Wade of Aquitaine — Ben Parris

Deep in the Dark Ages, with Vikings to the north and Aghlabid pirates to the south, a small flicker of the Roman Empire has been nurtured as an island of high civilization. Defeated Longobards scheme to bring it down from within. If Byzantium falls 600 years too soon, nothing of western civilization will survive to spark the Renaissance. Enter Wade Linwood of the 21st Century. Suffering of crossed senses where scents can conjure objects and sights can call up tastes, he wants nothing but the ordinary life of an insurance underwriter. When a trip to the acupuncturist opens an unused portal in his synesthete's brain, a plea from the past draws him to a time when he must save the remaining shreds of history to preserve his own. "Wade of Aquitaine is wonderfully well-written and exciting, an interesting and insightful volume that makes you say to yourself we've got a smart guy writing this. Ben Parris understands the challenge that a writer has, to write sentences that nobody ever wrote before." --George Clayton Johnson (Oceans Eleven, Twilight Zone Movie, Logan's Run)