Roman time travel reprint - The Green Bronze Mirror

[Lynne Ellison]

EDIT: Smashwords edition out!
The Smashwords e-book version has now been published and is available to purchase from http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/22239 price US$1.49. An Amazon Kindle version is also in the process of publication

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
I wrote this book when I was 14, when I was a dreamy, bookish adolescent who could listen to the teacher with half an ear and write the book at the back of the class. My main reading at the time was novels set in Roman, Greek or medieval times. A weekend trip to Anglesey with my Mum gave the backdrop for the starting point, and travelling back in time was always a favourite fantasy. I believed my main character, Karen, was fictional, but with hindsight I realise she was me. Once started, the ideas flowed thick and fast and before the end of one chapter, the next would suggest itself. I did some additional research but even so slipped up on a couple of things that the editor later spotted, for instance the Romans had no tomatoes: they were brought to Europe from America centuries later.

I was thrilled when a publisher accepted it, and of course a huge fuss was made about such a young author.
However, I spent the rest of my teen years trying to live it down. Boys didn't go for clever girls and if anyone mentioned it at a party I knew my chances were snookered. The book has been gathering dust in my memory for decades, so I was frankly astonished to be contacted by a private publisher last year, wanting to re-issue it. However, when I look at it again, I'm surprised how good it is, and friends of mine are now begging for copies and reading it themselves.

These days I'm a Speech and Language Therapist, but I've had a variety of jobs, including teaching English to foreigners, working in a bookshop, leading pony treks in the Welsh Mountains and running riding holidays in the Scottish Borders. I'm an outdoor person at heart, love animals, wild places and wine. I have two sons who are the best thing in my life, even though when I was younger I thought I didn't want children.

If you want to write, just sit down and get on with it. Then go over what you've written, reduce and condense by at least a third, delete the word "I" wherever possible, and don't stick to a strictly chronological order of events.

SYNOPSIS
Teenage girl finds ancient mirror which transports her in time to Roman Britain, where she is taken into slavery.

Karen is on holiday at the seaside in twentieth century England. She finds a bronze mirror, green with age, almost buried in the sand. Looking into it, she is transported back in time to the Roman Empire. She encounters a Roman officer who mistakes her for a runaway slave. She is sold several times, ending up in a wealthy household in Nero's Rome, as nursemaid to the children of the family. She falls in love with a Greek slave boy, witnesses gladiatorial games, and joins a group of early Christians. When the Great Fire of Rome comes, she is forced to flee from persecution, and hides in the catacombs, where she learns the secret of how to return to her own time. She faces many hair-raising adventures before she can return home.

This book was first published in 1966 by Blackie and Son, and was long out of print until it was reissued last year by CNPosner Books with new illustrations by Philip Smiley. A corrected version was issued earlier this year, eliminating the errors in the 2009 printing. It can be purchased directly from the publisher, from Amazon UK, Ebay and selected bookshops.

A FREE extract is available on the social networking site Authonomy.

[pietvo]

Where's the ebook?

[roger the rabbit]

I'll second that - This is after all an Ebook forum

[GeoffC]

[Dr. Drib]

Title of thread clarified.



Don
(Moderator)

[GeoffC]

If it's a 'lost' classic, then surely an opportunity offers itself for it to be re-born as an e-book?

[Lynne Ellison]

The ebook will shortly be available from Smashreads

[Lynne Ellison]

Sorry, I meant Smashwords

[GeoffC]

Excellent news !!

[roger the rabbit]

Waiting for it to appear to "sample" the sample.

[Lynne Ellison]

The Smashwords e-book version has now been published and is available to purchase from http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/22239 price US$1.49. An Amazon Kindle version is also in the process of publication

[roger the rabbit]

Thanks Lynne, just grabbed the sample.

Pleased to see you set it at a sensible size, making it more likely if somebody reads that far they will for sure buy the book.

[lene1949]

I just read some of the sample... I think Karen could have questioned the happenings more, before immediately deciding she had been transported back 2000 years...