Future Echoes in the Dark [Paperback]

The two timelines interweave a pattern of exhilarating events and barbaric savagery. In the mists of dawn and the alarming reality of now, a fight in the dark, capture, torture and assault enrage the inexperienced Merith to kill using her new found powers of shape-shifting and majick.

Set in the first person, this story is set in medieval England and modern day, in and around Cambridge, this story describesthe search for lost religious text. Set within it the main character examines her own life and perceptions.

"She is called Ichmarr the goddess of Mischief, trickery and (occasionally) Thievery. We tend to miss out the last bit otherwise most towns would run us out. We are tolerated but nothing more. Christianity and all that goes along with it have driven most of these gods out of the way. The older gods still have a place and do hang on to the world in out of the way places. The people of the woods and small villages that are too small to have a church still practice the old religions. Ichmarr had managed to slip under the guard of the catholic authorities through a series of bribes, backhanders and basically through very secretive practices."

Merith herself, is a fifteen-year-old female, she belongs to a dying race called the Silves, who are akin to the elves talked about in popular mythology. She is a character borne out of a tough life, hardened by the conditions she has endured,

"I did what I was told, you do as child, you never argue even if it seems odd it isn’t allowed. All of the finger-hand exercises, dancing, stretching, endless chores needing to be done. They demanded an endless repetition of a useless task until they found an even more boring one. They said I had a talent for it and I was moved from one town to the next each town larger than the last. I always had to find my feet with new people, new dangers and new prejudices. The endless bullying from the older girls and the fights, I was always being blamed because I was different. I did have a talent for it what ever it was. Being nimble with long light bones, reflexes like a cat I could do most of the odd tasks they demanded of me. I found that I could work out why I couldn’t do it immediately. Doing things with my hands and my body seemed to be second nature I just did it. It was learning the little squiggles on parchment that took a long time. What those runes, signs, letters, meant was a difficulty. I spent years of impatient study of writings that I didn’t have a clue about."

The narrator of the story, Merith herself, often tells the reader of her emotions and feelings she cannot express. She relates the bewilderment in being in such strange surroundings in the present day and the inability to understand the English being spoken now. So different to the English she has spoken in the past. The narrator charts her progress in her religion and the holy mission she embarks on to recover a holy text.

The novel contains some use of strong language and some strong imagery of sex and violence.