jane Austen’s time.

Initially I wanted to have my heroine, Cassie, looking for Ted, the twenty-first century man who she got to know in Regency England, and struggling to find him. But somehow, as often happens when writing, the story just developed in my mind and Cassie ends up being told that he’s in Bath, so there’s no desperate search for him.

That doesn’t mean there’s no drama, however. I won’t give the plot away but there’s plenty of trouble in store for Cassie and Ted along the way! Not least of Cassie’s worries is her friend Mia, who’s mentioned in the first book in the trilogy, ‘Love Without Time’, but plays a big role in this second book.

I decided a long time ago that Mia, Cassie’s best friend, would be mixed race – i.e. someone who would be described in the Regency era as a ‘mulatto’ – a derogatory term to us today of course, but how people like Mia would have been referred to at that time. I thought it would be really interesting to have her unexpectedly travel back in time with Cassie to the Regency era – at the end of book one, ‘Love Without Time’, Cassie travels back to the twenty-first century briefly and ‘By Time Divided’ picks up immediately from where the first book ends.

With Mia in the Regency era, it gave me a lot of scope to think about how someone of her race would have been treated back then. Of course, I’ve used my imagination for the interactions between Mia and the Regency characters, but obviously it would have been incredibly hard for someone who wasn’t white back then. They’d be seen as so different and the assumption would be made that they were lesser somehow, lesser humans and therefore not worthy of good treatment or respect.

I found that Mia’s character came into her own and she really helped to drive the plot forward, taking it in directions that I hadn’t at first considered. I love her as a character as well – she’s feisty and straight talking and won’t take the shabby treatment she receives in Regency England lying down.

I do hope you get the chance to read my books and I’d love to know what you think.

Excerpt:

 The weather had turned in Regency England. It was noticeably cooler – and wet. I shivered as I chased after Mia who was charging ahead of me across the lawn towards Westerleigh Hall. I could see that she was now dressed in a pale blue gown complete with a bonnet and pelisse. I didn’t need to glance down at myself to realise that I was too.

The tightness around my middle told me I was wearing a corset once again and I grimaced as I caught up with Mia. Catching hold of her hand, I pulled her around to face me. Confused doesn’t begin to describe the expression on her face, which had a whitish tinge to it instead of its usual honey tones.

‘You weren’t lying were you, Cass?’ she said, her breathing laboured and uneven. She looked down at herself and gasped. I shook my head.

‘I wish I had been.’

‘What are we going to do?’ she wailed. She fell silent, then turned around and began to walk purposefully back towards the woods.

‘If you’re thinking about the gate, I tried that the last time,’ I told her as I hurried to catch up with her. ‘I don’t think it’ll work.’

Mia stopped walking so suddenly I almost banged into her. ‘But you said that you came back through the gate.’ Her tone was accusing.

‘I know. But I couldn’t return to our time when I tried to walk back through it, just after I got here. It wouldn’t work.’ I met her troubled gaze. ‘Mia, I’m so sorry that this has happened.’

Mia closed her eyes, nodding. ‘I know. And I’m not blaming you. But I still want to see if I can get it to open. I’m not giving up yet.’

I sighed. ‘OK.’

Once we found the gate again, looking pristine and brand new as before, Mia tried at least half a dozen times to walk through it and back into the twenty-first century. It didn’t work of course. I kept looking behind me through the trees towards the great house as Mia walked back and forth through the gate, anxiety coursing through me.

‘You’re right,’ Mia said at last, coming to a halt beside me. ‘There’s no way we’re getting back home.’ She sighed and slumped to the ground, disregarding the wet forest floor. I looked down at her, my heart heavy.

‘No there isn’t. At least not yet,’ I told her. Mia buried her head in her hands.

I crouched down next to her, ignoring the corset digging into my ribs. ‘Being stuck in the past may seem terrible now but…’

‘But what?’ came the muffled reply. I said nothing for a moment. In many ways, it was terrible here in Regency England. Corsets, no indoor plumbing, no electricity, no rights for women… There were good sides to it though – if I could remember what they were!

‘It gets easier with time.’ This much was true at least. ‘And it is lovely to see how unspoilt England was. Or rather is. People are more unspoilt here too.’

Mia raised her head. ‘In what way?’

‘Well the girls for one are a lot more innocent. They’re less complicated than in the twenty-first century.’

‘How do you mean? They don’t know about sex?’

‘It’s not that exactly. They don’t know as much as you and me – women are expected to wait till they’re married to have sex – but they’re not completely clueless about the opposite sex and relationships.’

‘So what is it?’

‘I guess it’s something to do with society’s expectations on them. You know, they don’t have a formal education like the men, and much of what they learn is training on how to be a dutiful wife…’

‘Sounds bloody awful!’

I grinned. ‘Yeah, I s’pose it is. But what I’m trying to say is that in many ways it’s a simpler life. For men and women. There’s no electricity for one thing, which means no electric lighting, no washing machines or dishwashers and certainly no internet.’

‘So no Facebook or Twitter.’

‘Exactly. Less pressure on people in many ways. Or at least there is pressure, but a different kind.’ I held out my hand to Mia. ‘Come on, get up. You’ll ruin that dress and we need to get indoors. The rain’s getting heavier.’

Mia grabbed hold of my hand. ‘Look at you, calling the shots,’ she said as she stood up. ‘I’m impressed.’ She gave me a half-smile and seemed less subdued, following me as I made my way out of the woods and back onto the massive lawn. 

Blurb:

Having accidentally time travelled to Regency England, Jane Austen fan Cassie Taylor finds herself unexpectedly back in the twenty-first century. But everything has changed. She’s been missing for three weeks and her parents are upset and disbelieving when she tells them where she’s been. The police aren’t too pleased either.

Cassie’s best friend Mia doubts the story, yet stands by her friend. And then the unthinkable happens when both of them end up in Regency England. Now Cassie has an even bigger problem: Mia is mixed race and they’re stuck in an era where the slave trade has only just been abolished. Cassie must somehow explain herself to her Regency friends – why she vanished and who her friend is. She also needs to find Ted, the love of her life.

How will Cassie manage to protect Mia from the insults of Regency people who see her as worthless? And how will she ever find a way for her and Ted and Mia to finally return home?

Author Bio:

Elaine lives in Bristol, South West England with her husband and their golden retriever, Dug. But she was privileged enough to grow up in Jane Austen country, in Hampshire.

She’s always loved writing, but it’s only been in recent years that she’s been able to devote more time to it. She decided to self-publish with the help of her wonderful husband who’s very tech-savvy! In 2013 she self-published her first novel, but it was only with her fourth, her novel ‘Love Without Time’, that she felt she finally found her niche: Jane Austen Fan Fiction!

She’s always loved Jane Austen’s writing and the Regency era, so this felt like a natural thing for her to do. ‘Love Without Time’ is the first in a trilogy best described as a Jane Austen-inspired time travel romance. ‘By Time Divided’ is the second book in the trilogy.

If you want to connect with Elaine online, her Facebook page can be found here:

https://www.facebook.com/elainejeremiahauthor/

Her Twitter handle is: @ElaineJeremiah

Her website is here: https://elainejeremiah.co.uk/

‘Love Without Time’ is available from Amazon.com here: http://amzn.to/2DxRPHO

It’s also available from Amazon UK here: http://amzn.to/2Dywq0y

‘By Time Divided’ is on Amazon.com here: https://amzn.to/2YEKzzH

It’s on Amazon UK here: https://amzn.to/2KokZtv

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It is so good to have you visit again, Elaine. It is always a pleasure having you stop by. Thank you for sharing the excerpt with us and sharing some of your thoughts about writing this second book. I look forward to seeing the last book in the trilogy, and I hope you will come back then. Best wishes with this second book.

 Giveaway:

Elaine Jeremiah is giving away one eBook of her first book, Love Without Time, and one eBook of her latest, By Time Divided. That's right, Dear Readers. Elaine is giving away two eBooks. Isn't that awesome! Thank you, for your generosity, Elaine. I know my readers are appreciative. Good luck to everyone. The giveaway is international and will end at midnight on the 5th of November. Please make sure I have a way of reaching you.