Anachronistic
Dimensions Trilogy
Book
One
Christine
Church
Genre: Romantic Fantasy
Publisher: Grey Horse Press
Paperback Publication: 10-31-16
Kindle Publication: 11-30-16
ISBN: 978-0692782705
ASIN: B01MG56AW1
Number of pages: 370
Word Count: 130,000
Cover Artist: Christine Church
Book Description:
Beside his own image, Dane
Bainbridge sees another; a ginger haired beauty--behind her, red mountains and
clouds as if from another world. He's seen her his entire life, a life filled
with glamour and fame... and loneliness. For the woman in the mirror is his one
true love. But, this he does not know, not until he is dragged into her
world--one of beasts and lands beyond imagination. One where his sacrifice is
the only thing keeping her and the world in which she resides alive.
Once they are together, he
remembers it all, and that knowledge means his doom for all eternity. But if he
escapes her world, she will perish as will all others behind the looking glass.
He is the key that keeps her alive, and she is the key that gives him hope. Can
they break the curse that keeps them separated by torture and death? Can they
escape together from a world that exists beyond every mirror?
5 Star Reviews
"I have never read anything
quite like it and I loved it. Brilliant and well written. Superb!! And the
writing style of the author was amazing." Rabia Tanveer, Readers’ Favorite
"Fans of Lord of the Rings,
Anne Rice, and all fantasy novels will really enjoy this book! Truly one of the
best books I've ever read!" Bonnie, Amazon Customer
“Christine Church gives readers a
lovable protagonist. A wonderful love story. Like a dangerous but beautiful
animal, this romance novel comes with some nail-biting moments that are
definitely worth reading. I recommend this book to vampire fans." ~Benjamin Ookami
"I actually fell asleep with
the book in my arms and woke up to read it in the morning." Amazon
Customer
"Great fantasy and very
exciting, a real page turner." Amazon Customer
Five-Star Reader’s Review Favorite
December 20, 2014
He remained
perfectly still as the chains were wrapped around his body. The metal cooled the heated flesh of his bare
chest. All around him echoed a cacophony
of screams, bellows and stomping of feet that almost crushed him beneath its
weight. The air tightened with the
chains and a rush of collective exhilaration and nervousness swirled through
his senses. He glanced quickly at the
red-faced, muscular man standing beside him, who finished fastening the chains
and stepped away.
He closed his
eyes and drew a deep breath. And then he waited, anxiety pounding in his
breast. The air was thick with heat and sweat and smoke, but he'd grown
accustomed to it through the years, as with the rest of the ritual. The one
thing he could never get used to, however, was the flip-flop in the pit of his
stomach that occurred as the platform he stood on slowly lifted into the air,
revealing him to the anxiously awaiting crowd that crushed nearer. Starving
animals before a feast. He looked
straight out, refused to look down, lest the vertigo take him.
How he hated
heights.
He listened for
the eerie orchestration of strings and organ that marked the beginning of his
leisurely descent back to earth. The notes began with a rhythmic resonance that
was almost conquered by impatient bellows that quickly turned to a roar of
frenzied excitement. As the platform
lowered, a muzzy sensation circled Dane’s mind and his throat felt as though
his stomach had been hoisted up into it.
He held his
breath in anticipation.
An amplified
voice echoed over the din. “Ladies and Gentlemen. Through the misty storm they come. Battles
rage and blood is spilled and tonight you will feel…the rage of the... Dark Myst!”
The crescendo of notes
rose with the screams and soon the vast crowd, shrouded in the mist of machine
smoke and lighting from the trusses above, came into view. The platform touched the stage simultaneously
with a deafening blast of canon fire, blinding light and searing heat from the pyrotechnics.
Dane thrust his
arms outward in an ostentatious display of feigned strength and released his
long held breath as the chains fell free of his body. As he leaped forward the crowd crushed
against the stage, nearly 20,000 screaming fans all at once a serried mass
swarming towards him.
Tingles of
excitement clawed at his spine, a feeling that never waned with the years. He ran to the front of the stage and grabbed
up the microphone as Bruce struck the first hard note on his Strat. The music pounded out its heavy rhythm and
the audience's cries warred with its volume. Sharp beams of laser light cut a
zigzag through the haze. Dane twirled around and his heart jumped.
Oh what fresh hell!
He was staring
at himself!
The stage had
been set up like a room in a lover's palace; giant mirrors everywhere—behind,
to the sides, even above, stretching as high as the trusses. Due to a severe snow squall the truck
carrying an important part of the band’s stage set had gone off the road and
gotten stuck. No one was injured, but the set had not arrived in time to be set
up in the sold-out Target Center.
Someone had decided the light show would look better reflected. Dane,
however, was aghast. Not only was their stage set designed to coincide with
most of their songs, but the effects of the colored lights continuously
bouncing from mirror to mirror would inevitably result in the whole band
plagued with a throbbing headache by concert’s end.
Their manager
had to have approved this—someone had to have approved it. No one had told
Dane! The mirrors must have been erected last moment. Everyone associated with
the band knew how Dane hated mirrors. But now, no matter which direction he
turned, he saw himself in his black costume and ragged-edged cloak; which
portrayed him as the yin to the band's yang.
They were the mist, and he the dark storm.
To keep his
attention from the mirrors, Dane fixed his gaze on the audience and the
speckled glow from thousands of cell phone flashes, resembling a sparkling
star-filled evening that stretched out before him. But he knew he would
eventually have to turn around.
By the third song it became
maddening, not able to dance around as he normally would for fear of what might
be hidden in those mirrors. But, thankfully, half way through the song he
spotted one of the girls he'd met the last time he was in town. At last, something to keep his mind and eyes
busy. In the front row she stood, arms
raised toward him. The bulldozing horde
had her pressed against the stage, long auburn hair flittering about as she
bobbed her head to the beat of the music.
He smiled in her direction, despite his sudden dread at remembering the
promise he'd made to her the year before.
A promise—ashamedly—he had no intention of keeping.
He had never
seen her before that night a year ago, so she hadn’t been a regular. Conquering new territory was always fun.
She’d displayed the looks normally reserved by the group of girls who always
seem to know just how to be chosen above others and handed backstage
passes. This one, however, had taken a
different approach. She had approached him on the floor of his hotel as he made
his way to his room. Fortunately he had been alone—a rarity. He had invited her
in. Ample breasts and a nice round
bottom offset by a perfectly slender waist. Dane knew he would be having a good
time that night.
She had wanted
too much, however, a commitment he couldn't give. Teasing him and denying him
her favors until he'd made the vow. What else was there to do? And so he had
said exactly what she wanted to hear. And, as naïve as she was, she had
believed him. He couldn’t, after all, say no. Not when she lay there in his
hotel bed displaying all her luscious charms. But he couldn't keep his promise,
either. There were plenty of women in
countless towns, women the band’s crew knew were his type. Women who would be
offered passes just so he could meet them, drink with them, bed them. And there
would be more waiting in the next town after that.
Now, a pass with
the name of a local radio as sponsor dangled around her neck. So, she had won
backstage passes this time. There would be no avoiding her tonight. What would
he say to her? He could not even recall her name. As her fiery glare burned
through him, he absentmindedly turned away, catching Bruce’s smug grin as he
looked from the girl to Dane. He mouthed
the words “there she is,” as he switched guitars with an assistant for the next
set of songs.
Dane smirked,
shook his head at his friend, then strutted to the other side of the stage as
the next song began—one of the band’s trademark tunes that he wrote about a
medieval land of lords and knights. He
wielded a sword, one of many from his collection, and proceeded to dance around
in choreographed mock swordplay as the hired orchestra played their bit.
At this point,
his disappointment surged that the integral element of their regular stage set
had not arrived. The video wall
depiction of a castle and rolling green hills was installed. However, mirrors
now replaced the large faux-stone steps that were to lead to the balcony above
the stage, giving Dane the appearance of riding atop one of two red-eyed
dragons that should, at that moment, be gazing menacingly down at the crowd,
smoke, laser and fire effects erupting from the eyes and fanged mouths. Those
that came for the show would be fervently disappointed.
During Bruce’s
brief guitar solo near mid-song, Dane closed his eyes for a moment and raised
the sword high, drawing in the deep odor of sweat and heat. Machine-created fog
crept along the stage and curled around his feet like a chill mist in a
graveyard. The lights were so dim he
could scarce see even the front row of the audience as the laser lights sliced
through the stadium and across his body like sharp-edged blades.
In accordance
with his routine, and without second thought, he twirled around—and was
suddenly staring right into one of the tall mirrors that littered the
stage. The lights brightened. His craggy-hemmed cloak billowed as he spun
from the ghastly reflection of his own sweat-soaked face only to catch the same
image in the mirror beside that one. His gut wrenched and he tried to turn
away, back to the front of the stage, back to the audience. But he froze as
movement caught his eye and when he turned his head, she was there—the “Mirror
Lady.” His illusion. His own delusion.
Onstage.
As real to him as his own
reflection.
No! Not here!
Her thigh-length
ginger hair was loose, rather than pulled back in the usual braid. The shining
tresses poured over her shoulders like a rushing waterfall and cascaded down a
beautiful gown of burgundy velvet that hugged her slim form. The tears in her
golden eyes told a tale of sadness that wrenched at his heart, and he felt
himself take an involuntary step forward. More familiar to him than Martha or
Lance or Sir Kori, the sight of the “Mirror Lady” twisted his gut, a tornado
rampaging through him, a tangled enrapture of perplexity and fear, love and
pain—as if he had known her for more years than his life was long. And that
familiarity drove him somewhere beyond her presence in some glass.
His dilemma with the redhead
in the front row disappeared. The girls
he’d met in the past or would meet in the future no longer mattered. It was
this stranger, this illusion. She alone meant everything—and she scared the
hell out of him. But deeper than fear
lie an unbearable urge to leap into the mirror and gather her into his
arms.
Protective
impulses tugged at him relentlessly and he was suddenly frightened not of her
but for her. Terror seized his heart, and refused to let go, pounding through
him harder than the music that continued to fill the stadium, confusing him
profoundly. Passionate emotions thrashed
at his brain and his head ached with the need to bring them to the
surface. But he couldn’t. A mental barrier walled off the needs
screaming for release. Why couldn’t he
just go to her; feel for her the love he’d been missing his entire life?
Behind him, the glass’ surface
reflected a flurry of activity; lambent light bounced from one mirror to the
next, heightening the pain in his head.
The small section of audience visible moved and swayed, their images
like dancing ghosts in the dark mist of the stadium. Stephan’s long strawberry hair swayed as he
bobbed his head up and down while he plucked away at his bass. He hadn’t seen
her. At the time Dane didn’t think
anyone else saw her, but her form was as solid in the mirror as was his own, as
she had been in every mirror throughout his life.
Concentration
became impossible. He faltered, his voice cracked and he missed the chorus
altogether. Familiar with the music, the mistake must have been quite obvious
to the crowd. But he couldn't turn from that damn mirror.
Dane tried to
force his mind back to the song when a searing bolt of pain sliced through his
head. The clank of the sword and the microphone sounded loud to his ears, even
above the music, as they dropped from his hands and crashed to the stage.
Feedback screeched from the monitors and the music stopped. The burden of
emotion and conflict pressed him downward and, like Alice, he found himself
falling. Down. Down. The spotlights swirled like shooting stars and agony
screamed through his shoulder as he hit the hard stage floor.
The fog consumed
him.
The stadium went dead silent. Bruce and Stephan
rushed towards him. Adrian leapt from behind his drums. Road crew members and
strangers circled above. The audience pressed closer to the stage, security
guards frantically tried to hold them back.
Their lips moved, their hands pounded the stage. He saw them all, yet he
heard nothing. And then he was forced into a vacuum of darkness.
About
the Author:
Christine Church has been writing
since she was 9 years old. As a kid, she wrote and drew her own picture books,
then moved on to short stories as a teen. By her 20s, she was writing
full-length novels, but her first success in publication was a nonfiction book
about the care of indoor cats, Housecat, published by Howell Book House in
1998. Several more nonfiction books followed, including the major award winning
book, Indoor Cats (TFH publications),
which won the Iams Responsible Cat Ownership in 2001. After a broken
hand, she took a hiatus from writing for quite some
time, then returned to find
everything had changed and her world turned upside down. She decided then to
take a stab at self publishing. Her first novella, Sands of Time, Fate of the
True Vampires won Finalist status in the 2016 Next Generation Indie Book
Awards. Her second book, as well as Beyond Every Mirror, have won five-star
status on Reader's favorite.
Tour
giveaway
$15 Amazon gift card
3 copies paperback, signed.
5 Handmade metallic bookmarks
10 handmade jewelry items themed
to the book.
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Received a lovely four and a half star review for Beloved Enemy, from Mr N at POTL
