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Book Review: Ripples Through Time by Christina Courtenay
A fun timeslip modern-day and Viking era set romance novel, Christina Courtney’s tale ticks all the right boxes.
An attractive man and woman in modern day England, brought together by unhappy circumstances. An attractive Viking (Norse) man and a Saxon woman in England, brought together by unhappy circumstances.
There are family betrayals and jealousy, buried treasure, and two kind people, attracted to each other—in both timelines!
And did I mention the fantastic setting—Viking invaded Saxon England? Swords and axes, healing herbs, and ancient stone monuments to the dead...
Vibia Sabina: Empress, Wife of Hadrian
I bet that if you think of Emperor Hadrian, you think about his great wall in the north of England. Possibly you might think of the Roman decadence of villas and statues made from marble. Yet beside him, often erased from the narrative, stood Vibia Sabina, his wife and Rome’s empress for more than four decades.
Her likeness survives on hundreds of coins, but her voice does not. She remains one of antiquity’s most silent women.
Claudia Procula, Pontius Pilate’s wife
Most of us know Pontius Pilate — the Roman governor who condemned Jesus to death. But how many of us know the woman who tried to stop him?
Claudia Procula (sometimes called Procula or Procla) appears only once in the New Testament, yet her brief act of conscience made her one of the most intriguing women in early Christian history, a woman caught between empire, superstition, and moral conviction.
Zipporah, the Wife of Moses
Most people, when they think of Moses, imagine him standing alone before Pharaoh or parting the Red Sea. Yet at his side was a woman—a wife, a foreigner, and a figure of quiet defiance: Zipporah, daughter of Jethro of Midian.
Who Was Zipporah?
Zipporah appears only briefly in the Book of Exodus, but her presence is unforgettable. She was one of seven daughters of a Midianite priest. When Moses fled Egypt after killing an overseer, he found refuge in Midian— and at a well, defended Jethro’s daughters from abusive shepherds. In gratitude, Jethro offered him hospitality and the hand of his daughter, Zipporah.
That is the story’s surface, but beneath it lies something far more intriguing: a woman who stepped outside her cultural boundaries to follow a fugitive foreigner; who raised children between two worlds; who faced the weight of Moses’s divine calling and still kept her own courage.
Outback Odyssey, by Paul Rushworth-Brown
I’m pleased today to be hosting Paul Rushworth-Brown for the blog tour of his novel, ‘Outback Odyssey’. Please take a look at the excerpt from the novel, which is further down this post.
1950s Australia. In the wake of war and dislocation, young Yorkshireman Jimmy journeys to the outback, chasing escape but finding something far more dangerous: the truth of himself and the land he now calls home.
What begins as a story of survival becomes a profound allegory of belonging, silence, and identity. As Jimmy collides with love and betrayal, he also encounters the enduring wisdom of the First Peoples — knowledge that most outsiders are too frightened to face, let alone write about.
Outback Odyssey is sweeping and cinematic, a novel of resilience threaded with unexpected twists and allegorical depth. Already under consideration for a screenplay adaptation, it peels back the myths of Australia’s past to reveal what lies beneath: the unspoken histories, the inherited traumas, and the courage it takes to walk a path that others fear.
LADY OF LINCOLN and the Cutting Room Floor…
I’m incredibly lucky that Sharon Bennett Connolly of ‘HISTORY… THE INTERESTING BITS’ has very kindly agreed to provide the forward for my upcoming, Chaucer Award long-listed, novel, LADY OF LINCOLN. As the non-fiction biographer of Nicola (Nicholaa) de la Haye, there couldn’t be a better (or nicer) person to introduce the book.
But that meant there was no reason to keep the original preface I had prepared.
Instead of losing it to the cutting room floor, I thought instead I would publish it here as a taster and introduction to who Nicola was. Please see below: