The Book: The Patriots of Mars

The Author: Jeff Faria

The Story: In 2231, twenty-five billion people walk the Earth. Most of them have basic food and shelter, and a few have much, much more. Among them are the SuperOld, who believe the promise of immortality will soon be within reach. Energy is cheap and abundant, most who are willing to work can find it, and a vast army of ‘bots serves man’s needs. To some, this is a golden age.

But there are challenges – and many are of a type we have never before encountered. The Earth is depleted of key resources, which are now harvested on or around Mars. We are ruled from above by corrupt, bloated governments funded by enormously wealthy transnationals, and from below by powerful, ruthless street gangs. About a fifth of the world’s population has withdrawn into the drug Nirvana, while millions more have chosen the legal purgatory of Martian exile. For reasons unknown, some of the SuperOld are ending their lives, while in China millions starve to death despite massive foreign aid.

Overseeing the world’s affairs and managing its systems is the omnipresent, manmade sentient entity called MOM. And MOM is not happy.

Neither is a phantom group known as ‘The Patriots of Mars’, which jettisons the contents of an orbiting freighter into space to call attention to its demands. This sets off an escalating chain of events in which the powerful seek more power, while everyone else seeks cover. Josh Reynolds, a Martian-born teen with a strange secret, is looking to change his life when he gets caught up in this tide of events. Along the way he encounters an old, discredited prophesy and begins to understand that the change he and others had hoped for could become something more far-reaching than anyone had imagined. When Josh finally learns the identity of the Patriots, he is burdened with yet another secret. It is one he can never reveal, and it will change his life forever.

The Book: The Ruby Brooch

The Author: Katherine Logan

The Story: And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. ~Anaïs Nin

Can a 21st century paramedic find her heart’s desire on the other side of time?

From the white-plank fenced pastures of Lexington, Kentucky, to the beautiful Bay of San Francisco, The Ruby Brooch, a saga steeped in family tradition and mystery, follows a young woman’s journey as she searches for the truth on the other side of the heather-scented mist.

As the lone survivor of a car crash that killed her parents, paramedic Kit MacKlenna makes a startling discovery that further alters her life. A faded letter and a well-worn journal reveal that she was abandoned as a baby and the only clues to her identity are a blood-splattered shawl, a locket that bears a portrait of a nineteenth-century man, and a Celtic brooch with mystical powers.

After studying the journal, she decides to continue her father’s twenty-year search for her identity and solve her birth parents’ murders. For safety reasons, she adopts the persona of the Widow MacKlenna. Although a perfect cover for her eccentric behavior, she will be forced to lie and MacKlennas don’t lie, or so she thought. Finally, dressed and packed, she utters the incantation inscribed on the ancient stone and is swept back to Independence, Missouri, in the year 1852.

Upon arriving in the past, she meets Cullen Montgomery, an egotistical Scotsman with a penchant for seducing widows. The San Francisco-bound lawyer happens to resemble the ghost who has haunted Kit since childhood. She quickly finds the Bach-humming, Shakespeare-quoting man to be over-bearing and his intolerance for liars threatens her quest.

If she can survive his accusations and resist his tempting embrace for seventy-three days, she might be able to find the answers she seeks, and return home to a new life without changing history or leaving her heart on the other side of time.