Monday, May 29, 2023
🗽Monday's Memorial Moment(Memorial Day Edition)🗽: Heroes for Ghosts by Jackie North
Love Across Time #1
Soulmates across time. A sacrifice that could keep them apart forever.
In present day, near the village of Ornes, France, Devon works on his master's thesis in history as he fantasizes about meeting a WWI American Doughboy.
In 1916, during the Battle of Ornes, Stanley is a young soldier facing the horrors of the battlefield.
Mourning the death of his friends from enemy fire, Stanley volunteers to bring the message for retreat so he can save everyone else in his battalion. While on his mission, mustard gas surrounds Stanley and though he thinks he is dying, he finds himself in a peaceful green meadow where he literally trips over Devon.
Devon doesn't believe Stanley is who he says he is, a soldier from WWI. But a powerful attraction grows between them, and if Stanley is truly a visitor from the past, then he is Devon's dream come true. The problem is, Stanley's soul wants to finish his mission, and time keeps yanking him back to relive his fateful last morning over and over, even as his heart and body long to stay with Devon.
Will Stanley have to choose between Devon and saving his battalion? Will time betray their love, leaving each alone?
A male/male time travel romance, complete with hurt/comfort, French coffee, warm blankets, fireplace kisses, the angst of separation, and true love across time.
This was brought to my attention when I asked in a FB M/M book rec group for stories with a similar concept to the movie Groundhog Day, the whole repeating the day over scenario. When I also learned this had a WW1 element, I was all kinds of grabby hands. I was not disappointed.
I have to start off by saying this: I don't often make mentions of details in stories because I'm a spoiler-free reviewer but this isn't a spoiler, this is more of a feeling, a reason why I'm a history lover. When Devon is wobbly about his thesis, about telling the story, wondering if anyone will care, Stanley's answer is spot on how I feel about history and why it's an important subject and why everyone needs to learn it.
“The whole thing is stupid,” said Devon. “After everything you’ve been through. After hearing about it from you and having you show me the trenches, telling me about that guy who lost his leg—which isn’t in the records anywhere—because you were there, and you suffered for it. For me to write a paper about it, it’s like I’m benefiting from that without having paid the price.”The twisted feelings that had started when Stanley had shown up on the green grasses that were all that was left of a disastrous battle had risen to the surface, and he’d said them aloud. He could barely look at Stanley with this confession ringing in the air. His constant awareness about the futility of war was only the half of it. The other half was the loss that war brought, inexplicable and never-ceasing, and Stanley had been the one to go through that. Not Devon.“But you’re telling the story,” said Stanley as he stood up and came over to Devon, so close that as he took a step forward, Devon found himself against the wall. “You’re telling all of our stories, mine, Isaac’s, everybody’s.”“Nobody will care,” said Devon. His voice broke on the last word because he realized that it was true. None of his friends cared, and his thesis advisor had strongly suggested he focus on another aspect of the Great War. In the end he was alone, except for Stanley, who could be dragged back through time at any moment.“I care,” said Stanley. “And you care. You can put the stuff that I told you in your paper, and then one day, somebody will read it. It’ll matter to somebody, someday.”
Now, I know the whole time-travel sub-genre gives this historical a fantasy twist but this moment in time, this exchange the author gives between the two men is so important, it really resonated with me, it's how I have felt whenever someone says "why do I need to know, it happened years ago to people I don't know". Their actions had a bearing on life today, time is what connects us all but most importantly, those souls of yesteryear, be it on the world stage or your own family tree, lived, they mattered and those stories need to live on. In these few paragraphs that I shared the author put voice to the importance more than anything I've ever read before. For that alone, I have to say a huge "Thank You" to Jackie North.
Okay, off my soapbox and onto the story.
HOLY HANNAH BATMAN!!! How have I not seen this series before? How did it not cross my reading path? Heroes for Ghosts is a brilliant tale of history, fantasy, science fiction, romance, and drama with characters that are likeable, loveable, wanting-to-know-able, I'll be honest it ticks every single one of my reading boxes. I've read historical paranormal/supernatural/fantasies before but too often the historical element gets lost in the world of fantasy so for Jackie North to combine all these factors AND keep the historical accuracies is just pure . . . well it's magical(and I'm not talking about the time-travel bit😉).
Devon is a history lover after my own heart, thesis or not if I didn't have family keeping me grounded now, the idea of going to the place history happened and living in a mostly state of seclusion to do the research sounds absolutely heavenly. I can also honestly say, if I came across Stanley the way Devon did, my mind would be a bit teeter-totter as to believing him and worried he escaped from an institution too. I don't see how anyone couldn't love either of these men, they are just so real and wonderfully written, there is no doubt to this reader they have to have their HEA. If you follow me you'll know what my next statement will be: to see how the men get there you'll have to experience their journey for yourself.
And what a journey it is! You won't regret it, historical lover or not, if you love an old fashion journey of storytelling than this is for you.
I'll add that this is my first Jackie North and it certainly won't be my last because if her backlist is only half as good as Heroes for Ghosts than it will still be a pleasure to dive in.
Chapter One
A mortar shell exploded at the far end of the trench, spraying black debris that slammed into the mud and sent up the acrid odor of burnt tar and hot, damp earth. Stanley hunkered down with mud up to his ankles, his backside pressed against the broken end of a mortar gun, his hands on his helmet as his body shook with the force of the blast. He tried to stem his tears as Lieutenant Billings stabbed at the radio with a bit of metal wiring to see if he could get it to work again. Between the mortar rounds, the radio responded with squawks and low pitched shrieks and then went quiet.
If the radio had been even six feet to the left, it would have been safe from being torn apart by the shell that had directly hit the trench mid-morning. And if Bertie, Isaac, and Rex had been on the other side of Stanley when that shell had hit, then they would be alive. Then he would have had someone to worry with, someone who would bolster his courage so he could respond to Lt. Billings’ earlier request.
He missed his friends, but he wanted to be brave for them now. Lt. Billings needed a volunteer to run across the trenches and the misty, frost-bitten fields to contact the major in charge to get the final message for retreat. The battalion needed a retreat or all of the 200 men were going to be smashed to bloody bits and their families would not hear from them come Christmas.
It was horrible. Stanley wondered how he ever imagined that signing up and shipping off would be an adventure worth having, something he could tell everybody about back home. There was no way he could convey the tragedy of it, the futility of a radio that didn’t work, of trying not to look at the bodies of his friends that were currently beneath a tarp for decency’s sake.
Whether there would be a break in the shelling so that they could be buried was anybody’s guess; the way it had been going, they would likely get frozen in place, spattered with mud and bits of shrapnel, and nobody would be able to bury them till spring. By which time, the war would be over, or they’d all be dead. Or both.
Stanley was shaking all over, and told himself it was because he was trying to warm his body up, but that was another futility, a lie he could barely hold on to. The Germans were coming closer with each passing hour. The shells were louder and more on target, and soon they would die. All of the battalion’s efforts would come to nothing, and Stanley would be another body beneath a tarp, and nobody would have the energy to bury him.
He would become part of the landscape, part of the stretch of brown mud and red blood, decorated with torn limbs. The uniform he wore so proudly would turn into the tattered remnants of desire to do good, to fight for one’s country, and to keep families and children and grandmothers safe. At least that’s what the recruitment posters had stated, and behind every one had been the American flag, rippling with patriotism and an overwhelming urgency.
Stanley had signed up alone, but had soon met his three friends during training. They’d stuck together, sharing the burden of fear, bolstering each other up, proud to fight and do right. Only it was wrong, so, so wrong because what was happening seemed to be for no reason at all, and everything they did as a battalion felt like they were merely going through the motions.
Men kept dying, though the sudden silence across the top of the trenches indicated that the Germans seemed to have let up for the moment. Which left Stanley alone with Lt. Billings, and on the verge of blubbering. He was shaking with the effort of not crying, though his face was hot with tears he kept having to blink away as he tried to focus on what Lt. Billings was doing.
“The wire goes under,” said Stanley with a croak. “Under on the left.”
“Oh, yes?” asked Lt. Billings. His voice was gruff.
He didn’t look at Stanley, all of his attention on the radio. He moved the wire as Stanley had suggested, and while this brought a sound from the transmitter, it ended in another ineffectual squawk.
The worst of it was that Stanley had previously thought the radio was too much in the open and ought to be moved, just in case. He’d not wanted to step on Lt. Billings’ toes, though, as the lieutenant had only just taken over from Colonel Helmer, and had not said anything.
Helmer had been the worst commander anybody had ever seen, and the muttered comments among the enlisted men had almost grown into a roar. Though Stanley might have given him some leeway, due to his age, Colonel Helmer had taken the coward’s way, run off in the night, and had not been heard from since. With the tenseness among the men, Stanley hadn’t wanted to point out that the radio was in harm’s way. It might have been seen as a challenge to the order of command, which was the last thing that Stanley wanted to do.
He’d refrained from talking about Helmer, and had generally kept his mouth shut. But if he’d not done that, if he’d given into his natural proclivities to think with his mouth open, they might have a radio now, might already be in an officially sanctioned retreat, and Rex, and Bertie, and Isaac would not be dead. They’d be beside him as they all scuttled to the rear of the battle and clambered into trucks to be taken to somewhere a bit safer than where they were.
It was all his fault, then. All of it. His lungs felt as though they were running out of air, and his belly dipped so hard he thought he might shit himself in fear. The only thing for it was to do something so that it didn’t get worse. And that meant answering Lt. Billings’ question from earlier that morning.
“Sir?” asked Stanley, though he realized that his voice was too soft to be heard. “Sir?” he asked again, more loudly this time.
“It just sparked,” said Lt. Billings, completely focused on the radio. “If I move that wire again, I’m going to fry this fucking thing.”
Stanley scrambled up from where he was, his boots slipping on the mud as he surged forward to land on his knees at Lt. Billings’ side.
“Sir, I’ll go,” said Stanley. “I’ll take the message and bring the code back.”
Lt. Billings’ hands froze in the midst of what he was doing, and then he slowly turned his head. The lieutenant’s eyes were red-rimmed, and his face was be-grimed with smoke and mud that seemed to have pushed its way into his skin. He didn’t smile as he looked at Stanley, and his expression was grim.
“You might not come back,” said Lt. Billings. “In fact it’s a death sentence. Do you want that?”
Lt. Billings was so unlike Commander Helmer in every way; Stanley knew that it was a death sentence, so Lt. Billings, not one to suffer fools, was making sure that Stanley knew exactly what he was getting into. A zigzag run across a field of dead bodies, horse carcasses, guns, gouged earth, and barbed wire, all the while dodging bullets and shrapnel and mustard gas.
“There’s no other way,” said Stanley. He wiped his hand across his upper lip, and took a hard breath, feeling his metal ID tag like a circle of cold ice in the middle of his throat. “You said so this morning. If we don’t get the order to retreat, we’re all going to die. Right here in this trench.”
He did not add that they could retreat anyway, without the order, and save a whole lot of lives. But Lt. Billings was a seasoned army officer, and while he might take it upon himself to take control of a battalion that was currently officer-less, it was not in his makeup to call such a command without a direct order.
Stanley could try to convince Lt. Billings to overstep his authority, but that would only get everyone irritated, and as they were all so edgy already, it would be the worst way he could contribute. The best thing for him to do, besides throw himself on a land mine, was to step up and volunteer. It wouldn’t bring his friends back, but it would give their deaths meaning. Or would it? At any rate, it would be better than sitting with his ass in the mud watching Lt. Billings mess with equipment in a way that was probably making it worse. If only Stanley had spoken up and told him to move the radio.
If only Stanley had told his friends to sit someplace other than where they had. If only Stanley had been born at a different time, and had missed this stupid war entirely. One hundred years ago or a hundred years from now, it made no difference to him. But he was here now, and he needed to do his best for the sake of his friends’ memory.
He stood up and made an ineffectual pass at the front of his wool sweater vest. He winced as his fingers touched dried blood, the source of which he didn’t want to identify, but which had been the spatter from Rex’s head as it exploded. Rex would have gone with him, big and silent and close as they crossed the field of battle to carry the message.
“I’ll go,” said Stanley.
Lt. Billings stood up too, though he didn’t reach out to shake Stanley’s hand. Stanley was glad about the lack of the gesture because that would have truly meant that Lt. Billings did not expect him to return, but was only sending him out because there was nobody else who would go.
“Find Major Walker,” said Lt. Billings. “Give him half the message, and he’ll know I need the other half. He’ll tell you what that is, and when I have the whole message I can call retreat. Tell him I sent you, you got all that?”
“Yes, sir,” said Stanley. His heart was thumping in his chest, threatening to push its way out, and his knees started to knock together. “I’ll bring the message back, I promise.”
“It’s a foolish thing to make such promises,” said Lt. Billings. He shook his head, and looked down at the busted radio before looking up at Stanley. His expression was so deep and serious that Stanley knew he was going to die the minute he stepped out of the trench. The alternative, however, was to stay in the trench and watch while his friends’ bodies froze in the mud, taking his heart with them as they became one with the earth, and that he could not bear.
“Here’s a canteen and here’s your rifle,” said Lt. Billings. “You might need to kill some Krauts, and you won’t believe how thirsty you can get when you’re running hard, terrified enough to piss your uniform.”
Stanley took the canteen and looped it over his neck and shoulder, then hung the rifle across his chest in the other direction. He wasn’t exactly armed to the teeth, but he had a pouch of bullets and could give somebody a run for their money. After that, he’d be out of bullets and dead in a ditch somewhere.
He couldn’t think about that now. He needed to go over the top and start running. The major would be in a trench at the back of the field, at least that was the general idea in most battles.
“That way, right?” asked Stanley. He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb.
“More over that way,” said Lt. Billings. “Straight across and then over. He’ll be in the right quadrant. You won’t see any flags, but it’s going to have more sandbags and look a damn sight tidier than where we are now.”
“Yes, sir,” said Stanley.
He straightened up and gave Lt. Billings the most efficient salute he’d ever managed, out of respect. Then, not allowing himself one last glimpse at the pile of bodies at the end of the trench, he pushed his way past the three soldiers who were manning a Howitzer that was almost out of shells, and climbed up the ladder.
Stanley slipped at the bottom rung, and was tempted to call it done then and there. For the memory of Isaac, Rex, and Bertie, and all the others, he made himself go up and up till he was standing on top of the ridge, looking over the dip in the earth that ran next to the ruined castle and the small cottage whose roof was half gone.
The sprawl of barbed wire along the top of each trench was intertwined with the dark flags of smoke that twisted and moved as though it was alive. The sun was a smudge through the brown and black haze, and the smell of hot oil and human excrement shot itself into his lungs with his first breath. The air was cold and it seemed as though frost speckled the air like little bits of diamonds made half yellow by the smoke from fires and the general exhalation of despair and gloom and death. Stanley watched a shell explode a hundred feet to his left, turned the other way, and started running.
The idea was to get out of the line of fire, for that was where the major was to be found. The easiest way was to follow the line of trenches, to run inside of them, along the bottom, and make his way there. He started to run, his canteen bouncing, his rifle banging into his thigh the whole while.
At the edge of the trenches were the round tops of helmets. Beneath those glimmered the exhausted, tired eyes of soldiers who saw him go, who knew where he was headed, and who had no hope that he would make it. A few soldiers stood up and fired beyond Stanley to draw enemy attention away from him when he had to cross over the top of a trench to get to the next one. The shots zinged around him anyway. If he slowed down, he was going to take a hit, so he kept low in the trenches and kept running.
His boots slipped as he headed down a small hollow, and he almost fell to his knees as he went up the other side; it was like trying to run up a waterfall, only this one was of mud, with bits of shell and hunks of rock. Just as Stanley got halfway to the top, he heard the high-pitched pop of a canister as it opened, and even before he smelled the bitter tang, a yellow cloud of mustard gas descended around him like a blanket of pure poison.
He brought his hand to his mouth, and staggered to the top of a trench, and though he kept his breath shallow, he felt his lungs collapsing, and fell to his knees, coughing up spit, his hands in the mud, his eyes closed. The yellow swirl filled his brain until there was nothing left but an empty ache and the sting in his lungs. He barely felt his head hit the mud and then sighed, thinking that it would be good to stay right where he was, for what did it matter anyhow? And then it became blackness, so, so much blackness.
Sunday's Short Stack
Jackie North has been writing stories since grade school and her dream was to someday leave her corporate day job behind and travel the world. She also wanted to put her English degree to good use and write romance novels, because for years she's had a never-ending movie of made-up love stories in her head that simply wouldn't leave her alone.
Luckily, she discovered m/m romance and decided that men falling in love with other men was exactly what she wanted to write about. In this dazzling new world, she turned her grocery-store romance ideas around and is now putting them to paper as fast as her fingers can type. She creates characters who are a bit flawed and broken, who find themselves on the edge of society, and maybe a few who are a little bit lost, but who all deserve a happily ever after. (And she makes sure they get it!)
She likes long walks on the beach, the smell of lavender and rainstorms, and enjoys sleeping in on snowy mornings. She is especially fond of pizza and beer and, when time allows, long road trips with soda fountain drinks and rock and roll music. In her heart, there is peace to be found everywhere, but since in the real world this isn't always true, Jackie writes for love.
Heroes for Ghosts #1
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