Guest romance author Tracy Cooper-Posey and giveaway

Please welcome romance author Tracey Cooper-Posey

Time travel as tourism...where would you go?

I’ve been been running my website since 1999, and in that time it’s been a site, a blog, back to being a site, and then back to a blog again.  It’s a long story I won’t go into now because I wouldn’t be able to use polite words, and I already don’t know how to write short.  But one of things that were lost as a result of the blog/site/blog switch was a series of posts called “Historical Vacation Spots”.  Yeah, I’m that geeky.  I love history, and went into mourning when the bottom fell out of the historical romance market ten years ago.

But I was sneaky, and started writing time travel romances, so I got around it that way, but suddenly I was researching and discovering cool new locations in history again.  So I started a series talking about some of these really wondering places back in history and how great would it be to fire up the TARDUS and head back for a weekend trip, or a mini-vacation...?

Most of the series was lost in the switch back and forth, but there’s still traces of it left, one lingering post:  Really Cool Historical Vacation Spots: Constantinople .  That post is consistently in my top five ranking highest traffic posts every month.  So I’m not the only one who likes dipping into history, or the idea of a getaway cruise back into time.  One of these days I’ll pick up the series again, but the posts are pretty research heavy, so it’s not like I can crank one out every couple of days!

But all this reading of history and thinking about playing around in the annals of time, and all the books I was writing about time travel (I just finished another 400 pager) eventually led me to setting up a story world where people really did take vacations back in history.  That story world is the Beloved Bloody Time series.

It would be, well, seriously cool to be able to pick your vacation spot from anywhere in history and head back to check the place or the event out, wouldn’t it? 

Or would it?

We read about some of the dramatic events in the history books and think it would be great to see those events really happen -- like, say, the fall of Constantinople (just because I’ve been researching this one lately and the facts are at the front of my brain).  It sounds wonderfully dramatic and interesting.

But you tend to forget that people died by the thousands during the three days the Turks were permitted to pillage the city.  They were given a free hand to plunder as they wished and Constantinople, which had stood unmolested for six hundred years, and was the richest and most populated city in Asia and Europe, was methodically sacked and the Byzantines slaughtered.

If you took a jaunt back to check out the fall of Constantinople, there would be a real chance you could get caught up in that chaos.  The chances are very good you don’t speak medieval Greek, or Turkish, or Arabic or any of the languages that were common then.  Your clothes, unless you’re dressed by someone who knows the period intimately, will mark you as a stranger, and draw attention to you.  And you will certainly not know the customs and etiquette of the period, so I guarantee that by the end of your first day there, you’ll have insulted at least one person just because of your innocent ignorance of polite behaviour for that time.  They didn’t just whisper behind your back for such ignorance back then, either.  If you pissed someone off badly enough, you could end up with a dagger in your gut.

Plus, Constantinople at that time was a city that was falling.  Lawlessness, thieves, desparate citizens fleeing the city and looters looking for opportunites were rife.  The people of those times were far more used to physically defending themselves than you or I have ever have to even think about.  I know I wouldn’t want to get into a physical altercation with anyone from back then.  I have too many in-built ethical concerns and a brain that is almost hard-wired to worry about legal ramifications that would make me hesitate and pull my blows.  They wouldn’t think about that stuff at all, and I would loose, right there.

All this concern and worry from one simple little jump back in time, to one event.

Name any event, any place in history, and you’d have similar or even a completely different set of local concerns and dangers to deal with.

And that’s not all. 

As soon as you commercialize historical vacation tours, you have to start worrying about the tourists themselves, too.

Think about the average crowd that pours into Disneyland every day, and the headaches that the staff there have to deal with:  Lost children, lost possessions, adults demanding their money back because the tour didn’t meet their expectations, or because they overpaid.  Lost passes, found passes, re-issued passes.   Rides that aren’t working.  Entertainment talent (read: famous historical figures) that call in sick, or just don’t show up when expected.  The list is potentially endless.

A time travel agency would have to deal with all this, too.

Then there’s administrative and legal ramifications:  Licensing is a biggie.  How does a time travel agency regulate their activities and who do they answer to?  What standards to they have to meet?  Safety standards?  Health standards?  The lack of health measure is pretty scary back in history...and smallpox is still around, too, just for starters. 

Then, as with any new industry, there’ll be the crooks and crime syndicates that will try to muscle in and capitalize on the cash flowing through the system as it’s setting up.  Time Dons, anyone?

Still, being able to pay for a trip back into time just to check out a favourite historical event or place...well, I think it would be a hit.

In Beloved Bloody Time, a lot of these problems are eliminated simply because historical vacations are a luxury item.  The price tag attached to a time trip is equivalent to the sort of figures used when talking about Rolls Royce cars and luxury condos on Fifth Avenue.  They’re a once-in-a-lifetime event, and part of the package includes training in customs and behaviour when back in the past.  Even if the tourist is heading back for a weekend jaunt, preparation can take weeks, if they’re going far enough back in time.

But the vampires who facilitate the journeys are able to flip back into time whenever they want...with some limitations -- there’s always a price.  Of course there is a price, or else it would be no fun to read at all!

Where would you go for your historical vacation?  Who would you want to meet?

___________________________

Bannockburn Binding

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

Time is theirs to keep. But it comes with a price.

MMF Urban Fantasy Futuristic Time Travel Romance Serial

In the early 23rd Century, vampires learned how to travel back in time, and created a time-tsunami that threatened life as we know it, until they corrected their mistake.  They created the Chronometric Conservation Agency, which is tasked with preserving history and therefore protecting humanity’s future.  The Touring arm of the Agency offers trips back into the real past, with vampire guides, called travellers.
When Natalia (Tally) Marta, vampire and traveller, takes her client to visit the siege of Stirling Castle in 1314, she is caught and held hostage for ransom by Robert MacKenzie, a Bruce clansman.  Rob finds himself drawn to the wilful, stubborn and very different English lady he has captured and the relationship becomes an intimate, highly-charged sexual pairing.  Swiftly, Tally and Rob realize their bond is more than sexual, that the emotions stirring their hearts are true.
Christian Lee Hamilton, vampire, one of the last true southern gentlemen, and Tally’s ex-lover, knows the 1314 time marker enough to jump back and help Tally return home. His arrival at Bannockburn adds complications, for Christian finds himself drawn to Rob MacKenzie as much as Tally is.  But neither of them can stay in the past forever.  To do so means certain death.

___

An Excerpt From: BANNOCKBURN BINDING
Copyright © TRACY COOPER-POSEY, 2011
All Rights Reserved.

The small city-sized satellite that housed the Chronologic Conservation Agency was now several thousand kilometers from Halfway Station, which clung to the end of the beanstalk.

The agency was gearing up for the main shift of the “day.” As Ryan was still working through from the previous shift, he didn’t notice the transition. He did notice when the “bad” he was grappling with became abruptly worse. Nayara, as CEO, usually kept the place ticking over like a well-tooled pocket-watch, but word had spread about Natália’s overdue return and tensions were mounting.

Tension caused accidents. So Ryan moved through the various departments, speaking with staff and supervisors, letting them vent, speak of their worries and get back to work. It always troubled them when a traveler went astray. A lost traveler was a reminder to everyone of their unique, precarious position in life. Only by continuing to risk themselves back in the past could they hold on to what they had fought for and won here in the present.

Nayara was already in Security when the big double doors slid aside to let Ryan in. She didn’t look away from the big electronic wallboard. Neither did anyone else and Ryan felt his gut tighten with tension.

Brenden Christos stood next to Nayara, his long legs spread, his arms crossed over the massive chest, looking up at the board with the same intensity. Brenden was the oldest surviving vampire Ryan had ever met—older even than Nayara. He had emerged from ancient Greece, was born a Spartan and made a vampire shortly after the valley of Thermopylae had been fought and won. His long memory and his Spartan upbringing made him the perfect security master.

Anything that could make Brenden fail to take notice of someone walking into Security could only be bad.

“Tell me,” Ryan said, stepping up beside them.

“Ezra hasn’t returned,” Nayara said.

Another one.

“Where is he?”

“Late Georgian England,” Brenden said in his gravelly voice. “His companion wanted to see Marie Antoinette.”

“Another one?”

“It’s one of the most popular tours for male clients,” Nayara said. “We’re trying to figure out who to send to check things out.”

Ryan looked up at the board. It spread from one side of the long room to the other. On the right hand side were a list of all their active Travelers. Trailing out to the left was a different color line for each name. Along the length of the board the lines were crossed by dividing lines, like the fret lines on a guitar. Each line was the beginning and end of eras of history.

At various points along the length of each traveler’s lines were large dots. These showed the places in time where each traveler could reliably jump back to, where time markers had been placed or that the traveler knew intimately.

Ryan scanned the late Georgian period, and saw the bright red dot for Ezra. It was blinking slowly. “Why England?” he said. “If the client wanted to see the French empire—”

“Marie Antoinette,” Brenden corrected dryly. “They add the king in there as an afterthought, to look decent. But it’s really the woman whose beauty brought a country to heel that they want to see—preferably when she’s having one of those milk and honey baths.”

“We don’t have anyone from France,” Nayara said.

“Charbonneau may be able to fix that, yes?” Ryan murmured. “He survived the French Revolution and still kept his head...he must have very vivid memories of that period.”

“We hope,” Nayara agreed. She looked at Brenden. “What about Ophelia?”

“Don’t be daft!” Brenden snapped. “She’s rather stake herself out on the Sahara with her eyes glued open.”

“She’s Ezra’s twin sister,” Nayara said. “If he’s in trouble she’ll help and I know she’s been to that time before. She knows the marker. Bring her in.”

“She’s not even an active traveler anymore and besides, she’ll blame me for all this.” Brenden scowled even harder.

“Do it now, Brenden,” Ryan said quietly.

“Alright, already.” Brenden strode across the department, heading for his office, while the others working in the room quickly ducked their heads and looked busy. None of them wanted to draw his attention right now.

His office door slammed shut long before the automatic opener could do it for him.

“Why send in someone right now?” Ryan asked Nayara. “Ezra has been gone how long?”

“Nearly two weeks. He’s a day overdue, but it’s not like Natália’s situation. Ezra has been working continuously for nearly six months. He hasn’t had a chance to feed and he was tired when he took this client. The client insisted on going right now and paid a big bonus to get his way.”

“A day overdue becomes a concern. I agree.” Ryan glanced at Brenden’s office, where the big man was talking to his phone, his face red with frustration. “Let’s hope Ophelia can pause long enough from castrating Brenden to come and help me.”

“You?” Nayara’s green eyes widened alarmingly. “No, Ryan. I forbid it. You haven’t travelled in nearly fifty years, you’ve never done Paris, you don’t even speak the language....” She hesitated. “Or do you have French tucked up your sleeve, too?”

“Je parle français assez bien au passage, Nayara.”  He frowned. “What do you mean by ‘too’?”

She sighed. “Of course you would know French. Christian rattled off what I can only assume was medieval Scots without pausing for thought.”

“Naturally,” Ryan replied. “Tally taught him.”

“Oh.” Nayara could find nothing else to say.

Ryan gave her a small smile. “Ophelia will go with me,” he continued. “She has the marker and if Ezra is in trouble, it might take two of us to get him home.”

“You shouldn’t be travelling, Ryan. You’re the president of the agency. You’re needed here.”

He waved at the board. “Who else can go?” he asked reasonably. “Everyone is already travelling, not rested enough, or doesn’t know the time and place well enough to pass. I have at least been there.”

Nayara cast around for an answer, but could find none. She scowled. “At least come back on time,” she told him. “I don’t want to have to send more good people after you.”

___

• Erotic MMF romance, time travel, urban fantasy story line, on-going serial storylines.
• This is the first book in the BELOVED BLOODY TIME series.
• Futuristic settings:  Australia, near-planetary space.  Historical settings: Medieval Scotland, France.
• Vampires and other fantasy species.
• Available at Amazon: Kindle format.  Print format.
• Available at All Romance ebooks: Adobe Acrobat, Palm DOC/iSolo, Microsoft Reader, Mobipocket (.prc and Mobi), Rocket, ePub
• Pages: 162 in PDF, including front matter. (Short novel-length story)
• $2.99 in all electronic formats, and at all retailers.
• $8.97 in print.

__________

Tracy Cooper-Posey is a national award winning author, with more than 35 romance titles published since 1999. She writes mainly romantic suspense and paranormal romance, with brief forays into other romantic genres here and there. She has been nominated for three CAPA's for best paranormal romance, one CAPA for best historical romance, and the CAPA for Favourite Author, and has won the Emma Darcy Award.

…an author I’ll pick up simply because her name is on the cover.
Kristi Ahlers, Amazon.com

…reminded me of why I fell in love with reading in the first place.
M.M. Gwynn, eBookConnections

…touches the heart and makes you feel everything.
Cherokee, Coffee Time Romance

…writes books which deserve a place on keeper shelves everywhere!
Julie Bonello, ECataRomance Reviews

Connect directly with Tracy at her site...Facebook...Twitter...Google+...Amazon...All Romance eBooks... MMF Romance Novels (Tracy’s Facebook Group). 

Sign up for her newsletter and get two free romances.

And check out some of the 100+ articles on her site, too!

Tracy is giving away a ecopy of Blood Knots. To enter leave comment or question below along with your email.