Quetzalcoatl: Time Stones Book II
By Ian Hunter
Publication Date: 22nd April 2021
Publisher: MVB Marketing- und Verlagsservice des Buchhandels GmbH
Print Length: 277 Pages
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Jessie Mason lives with her nose in the pages of history. But she is discovering that the past is a dangerous place where she doesn’t belong, and knowledge alone is not going to save her.
Jessie’s life has become a series of terrible challenges. Now she must lead her friends in the hopeless task Grandfather set them: hunt down and destroy the Time Stones. But her leadership has already failed. Tip has left them and Abe has simply disappeared, while she and Kes are trapped in the heart of an ancient empire in turmoil.
Thrust into a fractured, threatened Mexica nobility, Jessie is immersed in a way of life, fascinating and disturbing in equal measure, yet powerless before the approaching Conquistadors and the impending clash of cultures.
Even as the fabulous city of Tenochtitlan descends into savage violence, Jessie’s determination to succeed is undiminished. But with world history taking a new, bloody direction before her, she is finally forced to decide which is more important: continuing the task or simply surviving.
Praise:
“Quetzalcoatl (Time Stones Book II) by Ian Hunter is a tautly gripping novel that is written with a sensitivity to the era it depicts, but it is also a story packed with adventure and magic. Hunter’s vivacious storytelling made this novel impossible to put down. It is a story that has been penned with an impressive sweep and brilliance.”
The Coffee Pot Book Club
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Guest Post:
I have always been fascinated by history. Growing up, we would often spend time visiting historical buildings, towns and places of interest, and even back then, there was a lot of history on our television and cinema screens. Although, for timetable reasons, I didn’t continue school study to the then “O” levels, when it came to deciding upon an Open University course, I chose to go with something I knew and enjoyed. I think in all I studied for seven years, and the longer it went on, the more I realized there were glaring gaps in my knowledge. Outside of certain well-covered periods, an awful lot of our world history doesn’t get much coverage in film, TV and fiction, and I had certainly never encountered it in school. I think it was when I was first reading about the French Indian Wars in the American colonies that the flicker of an idea came to me. Like many people, I had seen “The Last of the Mohicans”, but that was it. It was clearly unlike what we have become familiar with in modern conflicts, where the dense forest landscape, the associated logistical difficulties and the slow pace, made for cat and mouse skirmishing, punctuated by a few sieges or set piece engagements. I knew little of the historical context; how the cost of that war, and the on-going need to garrison British soldiers in the Americas was one of the prime factors leading to the outbreak of the American Revolution.
The idea developed as I started to read history more widely, and I saw many other fascinating events which I was only briefly aware of. For example, the second book plays out during the Spanish conquistadors’ march on Tenochtitlan, the capital city of the Mexica. As I read about these events, a Spanish victory seemed to be by far the most unlikely outcome; less than a thousand adventurers (criminals in fact) pitted against a million strong militaristic empire. So that became the second book. Another event in history with significant implications which doesn’t often see the light of day. It was arguably the first step towards the imperial, capitalist drive which ruled until after the second world war and paved the way for our modern world.
I remember one Sunday afternoon, I was sweeping leaves in our back garden, when it dawned on me that if I were to create a group of characters, which I wanted to develop, but which would also experience these events, separated as they are in time and geography, then they would have to be travelling in time, and thus the Time Stones were born.
That then gave me another obstacle to overcome, what are these stones and where do they come from? That’s a story for another book or two. But it did also give me a perfect adversary. Who wouldn’t want to have that power at your fingertips? Well, as Jessie and her friends find out, perhaps it’s not all that wonderful.
About Ian Hunter:
Books have been an important part of my life as long as I can remember, and at 54 years old, that’s a lot of books. My earliest memories of reading are CS Lewis’, “The Horse and His Boy” – by far the best of the Narnia books, the Adventures series by Willard Price, and “Goalkeepers are Different” by sports journalist Brian Glanville. An eclectic mix. My first English teacher was surprised to hear that I was reading, Le Carré, Ken Follett, Nevil Shute and “All the Presidents’ Men” by Woodward and Bernstein at the age of 12. I was simply picking up the books my father had finished.
School syllabus threw up the usual suspects – Shakespeare, Chaucer, Dickens, Hardy, “To Kill a Mockingbird” – which I have reread often, and others I don’t immediately recall. By “A” level study, my then English teachers were pulling their hair out at my “perverse waste of talent” – I still have the report card! But I did manage a pass.
During a 35 year career, briefly in Banking and then in IT, I managed to find time, with unfailing family support, to study another lifelong passion, graduating with an Open University Bachelors’ degree in History in 2002. This fascination with all things historical inspired me to begin the Time Stones series. There is so much to our human past, and so many differing views on what is the greatest, and often the saddest, most tragic story. I decided I wanted to write about it; to shine a small light on those, sometimes pivotal stories, which are less frequently mentioned.
In 1995, my wife, Michelle, and I moved from England to southern Germany, where we still live, with our two children, one cat, and, when she pays us a visit, one chocolate labrador. I have been fortunate that I could satisfy another wish, to travel as widely as possible and see as much of our world as I can. Destinations usually include places of historic and archaeological interest, mixed with a large helping of sun, sea and sand for my wife’s peace of mind.
Social Media Links:
Website: https://ianhunterwrites.com
Twitter /X: https://x.com/IanHunterAuthor
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B07KPKWG1C
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/20335698.Ian_Hunter
