Saturday, November 9, 2019

Saturday's Series Spotlight: Lost in Time by AL Lester


The Gate #.5
Summary:
It's 1918, and Matty returns home to the family farm from the trenches only to find his brother Arthur dying of an unknown illness. The local doctor thinks it might be cancer, but Matty becomes convinced it's connected to the mysterious books his brother has left strewn around the house.

Matty confides his suspicions in his friend Rob, a hired hand on the farm and potential lover. Rob has found something that looks like a gate of some kind, something Arthur referenced in his papers which may rest at the heart of his illness. But a gate to where?

This short story introduces the world and characters in A.L. Lester's novel, Lost in Time.

Lost in Time #1
Summary:
Lew’s life is pleasantly boring until his friend Mira messes with magic she doesn't understand. While searching for her, he is pulled back in time to 1919 by a catastrophic magical accident. As he tries to navigate a strange time and find his friend in the smoky music clubs of Soho, the last thing he needs is D etective Alec Carter suspecting him of murder.

London in 1919 is cold, wet, and tired from four years of war. Alec is back in the Metropolitan Police after slogging out his army service on the Western Front. Falling for a suspect in a gruesome murder case is not on his agenda, however attractive he finds the other man.

They are both floundering and out of their depth, struggling to come to terms with feelings they didn’t ask for and didn’t expect. Both have secrets that could get them arrested or killed. In the middle of a murder investigation that involves wild magic, mysterious creatures, and illegal sexual desire, who is safe to trust?

Shadows on the Border #2
Summary:
Newspaper reporter Lew Tyler and his lover, Detective Alec Carter, are working out the parameters of their new relationship. Meanwhile, time traveler Lew is trying to decide whether he wants to stay in the 1920s or find a way to get back to 2016, and Alec doesn’t know if he can bear the vulnerability of being in love with someone who uses such dangerous magic.

Fenn is a Hunter from the Outlands, come through the Border to search for the murderous Creature and its offspring at the behest of the Ternants, who maintain the balance between Fenn’s world and ours. Fenn strikes a bond with Sergeant Will Grant, Alec’s second in command, who is keen to learn more about his own magical abilities. As time goes on, Will grows keen to learn more about Fenn, as well.

Fenn has their own painful secret, and when they appear to have betrayed the team and goes missing in London, Will is devastated. He has to choose between following his heart or following his duty.

Moving through the contrasting rich and poor areas of post-First World War London from West End hotels to the London docklands, the men need to work together to capture the Creature ... and choose who – and what -- is important enough to hold on to and what they may need to give up to make that happen.

The Gate #.5
Original Review January 2018:
As much as I enjoyed Lost in Time, I think I found this short story that introduces the reader to the world that brings Lew back to 1919 in Lost to be even better.  I didn't like it better because it is shorter or because it has different characters, no I found it appealed to my historical side a bit more.  As a 24/7 caregiver for my mother, I was also drawn to Matty's care of his brother upon returning from the war.  Perhaps it is these elements that I found myself giving this short story a slightly higher rating than Lost.  The Gate is a lovely look at post-war readjustment and the love Matty has for his brother as well as his attraction to Rob but its also a well written and clever introduction to the time-travel and magical elements that are further explored in Lost in Time.

RATING: 

Lost in Time #1
Original Review January 2018:
When Lew's friend, Mira, went missing he knew he had to find her at whatever the cost.  Well that cost was waking up in 1919.  Not only does Lew search for Mira but he also finds himself in the middle of a gruesome murder investigation.  The attraction between Lew and the lead investigator, Detective Alec Carter, is something neither man asked for but exists all the same.  As Lew learns to navigate through the past and Alec learns to readjust to civilian life after four years of blood, mud, and death in the trenches will they solve the mystery, find happiness, and discover a love that is illegal in the eyes of the law?

I want to start off by saying that most of you know I don't do spoilers but I even do less of them when it comes to mysteries and paranormals because even tiny little "throwaway" factors can be huge tip-offs.  What I will say in regard to the plot is I found it to be ingenious.  I always enjoy time-travel stories more where it happens more due to paranormal/magic than science, I think it just adds a special element that can actually heighten the mystery and even might border on horror.

As for the characters, they intrigued me and kept my interest from beginning to end.  I loved Lew's dedication to finding Mira, personally I don't know that I would have been able to keep my focus if I woke up in 1919 nearly a hundred years in the past.  As for Alec, despite having returned from four bloody years of war he is able to adjust somewhat "normally" back to civilian life.  That's not to say either character doesn't have issues with their circumstances but it makes them that much more rounded and believable.

Finally, I should note that there are some grammatical errors that some might find off putting or have issue with, but for this reader I did not.  Perhaps its because I tend to just mentally fix them as I read or perhaps I like to put my focus on the story and AL Lester's Lost in Time kept me intrigued from the first page to the last.  I look forward to what this new author brings us next.

RATING: 

Shadows on the Border #2
Original Review November 2019:
So I'm not going to say too much about Shadows on the Borders because not only do I not want to spoil this story I don't want to risk spoiling the first book, Lost in Time.  I will say that as much as I loved the first entry and the free short, The Gate, which introduces you to the Lost in Time world, I think I loved Shadows even more.  Not a statement I often make when it comes to a series, sure I usually like the following entries as well but rarely better.

Lew and Alec are adjusting though they aren't what I would call "settled" in their lives, which I always find welcoming to see couples continue to grow both together and individually and let's face it when one of the pair is from 2016 and the other is from 1919 there is always going to be growth๐Ÿ˜‰, no matter when they end up.  Fenn and Will are another intriguing pairing that made an interesting addition to this time-travel world of magic that is throughout the Lost in Time series. 

I still love the blending of paranormal, mystery, historical, and romance.  When stories have time-travel or paranormal elements sometimes history isn't explored well or even an alternative universe is created but the post-war fears and growth of the early 1920s is not only well written but at times you almost forget that you are sitting in 2019 reading the story of the past.  I was able to lose myself in the pages so deeply that I almost expected to look up and find my television gone.  Are there a few liberties taken?  Of course, Shadows is a time-travel/paranormal story afterall but you can still feel the author's healthy respect for the past.

One last thing: this really is a series that must be read in order, perhaps the free short, The Gate doesn't have to be read first but Lost in Time definitely needs to be experienced before jumping into Shadows on the Border.  I sure hope this isn't the last we've seen of this world by AL Lester but if it is, the friendship, the romance, the mystery, the time-travel adjusting, the history . . . well it's all here and will definitely be one I enjoy and re-visit again.

RATING:


The Gate #.5
The tap at the kitchen door took him unaware and he carried the bottle of brandy out with him to answer it. It was Rob. Matty stepped back in silent invitation and let him in. "All right?" Rob asked, quietly.

"Not really. Do you want a drink?" Matty gestured to the bottle he'd set on the table.

Rob looked at him with narrowed eyes and nodded. "I'll join you." He'd been promoted up to sergeant in the Signal Corp, Matty remembered, in a disconnected sort of way.

"Come on through. I was in his study."

Rob hesitated. The farm men never came any farther into the house than the kitchen. But it was an unusual day. In front of the sideboard, Matty slopped some more out of the bottle into another dusty glass and proffered it. Rob took it and sat where Matty gestured, on the worn leather settee. Neither spoke. It was a comfortable kind of silence.

He and Rob had always got on, in the way of single men. They'd gone to the pub together sometimes and taken a couple of local sisters on Courting Walks through the bluebell woods as a pair, a long time ago. Matty hadn't been particularly interested in Marie Booth and he didn't think Rob had been much interested in her sister Clemmie, either, probably for the same reason. Matty had made sure never to look at him like that, though. He didn't need that sort of trouble on his doorstep.

But now he really looked at the other man, comfortably sprawled opposite him. Looking back, they'd been inseparable. Four years of muddling through in the trenches and taking soldier's comfort in a few minutes here and there, furtive and messy behind the lines, had snapped something in him. He didn't really care overmuch what people thought of him, not anymore. And he suspected a lot of other people were the same. When you'd had boys too young to be away from their mothers die in your arms, you learned to grasp for any comfort or happiness when it appeared and damn the consequences.

"I was just checking on you." Rob said quietly. "I can go if you like."

"No, don't go. I appreciate the company. I just haven't got much talk left in me."

"No need to talk with me, Matty, you know that." Rob's smile was slight but genuine. He turned to small talk. "Cows are milked. I left the churns in the dairy, though. It's too warm to put them out tonight. We'll need to do something about the back of the barn before the winter. There's gaps of light coming in through that red stone wall. The brick's crumbling away."

They made desultory conversation for a half hour and Matty's eyes started to droop. "You need to sleep, lad." He could hear a small, genuine smile in Rob's voice.

"I do." He stood and put his glass on the sideboard. "Thank you."

"Any time. Just ask. Whatever you need." Rob stood quietly beside him, stalwart and solid and so very comforting. They faced each other. Rob raised his hand to the back of Matty's neck and Matty stepped forward into the embrace. Rob's other arm came around him and settled him, forehead against that broad shoulder, smelling of hay and good sweat. It was such a relief to have someone else take his weight for a little while. Neither moved. After a little while, Matty felt Rob press a soft kiss against the top of his head. He was hard in his corduroys, against Matty's hip, and Matty felt himself stirring in response. "Get some sleep. It'll all look different in the morning." The arms fell away with a passing caress to his nape and they stepped apart.

Lost in Time #1
He parked the department's Model-T on the small lane off Hackney High Street where Tyler indicated and followed the man up a flight of steps from a small courtyard, behind what looked like a laundry. Tyler unlocked the door and looked at him. "Come in. You can wait in here." He threw his damp cap and 'cycle goggles onto a table that clearly served for kitchen and dining, shucked his coat and gestured to a battered settee in front of a cold grate. "Would you like a drink?" He was un-stoppering a half-full bottle of whisky and sloshing it into two glasses as he spoke.

Alec shut the door and leaned back against it, his arms folded. "How did you know him?"

He kept his gaze uncompromising.

The hand holding the bottle froze in mid-air and then very carefully replaced it on the counter. "I didn't know him."

The stopper of the bottle was replaced with deliberation.

"Rubbish."

Silence.

"Do you want me to take you down to Wapping for questioning?"

More silence. Tyler lifted the glass and took a long slug. He turned to face Alec and Alec suddenly realized that he could have read the young man incorrectly and that he was face to face with the killer. He wasn't as young as he had initially thought, now Alec was looking at him with a professional eye, and his hands and arms were sinewy and muscled where he'd undone his sleeves. His eyes were dark-chocolate colored, shot through with lighter hazel -- almost gold -- hooded and wary; and there was a smear of what looked like blood on his fingers where he was gripping the glass and another on his cheek. He told himself that Tyler couldn't have killed the man -- he'd have been covered in blood, the way the throat had been ripped out. But he knew the victim. Alec was sure of it.

Tyler raised the glass again and tossed the rest of the contents back; then turned and went to refill it. Alec caught himself watching the play of his shoulders under his shirt and a little frisson of desire shivered through him. Hell. That was the last thing he needed.

Tyler turned back to Alec, both glasses in hand and caught him looking. He held one out to him, clearly dismissing what he'd seen. "Do you want this?"

Alec unfolded from the door and took it. He gestured to the other man's fingers. "You touched him."

He said it flatly, not a question.

"Yes."

Another pause. Tyler stared into his glass and Alec drank some of his. The bite of the spirit steadied him a little.

"Why?"

"Just as I was setting up the shot. Not deliberately."

Again, he was lying.

Alec stepped toward the small table where Tyler had put down his camera kit and placed his glass down with a deliberate clunk on the surface. Then he took off his hat and his coat and threw them over the chair-back of one of the mismatched wooden dining chairs before he took another drink.

"Get going with the pictures, then."

Let it play out, he told himself. Wait. Just let it play out.

He sat down on the battered settee, crossed his arms, and stretched his legs out, tilting his head back against the cushions and keeping eye contact with Tyler all the time. Tyler threw back the remains of his second drink and picked up his kit.

"Dark room's through there," he muttered, gesturing at a door. "Not much space in there."

"I'll wait here." Alec was laconic.

He was more tired than he thought -- a long day followed by two hours sleep, then being woken again by Grant when the call came in. It was pleasant sitting in the relatively warm flat, listening to the rain outside. It was proper rain now rather than the dank drizzle of earlier and he thought absently to himself that anything left at the scene would be washed away by the time he could get back there to have another look. His eyes started to droop and he let them, lulled by the sound.

Shadows on the Border #2
That cloud of gold around Fenn and Mira ... that was what Lew experienced all the time? It was both marvelous and terrifying. He knew, intellectually, that the only reason Mira was alive after being savaged by the Creature when it escaped in the winter was because she had been able, in some way, to Pull magic from the Border to heal herself enough to survive. It was completely another thing to actually watch it happening.

Her skin had changed under his eyes from an unhealthy grayish tinge to the radiant brown of a healthy woman. That was the thing that had been the most amazing and terrifying to watch. He was sure that other things had happened as well -- it was supposed to be a healing for her damaged voice, after all -- but that was the visual marker he had taken away.

Alec was terrified.

If Fenn could do that, if Lew and Grant could do that, what else could they do? Over the last few months, Alec’s main fear had become losing Lew. But over the last week, he had also had moments of being scared of him as well as for him. His emotions were all mixed up and it wasn’t a comfortable feeling.

It seemed to Alec as if all the Workers surrounding him were in the dark about the limits and boundaries of the magic they used so blithely. Alec felt like a man trapped in a darkened room with dangerous things moving around him that he was unable to see to protect himself from. And the people he cared about could see the danger. But they didn’t perceive it as the danger it was.

Alec couldn’t convince them there even was a danger. They saw it as a formula ... so long as you didn’t Pull too much from The Border, you were safe. So long as you didn’t attract a Creature, you were safe. So long as you didn’t put a foot outside the complex and vague rules you had been taught by rote so long ago that you didn’t even remember what they were for, you were safe.

Alec was angry. He was angry with himself, for not being able to see what the others could see. Were their lives always lit up like the hospital room had been downstairs just now? Why wasn’t Alec’s world lit up like that all the time? How come none of them had told him how beautiful it could be? Why should Alec be missing out on that when the people he cared about could share it? Just with each other. Not with him.

And he was angry with Lew. Lew had all this power. All these abilities. Why should he want to stay with Alec? When he could use all that beautiful golden magic to travel back to his own time, to a place where he wouldn’t have to hide that he wanted to be with a man?

Alec was angry with Grant. Grant had been his friend since Alec had come home from France in ‘18. They’d had an immediate bond. But Grant had failed to tell him that this other, ephemeral world of magic existed. And now Grant seemed to be obsessed with Fenn ... this fey, liminal creature who was able to act as a focus for all this power that flowed through the people Alec loved. And whose motives Alec didn’t understand and didn’t trust.

He allowed Max to steer him out of Miss Fonteyne’s room and to his office upstairs. It was a largish, comfortable room that doubled as a consulting room. Max guided him all the way with a hand in the small of his back, not allowing him to stop, opening the door with one hand whilst the other grasped Alec’s elbow and then steered him to one of the armchairs around a low table.

The room smelled of smoke -- Max had a predilection for obnoxious cigars -- and there was a brandy decanter and cut-crystal glasses on the table. As Alec sank in to the low chair, Max let go of him and reached for the brandy bottle. He didn’t bother to ask who wanted any, just filled five glasses with two fingers each and passed them out.

Alec watched as Fenn slumped into the armchair she had chosen. She tilted her head back and closed her eyes. Alec’s perception shifted. One minute there was the woman Alec usually saw Fenn as, sprawled in the chair, at rest. The next, a tall, elegant man with strong features and long lashes that fell against his cheek sat in the seat opposite. Alec blinked and the feminine Fenn he recognized was back again. He turned his gaze away and looked at Lew.

Author Bio:
A. L. Lester likes to read. Her favorite books are post-apocalyptic dystopian romances full of suspense, but a cornflake packet will do there's nothing else available. The gender of the characters she likes to read (and write) is pretty irrelevant so long as they are strong, interesting people on a journey of some kind.

She has a chaotic family life and small children, and she has become the person in the village who looks after the random animals people find in the road. She is interested in permaculture gardening and anything to do with books, reading, technology and history. She lives in a small village in rural Somerset and is seriously allergic to both rabbits and Minecraft.


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The Gate #.5
๐Ÿ’ซ๐Ÿ‘Free short story๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿ’ซ
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Lost in Time #1
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Shadows on the Border #2
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