Beginning MONDAY January 1, 2024

Kairos Medieval: Medieval Tales 

1) The story of Genevieve and Charlemagne. Genevieve only escapes her Cinderella life when her prince (Charles, King of the Franks) comes to town. Unfortunately, her stepmother’s “friends” haunt her days right up to Rome and the Christmas day coronation of Charles, the first Holy Roman Emperor.

2) The story of Thegn Elgar and Alfred the Great. Elgar (Eangar) fights for Somerset, for his Ealdorman father Eanric and later for his brother Eanwulf, and for the king. The Vikings are a terrible scourge who need to be driven from the English shores, and worse, the aliens Elgar calls Flesh Eaters don’t belong on this planet at all.

3) The stories of Kirstie the shield maiden of Strindlos in the Trondelag and Yasmina, Princess of Mecca and Medina, two young women whose stories are intertwined, almost like twins, though they are separated by more than thirty years.

Kirstie (Kristina) of Strindlos takes up her battle axe and sails with the Vikings, not for conquest, but because the god Abraxas is scattering terrible hags along the continental coast, looking for a safe way to return to the continent.

Meanwhile, Yasmina, her maid Aisha, and her faithful retainer al-Rahim also travel but across the sea of sand. They escape Mecca when the fanatic Qarmatians come calling. They are chased up the Hejaz, across the Negev and Sinai, and down into Egypt. They find temporary safety in Alexandria before the equally fanatic Fatimids arrive.

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Interlude (TBA)

Somewhere between the two medieval books I hope to post either a novelette (6-10 weeks) if I ever get the thing finished, or maybe a few short stories, or possibly we can slip back into the BC for a different Kairos book like a story in the Americas (Ecuador, Columbia, and the Mojave) from roughly 3950-3450 BC or a story a bit closer to home, like between 1650 and 1250 BC among the gods, which would be the first stories of the goddess Amphitrite, Queen of the Sea, and the Nameless god of Asgard.

I am open to votes, but in any case, I want something between the two medieval books, just to have a break.

Kairos Medieval: Before Sunrise

This book will begin at the end of 2024 and post well into 2025, or it may begin as late as the ides of March 2025 depending on what the interlude story happens to be.

The book begins with the second stories of Kristina and Yasmina where they are forced to marry the wrong person, get out of that bad situation, and marry the right person, and the book ends with the story of Don Giovanni and his circus: The Greatest Show on Earth. (He stole that line from the future but he figures no one will sue him in the year Y1K).

Note

For those of you who read the two Kairos Medieval stories of Greta, the Wise Woman of Dacia, with her two partners in time, Festuscato, the Last Senator of Rome and Gerraint in the Days of King Arthur, and especially for those who went on to read the two Kairos Medieval books of Marguerite, where Festuscato and Gerraint finished their stories as well, it seemed only fair to post the last two books in the Kairos Medieval group. Notice I used the word group, not series.

I am reluctant to call them book 5 and book 6 in a series. I don’t want anyone to think they have to read books 1-4 to understand what is going on in books 5 and 6. I  am also reluctant to call them a series, for that matter, because it is not that kind of a series. Each lifetime of the Kairos is a story unto itself. Even when the story is split between two books as with Margueritte and Greta, I work hard to make each “half” a complete story with a beginning, middle, and end that comes to a satisfying conclusion and doesn’t leave cliffhangers.

So, if you read the stories of Greta and Margueritte, great. But if you didn’t read those stories that should not make any difference. Medieval Tales and Before Sunrise are stories unto themselves. I only hope you will enjoy them.

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