Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Guest Blog and Spotlight: A Portal in Time by Claire Fullerton

A Portal in Time
Claire Fullerton

Genre: Paranormal/Historical Romance
Vinspire Publishing


About the Book:
It is the year 2000: Enigmatic and spirited Anna Lucera is gifted with an uncanny sixth-sense, and is intrigued by all things mystical. When her green, cat-eyes and long, black hair capture the attention of a young lawyer named Kevin Townsend, a romance ensues which leads them to the hauntingly beautiful region of California’s Carmel-By-The-Sea, where Anna is intuitively drawn to the Madiera Hotel. Everything about the hotel and Carmel-By-The-Sea heightens her senses and speaks to Anna as if she had been there before.
It is the year 1902: Young Valeria Sienna has never been in love until she meets the mesmerizingly  handsome artist, Anders Kristiansen, at an art gallery in San Francisco.  She must make Domenico Sienna, her formidable and prominent Italian father, consent to allowing Anders Kristiansen to court her, and she knows her adored sister, Francesca, along with her genteel, Italian mother, Adriana will help.
Combined, the three women will convince Domenico that the elegant Norwegian artist, Mr. Kristiansen, is worthy of Valeria in every way, even though he is not of their Italian lineage.
Rich in history, mystique and foreshadow, “A Portal in Time” is an intertwined story of two romances that are steeped in the language and social mores of two different time periods. The words and actions of the unforgettable characters fit seamlessly together, and bridge the time frames like pieces of a puzzle, creating an intriguing whole.
That which draws two people into the arms of love is often times eerily familiar, and that which resounds in the depth of our memory can sometimes spring from a portal in time. 


Amazon | BN

MRP is delighted to welcome author and guest blogger, Claire Fullerton~
Inspiration for a novel can come from the most unusual of circumstances, and the idea for “A Portal in Time” is no exception. In the year 2000, my husband and I took a trip up the California coast to Carmel-by-the-Sea on the hauntingly beautiful Monterey Peninsula.  As it was our one year wedding anniversary, we had reservations for the weekend at Carmel's historic, La Playa Hotel-- a hotel we'd never stayed in before.  Everything about the lobby of the antiquated hotel piqued my interest, and as my husband checked us in, I let my imagination roam free, taking in every inch of the opulent lobby with its travertine floors, sand-stone fireplace, and sweeping Mediterranean tiled staircase.  I explored a particular hallway looking at architectural maps of various stages of the hotel's growth that hung beside sepia tinted photographs of people in period clothing.  By the time my husband came to find me, I had already envisioned myself living in a house of this exact constitution, wearing a dress exactly like the one I saw in one of the photographs.  Next, I started thinking of what it was like to be alive at the turn of the 19th century, living in a house by the sea along with how it would feel to have it as the setting of my life.  I decided I would love it-- that there would be a fabulous, interesting, fully-realized life at play with myself at the center of a thriving artistic community and oh the thrill of the environment.
But it occurred to me that life is life, and things happen to people unwittingly, and the story of people’s lives tend to happen in increments of cause and effect no matter where one lives. 
My eyes kept returning to the lobby’s staircase, and I wanted to climb them to their top.  When I did, I was drawn to a wooden cathedral door at the end of a long hallway.  I stood looking down the hall thinking, “If this were my house, the master bedroom would be at the end of this hall with a bay window overlooking a garden.”  I could feel myself standing before the window as if I were looking at my garden, then I started asking, “Now why would I be here looking out the window?”
“A Portal in Time,” my paranormal/historical novel, is the explanation of an entire imagined life that brought me to that window at the top of the stairs in Carmel’s La Playa Hotel.  I decided the story would be best told in oscillating time periods in order to lend an eerie, mystical feel. I like to give my readers an experience by taking them on a journey.  I want them to see and hear and feel everything for themselves by giving them a specific reality, and in this case, the reality is “A Portal in Time.”

About the Author: 
Claire Fullerton is a two-time, award-winning essayist, a newspaper columnist and a contributing editor for numerous magazines. She hails from Memphis, Tennessee, and now divides her time between Malibu and Carmel-By-The-Sea, California with her husband, two German shepherds, and two black cats. Claire's second novel, "Dancing to an Irish Reel" will be released in 2015.
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