I am thrilled to be part of this blitz for the Graham Saga by Anna Belfrage, it is one of my very favorite series out there.
About the Graham Saga
This
is the story of two people who should never have met – not when she was
born three centuries after him. But sometimes impossible things happen,
and so Alex Lind ends up at the feet of Matthew Graham. Life will never
be the same for Alex – or for Matthew.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In Revenge
and Retribution, Alex has seen her son, Samuel, carried away by the
Susquehannock Indians, led by Qaachow. In the below, she is sitting with
another of her sons, David, when on the other shore of the river she sees
something…
They lapsed into a
comfortable silence, watching as the sun transformed the frosted trees into
prisms of magical colour. It was very quiet, the migrating birds long gone, and
the remaining sparrows and thrushes keeping low to the ground, or at least
going about their business without expending energy on making noise. A crow
cawed, it cawed again, and then it was all absolute stillness.
David shifted
closer to her. The frost on the log had melted under her, dampening her skirts,
but she was reluctant to move, and so, apparently, was he. There was a far-off
rustling, and the crow called again. The shrubs on the other side of the river
parted; a group of men stepped out on the further shore.
“Indians!” David
breathed.
“Samuel,” Alex
groaned simultaneously, and now she was on her feet, because he was there, her
son, standing only fifty feet from her, side by side with Qaachow. Oh God, my
boy, he’s brought my boy home, she thought, and her arms went out in an
embracing gesture. Samuel took a tentative step in her direction, but Qaachow
said something to him, and he ducked his head and stepped back into the forest.
“No!” Alex was
already wading through the shallows, ignoring the iciness of the water. “No!
Goddamn you, Qaachow! Give me my boy back!” Her eyes burnt into the Indian chief,
but he didn’t reply, gesturing to his men to deposit the sorry bundle they were
carrying by the water’s edge. Alex slipped, and had to swim furiously against
the ice-cold current.
“Mama!” David was
shrieking in fear behind her, but Alex didn’t care. She was going after her
boy; she had to fetch him home. She slipped again, and the waters closed over
her head. Jesus! It was cold!
She resurfaced,
spitting like a drowning cat. Samuel was rushing towards the water, and before
he could be stopped, he had thrown himself in, buckskins and all, to come to
her aid.
“Samuel! Oh God,
Samuel! Get back, son.” Alex had her head over the water, wiping at her hair
with an arm that was unbearably heavy. Her fingers, she couldn’t feel her
fingers. But her eyes locked into Samuel’s, and she smiled. Down she went
again, her mouth filling with water. A weak kick, and her head broke the
surface.
“I love you,
Samuel,” she gargled, before being tugged under by the current, and once again
she heard David’s frantic ‘Mama’ from somewhere behind her. But she was almost
there, only yards separated her from her son, and then there were arms around
Samuel and he was being carried away.
“Mama!” he
screamed. “Mama!”
Alex sank, her legs
useless in the cold. Other hands took hold of her, and she was half carried,
half dragged to lie panting and shivering on the shore. By her nose were a pair
of moccasins, and, following them up, she found the legs, the torso and then,
finally, the face of Qaachow.
“My son,” she
croaked. “I want my son back. You’ve had him long enough, and I die, you hear.
Every day without him, I die!”
“A year,” Qaachow
reminded her, backing away.
“Curse you,
Qaachow!” Alex managed to get up on her knees. “May your seed fail; may your
children and grandchildren wither and die; may your people fall into sickness
and suffer iniquity and pain. All of this until my son is returned to me.”
Qaachow looked
completely taken aback, staring at her with something like fear in his eyes.
She rose, tried to wipe her face free of the tendrils of hair that were
plastered across it. From the forest came Samuel’s voice, calling for her, for
his brothers, his da. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the other
shore where Matthew was standing surrounded by their sons, Jacob already stripping
off his clothes.
“I love you,
Samuel!” she bellowed. “I love you, son, you hear?”
“Mama!” he yelled
back, and then there was the distinctive sound of a slap. Alex stumbled towards
the sound, but was rudely shoved to land on the ground. Before she had managed
to get back on her feet, the Indians were gone.
“Mama?” Jacob
materialised by her side. “We have to get you across and inside.” Alex was
shivering so hard she could barely walk, but followed him, dazed and obedient,
to the water’s edge.
“They left something,”
she mumbled through a mouth too stiff to talk properly with.
“Aye,” Jacob
answered. “Mark and John are taking care of it.” Alex inhaled loudly when she
re-entered the water. This cold? The current curled itself round her legs, but
she managed to keep her footing a good way out, and Jacob was there to help
her. Somehow, she was back on their side where Matthew swept her into a cloak
and led her back home, David tagging after.
“I saw him,” she
said. “Our boy, Matthew. I saw him, and he was tall and strong.” And then she
burst into tears.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Had
Anna been allowed to choose, she’d have become a professional
time-traveller. As such a profession does as yet not exists, she settled
for second best and became a financial professional with two absorbing
interests, namely history and writing. These days, Anna combines an
exciting day-job with a large family and her writing endeavours.
When
Anna fell in love with her future husband, she got Scotland as an
extra, not because her husband is Scottish or has a predilection for
kilts, but because his family fled Scotland due to religious persecution
in the 17th century – and were related
to the Stuarts. For a history buff like Anna, these little details made
Future Husband all the more desirable, and sparked a permanent interest
in the Scottish Covenanters, which is how Matthew Graham, protagonist
of the acclaimed The Graham Saga, began to take shape.
Set
in 17th century Scotland and Virginia/Maryland, the series tells the
story of Matthew and Alex, two people who should never have met – not
when she was born three hundred years after him. With this heady blend
of romance, adventure, high drama and historical accuracy, Anna hopes to
entertain and captivate, and is more than thrilled when readers tell her just how much they love her books and her characters.
Presently,
Anna is hard at work with her next project, a series set in the 1320s
featuring Adam de Guirande, his wife Kit, and their adventures and
misfortunes in connection with Roger Mortimer’s rise to power. The King’s Greatest Enemy
is a series where passion and drama play out against a complex
political situation, where today’s traitor may be tomorrow’s hero, and
the Wheel of Life never stops rolling.
The first instalment in the Adam and Kit story, In the Shadow of the Storm, will be published in the autumn of 2015.
Other than on her website, Anna can mostly be found on her blog – unless, of course, she is submerged in writing her next novel.
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