On a summer afternoon in 1998, Lizzie Chetwyrd embarks on a journey that will change her life, and the world, forever. Lizzie's story begins innocently enough when her elderly Aunt Maggie gives her the family's ancestral home in Concord, Massachusetts. The house is full of memories for Lizzie, who spent childhood summers there, losing herself in the sense of wonder and magic that seemed to dwell in the fabric of the house and its surroundings. But when she drives from her nearby Cambridge apartment to visit the house for the first time in years, she is startled by its appearance. Time, the elements and neglect have diminished its former glory. The once imposing 18th century dwelling stands abandoned in an eerie tangle of vines, peeling paint and sadness that seems to have erased the enchantment and consumed the spirit of the old house. On one of Lizzie's visits to Aunt Maggie in the nursing home where she is living, the old woman encourages her to spend more time at the house, listening and watching because "Concord has places of deep power and the house rests upon one." Lizzie, who is accustomed to hearing her aunt spin strange tales, dismisses the notion until Aunt Maggie shows her family daguerreotypes of the era. Lizzie is stunned to see her own image in one of the pictures. Lizzie's journeys begin through a fold in time-to 1842 where she meets her great-great-great-great Grandmother Sophronia. She befriends the visionaries Emerson and Thoreau who soon suspect that she is more than a visiting relative. As the friendship deepens between Lizzie and the writers, they learn of her otherworldly journeys. Emerson's writing begin to reflect Lizzie's experience and his growing belief that-"Time and space are just inverse measures of the force of the soul. A man is capable of abolishing them both. The spirit sports with time."
About the Author: I live in my "Enchanted Cottage" on Cape Cod where my studio is filled with canvases, an easel, bookshelves, computer and printer, and a table covered with manuscript pages and folders. My days are filled with words and colors, paints and the sea. Cape Cod, the most magical of places, is conducive to solitude and creativity. My novels and canvases begin with one thought: "What if..." Both are filled with light. I wrote my first book, "Me 'n God in the Coffee Shop" at a local coffee shop. At the time I ran a graphics studio from my home and would take breaks from work to sit at the coffee shop with a notebook. I had no intention of beginning a novel. I was just jotting down ideas like "What would 'God' say if He/She walked in here and sat beside me?" God, to me, is all creation, manifested in matter. (That means us too!) And so-unknown to me at the time-I began my first novel. When finished, even before it was accepted for publication, I began to meditate on the next book, "The Stone Children" (soon to be published). In my meditation I saw marble eggs lying in nests of straw in a barn. I've leaned not to question the images that come to me. I follow them as I begin to write and the story unfolds in the process. I don't make outlines, don't know where the story will take me or how it will end. Whatever "whispers" in my ear leads me to places I'd never think to go with my logical mind. I'm always surprised. For instance, in "The Stone Children," I had no idea how marble eggs lying in beds of straw could ever be a story. But I listened and heard the music of babies lying within those eggs and saw statues of children being carved. That music took me to the horrors of Nazi Germany and to the children in the concentration camps and, as the story unfolded, to butterflies and beauty and hope. I began my third book, "The Daughters of Time," when I was visiting friends in Virginia. We drove by an abandoned and neglected house, once a grand eighteenth century home. I began to imagine who had built it and who had lived in it. Had the home been filled with children and laughter and love? Why had it been so neglected over the years? Does a houses hold the energy of those who once occupied it and if I were to walk into that house would I be able to hear it speak to me? These questions, like breadcrumbs dropped on a forest floor, led me from the first sentence to the book's conclusion.