Druid's
Portal: The First Journey
by
Cindy Tomamichel
Genre:
Time Travel Romance, Historical Fantasy
A
portal closed for 2,000 years.
An ancient religion twisted by
modern greed.
A love that crosses the centuries.
An
ancient druid pendant shows archaeologist Janet visions of Roman
soldier Trajan. The visions are of danger, death, and love—but are
they a promise or a curse?
Her
fiancé Daman abandons her before the wedding, her beloved museum is
ransacked, and a robed man vanishes before her eyes. Haunted by
visions of a time she knows long gone, Janet teeters on the edge of a
breakdown.
In
the shadow of Hadrian’s Wall and 2,000 years back in time, Janet’s
past and present collide. Daman has vowed to drive the invaders from
the shores of Britain and march his barbarian hordes to Rome. Trajan
swears vengeance against the man who threatens both his loves—Janet
and the Empire.
Time
is running out—for everyone.
Druid's
Portal : The Second Journey
A
love that can never be.
Ethan—latest guardian of the Arwen
pendant—finds his heritage of time travel a burden he can scarcely
endure. Rowena—last of the line of Daman—is a soldier in the
Celtic army, forced to perform deeds that haunt her. Both tormented
by visions of the other, separated by barriers of time.
A time
that should not exist.
Rowena flees the catastrophic end of
her time but is trapped by an ancient family pact with an evil
goddess. Desperate to save her, Ethan crosses over into her timeline,
where his parents never met, and Daman—their greatest
enemy—rules.
The past is ruled by a man who knows the
future.
Thirty days to stop a goddess taking over her body.
Thirty days to save his timeline. Together they will fight their way
through an altered history to the dark past of Stonehenge.
But
time is running out—for everyone.
Cindy
Tomamichel is a multi-genre writer. Escape the everyday with time
travel action adventure novels, scifi and fantasy stories or tranquil
scenes for relaxation.
Find
a world where the heroines don’t wait to be rescued, and the heroes
earn that title the hard way.
The
Druid’s Portal series is a genre blend of action, adventure,
romance, time travel and magical historical fantasy set in Roman
Britain.
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GUEST POST
What are your top 10 favorite books/authors?
I’ll cheat a bit and add in series.
Hey, I am a fast reader.
- Modesty Blaise by Peter O’Donnell for top notch action and bad guys, and strong women.
- Temple by Matthew Reilly for a great past journal- modern action combination.
- Lord of the Rings/Hobbit by Tolkien, a fantasy trailblazer that needs no introduction.
- Narnia series by CS Lewis a childhood favourite, although I still mourn poor Susan.
- Thornyhold by Mary Stewart, a lovely relaxing romance with some beautiful descriptions of an old English house and gardens.
- Phyrne Fisher series by Kerry Greenwood for a take no nonsense Australian heroine.
- Conan series by RE Howard, the goto books for sword and sorcery and an iconic hero.
- The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever by Stephen Donaldson, an intense and detailed fantasy world.
- Harry Potter by JK Rowling, for igniting the longing that everyone has to receive their letter from Hogwarts.
- The Discworld by Terry Pratchett for so many laughs over the years.
What book do you think everyone
should read?
Mine- obviously! 😊
But more seriously, it’s really hard
to recommend books, as people differ so much in taste and interests.
A book that rocks the world of one person may be either impenetrable
or rubbish to another. However, a book I found inspiring was Jane
Goodall’s book “Hope for Animals and Their World: How Endangered
Species Are Being Rescued from the Brink” which was full of stories
of scientists rescuing animals and studying them so as to preserve
their species. For anyone that despairs at the state of the world,
this is a book full of hope.
How long have you been writing?
I wrote a little when a teenager, but
really got stuck in when in my 30’s. So about ten years of terrible
poetry, and twenty years of novels and short stories.
Do the characters all come to you at
the same time or do some of them come to you as you write?
No, sometimes a new character has to be
added in, or a character will pop up when writing and demand their
time in the spotlight. The main characters are usually solid before a
book starts, but I don’t like to know too much of what’s going
on, I like to surprise myself.
What kind of research do you do
before you begin writing a book?
I read generally for historical books
to get feel for the time. I search for something that’s a bit of a
hook – Roman sandal discoveries, a carving on a stone or the diet
of a Roman soldier. There are some great online courses offered
(Online Learning) and I have done an archaeology one, and Life near
Hadrian’s Wall. From there, I can research specifics during
writing. I also keep an eye out for new research finds, adding in a
lot of the digging results at Vindolanda, a fort along Hadrian’s
Wall.
For science fiction and fantasy, I
follow much the same pattern. However topics vary widely, and I have
researched terraforming (changing the surface and atmosphere of a
planet), cuneiform writing, string language (knots in string were a
form of communication , a little like morse code) and making pemmican
(a travel food of dried, meat, berries and fat) and using herbs.
Do you see writing as a career?
It is a part time career now, as it
allows me to fit in other bits of life tucked in around the edges.
Do you read yourself and if so what
is your favorite genre?
I read according to mood and whim,
spanning fantasy, scifi, romance, action adventure and mysteries. But
I do tend towards the action adventure end of the spectrum for
preference.
Do you prefer to write in silence or
with noise? Why?
In silence generally, although I do get
out to cafes and find the act of blocking background noise helps
concentration. I have written in the middle of preparing dinner, and
walking across carparks on the back of a receipt. However I find
music terribly distracting.
Do you write one book at a time or
do you have several going at a time?
Write one at a time, and try to get a
project finished. The last is not that successful, as I have quite a
few novels in various stages of editing, all screaming for attention.
But I have a great critique group for early drafts, so I am often
working on several books at once.
Pen or type writer or computer?
All of the above – I generally write
on the desktop computer. However there are folders full of post it
notes, and notebooks full of plot ideas. The best thing of late is a
folding keyboard which hooks wirelessly to my phone. I put it
straight into googledocs, and transfer later to word. But I wrote the
last 10,000 words of a book while on holiday on my little folding
keyboard, while sipping hot chocolate and watching the ocean go by on
a cruise.
I am so old I used a manual typewriter
for university essays, and the sound of the little dinging bell still
makes me quiver. We are so fortunate technology has moved forward,
writers really have a wealth of tools to use today.
What is your writing process? For
instance do you do an outline first? Do you do the chapters first?
I have a rough outline, although this
is often very basic as I don’t like to plan it out too much and
lose the sense of adventure. For Druids Portal, since it is a
multi-generational time travel, with alternate history and multiple
time trips, I have done a flow chart to make sure the events all make
sense.
When ready to write, I set up a
document with a manuscript format, and chapter headings. Which gives
me as much framework as I need, and settles the idea as a novel,
rather than a mass of notes.
What are common traps for aspiring
writers?
Talking about writing more than
actually doing it. Social media is also a time suck most writers
would do best to avoid as much as possible.
Do you try more to be original or to
deliver to readers what they want?
I probably focus on originality. If I
was sensible, I would be writing in more popular genres.
If you could tell your younger
writing self anything, what would it be?
Get stuck into it. Don’t bother
reading dozens of how to write books. Give up the turgid poetry. Read
the Hero’s Journey earlier. Watch more Star Trek.
How long on average does it take you
to write a book?
I can knock out the first draft of
70,000 words during the month of Nanowrimo (Write a novel in
November) but redrafting and editing can take many months.
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