Through the Veneer of Time
Author: Vera Bell
Publisher: Champagne Book Group
Release Date: April 10, 2023
Genre: Time-Travel Romantic Suspense
Series: Always & Forever Trilogy #1
Snippet:
“Ah, here you are,” he said without preamble, voice low and brooding. “Come.”
He was pulsing with dangerous energy—something between anger, disgust, and poorly curbed violence.
I drew back.
He reached for my hand, resolute. “Come now, my Neave.”
Not wishing to make a scene, I stood and followed him out. I didn’t take his hand.
“What’s amiss?” I said, struggling to keep pace with his long strides.
“Don’t fret.” He entered the corridor to the undercroft. “All will be set to rights soon.”
“Why d’you take me to the cellars?” I stalled. “I’ve no wish to go there!”
He halted, impatient. “I don’t mean to worry you, a mhuirnín.” He attempted to soften his voice but failed. “You’re about to receive my present. One that’s overdue.”
“What present? Wine?”
So help me, Brigid, I couldn’t think of it. I could not.
“You’ll know soon.” He took my hand at the top of the stairs, his own rigid and heavy. “Have faith.”
We walked for some time, passing through the dim stone passageways, cold storage rooms, and cellars, the air dank and sodden with earth, spirits, and oak.
I clenched my hands into fists to stop them from shaking. He’s here.
Without warning, we came upon a vaulted hall at the end of the undercroft. Only it wasn’t a hall. It was a dungeon, lit with oil lamps and filled with manacles, chains, and implements of sinister purpose. Kian, Fillan, and others were gathered in the corner, engaged in something I couldn’t make out. Breath quickening, I darted a look at Aedan, but he only stood beside me, squeezing my hand in his.
Then, the men moved away and revealed someone kneeling on the dirt floor. He was covered in wounds and muck from head to toe and unclothed, save for wide iron cuffs on his wrists and ankles, fettering him to the wall. A large man, almost Aedan’s size, he stared at the floor, affecting unconcern.
The oil lamps gave off scant light. But even in the dim, I could see his hair clipped short at the ears and his mustache drooping down to his chin. I grasped my neck as if something squeezed round it, suffocating me.
“He’s yours to do with as you would, my Neave.” Aedan took a long, sharp blade from his belt and pressed it into my hand.
“Who is he?” I faltered, my trembling hand slick with sweat.
Aedan shot me a glance, a groove forming between his brows. “Take a better look, a rún. He’ll not harm you now.”
© Vera Bell 2023. All rights reserved.
About the Book:
If not for “The Ghost”—her FBI husband’s gruesome case—Siena Forte’s life would have been perfect. But not when the D.C. serial killer is hunting women like her, and when her husband is so unsettled by this case, he refuses to discuss it. It’s a miracle her art career is thriving at all. And not only her career.
When Siena lands a medieval mural commission at the National Gallery of Art, she discovers a bizarre knack for astral projecting to her past life. In a lucky strike, her visions of love and prominence in medieval Ireland are just the creative inspiration she seeks.
What Siena doesn’t know is her vivid depiction of the past exposes her to someone she has met before—the serial killer, reborn in this century just like her. But when a vicious attack from the past reverberates into the present, Siena’s life unravels in a chilling parallel.
Silenced and alone, she discovers the true reason for her visions. They’re not the creative inspiration they seemed, but a harbinger of her centuries-old revenge vow, and the killer cannot be stopped until she fulfills it. But there is another person from the past with unfinished business—her husband. And another unwelcome déjà vu—their crumbling marriage, once again precipitated by the serial killer’s crime.
Does Siena have what it takes to carry out her ancient vow?
Purchase links:
AMAZON LINK: https://a.co/d/fSmIGek
BARNES & NOBLE LINK: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/through-the-veneer-of-time-vera-bell/1143265968?ean=2940167083776
AUDIBLE: Coming in July.
About the Author:
Vera Bell is the author of the time-travel romance trilogy Always & Forever, set in sixteenth-century Ireland and present-day United States. Book One, Through the Veneer of Time, is her debut novel. Besides being a writer, she is a wife to her high-school sweetheart, a mother to two teenagers and one fur baby, a former commercial artist and boutique owner, and a member of the Historical Novel Society, Women’s Fiction Writers Association, and Romance Writers of America. Her favorite place to write is on her porch, overlooking a pond lined with river birches and magnolias. The topics she never tires of are Ireland, past lives, and love that transcends time and space.
Author contact links:
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