Timebound

The thrilling conclusion of the Keeping Time trilogy! A diva, a crime lord, a resistance fighter, a bohemian — who will she be this time? Katrina, Maxwell, Elizabeth, William, and their comrades have one last chance to set time right... only this time they’re up against time-traveling storm troopers from the Third Reich. What happens when time loops in on itself, and the center of the Gordian knot is a secret, heavily guarded facility in Norway? It turns out that Napoleon wasn’t the only megalomaniac with dreams of world conquest our heroes need to stop! COMING November 22, 2018! (Science fiction Steampunk time-travel, historical romance and adventure) Extract: Exasperated, Maxwell picked up letter and bag together, and the loose drawstring mouth opened, dumping the contents literally into his lap. He had time to think, The last damned thing I want is my father’s watch— Then he got a good look at it. And nothing was ever the same again. One could not be indifferent when one held in one’s hands an object that could not possibly exist. Instead of one face, it had four, two crowded on one side and two on another. One of these looked like it might actually tell time, though it was not doing so at present. The second had both an inner and outer dial, with numbers running all around it. The third was even more complicated, comprised of eight dials nesting within each other. These had numbers as well, ones significant enough that they immediately jumped to his attention: 0, 2, 1, 1, 1, 8, 1, 9. The second of November, 1819. The day his parents had vanished. And the fourth face simply could not exist. The fourth face displayed moving images. Tiny ones, but perfectly distinct, a scene aboard a sailing ship that lurched over waves even as he watched it. And then dissolved, to be replaced by knights in plate mail competing in a joust. The dry and logical voice he kept within had no chance to offer any opinions about coincidence, or to speculate with what Georgie might be lacing his brandy. The situation was too real, too immediate, to be considered sardonically at one remove. Maxwell’s heart beat fast and his palms sweated as he held the timepiece. With his other hand he fumbled to pick up the second object the red velvet bag had deposited into his lap. A locket. Of the sort a man rather than a woman would wear, and so the contents came as no particular surprise. This was William Carrington’s memorabilia, after all. Of course he had a locket containing a picture of Elizabeth Barton. Maxwell had only ever seen one portrait of her, the one painted on her sixteenth birthday, a year before she had run off to Gretna Green and her family had disowned her. It had hung in a disused bedchamber in the house of his Barton grandparents, but he had managed to carve out a little time to creep away and stare at it upon each childhood visit. She looked to be a few years older in this little locket miniature, or perhaps it was only the matron’s cap confining her curls that granted the illusion. The letter. The letter would explain all this. He had never in his life opened a letter so eagerly. My dear son, it began. We need your help. And for the second time in two days, Maxwell felt as though he had been punched in the gut.