Still Time — Michael Llewellyn

Michael Llewellyn is the author of eighteen published novels in multiple genres. "Still Time" is his first foray into time travel as he transports his heroine into the past. Madeleine St. Jacques, 33, is a New Orleans librarian with a penchant for history and amateur sleuthing. Her paramour and partner in time crime is Henri Chabrol, 42, a Tulane University professor with access to parallel universes via the mysterious August Ones. Madeleine's goal is to repair potential tears in the curtains of times past, a destiny that triggers challenging, often perilous exploits. "Still Time" catapults Madeleine to 1861 New Orleans, where she encounters a topsy-turvy world of black masters, white slaves, glamorous courtesans of color and assorted shady souls who create escapades at every turn. As civil war erupts and the city falls under siege, Madeleine experiences love, death and devastating betrayal as she battles to keep history from veering off course and learns the truth about why she was sent back in time. It is, most of all, a voyage of self- discovery. From the back cover copy: They were called The August Ones, enigmatic entities manipulating millennia-old time corridors via specially chosen Couriers. Unknowingly conscripted for this role, New Orleans librarian Madeleine St. Jacques attends a Mardi Gras ball only to be propelled back to 1861 and a vibrant but restless city on the brink of civil war. Her journey takes her to Louisiana's Isle Brevelle, an exotic topsy-turvy world where black planters own slaves, and to Five Oaks plantation where she meets her Creole forebears and is tempted by the unthinkable. Warned by a voodoo priestess that a mysterious Spaniard holds the key to her mission and that she will find him "in the last possible place she would think to look," Madeleine's search grows desperate when war ignites and New Orleans falls under siege. Each day brings new challenges as she is drawn deeper into a world of duplicity and passion, deceit and murder. Shadowy veils are lifted one by one as Madeleine sails on a time voyage as serpentine as the Mississippi River before discovering her destiny as a Courier and why she must fulfill it while there is "Still Time." (c)2014, Scaramouche Publishing. All rights reserved. "Michael Llewellyn's latest book, Still Time, is a new genre of historical time travel/mystery/thriller that delights and informs the reader. Steeped in the New Orleans of both the present and the early days of the Civil War, it creates a steamy, sultry atmosphere that has you craving gumbo and beignets all the way to the end. Heroine Madeleine St. Jacques transforms satisfyingly from quiet librarian to a cunning, action-oriented Southern belle when she is chosen by transcendent 'forces' to fulfill a critical mission in the past. Llewellyn's Civil War research is accurate and illuminating which will make historical fiction readers happy, and his time-travel devices are innovative and clever, so time-slip fans will appreciate that as well. A fun romance is thrown in for good measure, so we get a well-rounded introduction to "Maddy" and her friends in this first of what I hope will be a long-running series. A true page-turner, I was up until 2 a.m. finishing it " -Mary F. Burns, author of The Spoils of Avalon