Book Spotlight - Quetzalcoatl: Time Stones Book II by Ian Hunter

 

Quetzalcoatl: Time Stones Book II 
By Ian Hunter

Publication Date: 22nd April 2021

Publisher: MVB Marketing- und Verlagsservice des Buchhandels GmbH

Print Length: 277 Pages

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Jessie Mason lives with her nose in the pages of history. But she is discovering that the past is a dangerous place where she doesn't belong, and knowledge alone is not going to save her.

Jessie’s life has become a series of terrible challenges. Now she must lead her friends in the hopeless task Grandfather set them: hunt down and destroy the Time Stones. But her leadership has already failed. Tip has left them and Abe has simply disappeared, while she and Kes are trapped in the heart of an ancient empire in turmoil.

Thrust into a fractured, threatened Mexica nobility, Jessie is immersed in a way of life, fascinating and disturbing in equal measure, yet powerless before the approaching Conquistadors and the impending clash of cultures.

Even as the fabulous city of Tenochtitlan descends into savage violence, Jessie’s determination to succeed is undiminished. But with world history taking a new, bloody direction before her, she is finally forced to decide which is more important: continuing the task or simply surviving.

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Books have been an important part of my life as long as I can remember, and at 54 years old, that’s a lot of books. My earliest memories of reading are CS Lewis’, “The Horse and His Boy” – by far the best of the Narnia books, the Adventures series by Willard Price, and “Goalkeepers are Different” by sports journalist Brian Glanville. An eclectic mix. My first English teacher was surprised to hear that I was reading, Le Carré, Ken Follett, Nevil Shute and “All the Presidents’ Men” by Woodward and Bernstein at the age of 12. I was simply picking up the books my father had finished.

School syllabus threw up the usual suspects – Shakespeare, Chaucer, Dickens, Hardy, “To Kill a Mockingbird” – which I have reread often, and others I don’t immediately recall. By “A” level study, my then English teachers were pulling their hair out at my “perverse waste of talent” – I still have the report card! But I did manage a pass.

During a 35 year career, briefly in Banking and then in IT, I managed to find time, with unfailing family support, to study another lifelong passion, graduating with an Open University Bachelors’ degree in History in 2002. This fascination with all things historical inspired me to begin the Time Stones series. There is so much to our human past, and so many differing views on what is the greatest, and often the saddest, most tragic story. I decided I wanted to write about it; to shine a small light on those, sometimes pivotal stories, which are less frequently mentioned.

In 1995, my wife, Michelle, and I moved from England to southern Germany, where we still live, with our two children, one cat, and, when she pays us a visit, one chocolate labrador. I have been fortunate that I could satisfy another wish, to travel as widely as possible and see as much of our world as I can. Destinations usually include places of historic and archaeological interest, mixed with a large helping of sun, sea and sand for my wife’s peace of mind.

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My thoughts on Love Lost in Time by Cathie Dunn

Love Lost in Time

By Cathie Dunn

Publication Date: 28th November 2018 (ebook)

Publisher: Ocelot Press

Print Length: 274 Pages

Genre: Duel Time-Line / Historical Mystery / Romance

A reluctant daughter. A dutiful wife. A mystery of the ages.

Languedoc, France, 2018

Historian Madeleine Winters would rather research her next project than rehash the strained relationship she had with her late mother. However, to claim her inheritance, she reluctantly agrees to stay the one year required in her late mother’s French home and begins renovations. But when she’s haunted by a female voice inside the house and tremors emanating from beneath her kitchen floorboards, she’s shocked to discover ancient human bones.

The Mediterranean coast, AD 777

Seventeen-year-old Nanthild is wise enough to know her place. Hiding her Pagan wisdom and dutifully accepting her political marriage, she’s surprised when she falls for her Christian husband, the Count of Carcassonne. But she struggles to keep her forbidden religious beliefs and her healing skills secret while her spouse goes off to fight in a terrible, bloody war.

As Maddie settles into her rustic village life, she becomes obsessed with unraveling the mysterious history buried in her new home. And when Nanthild is caught in the snare of an envious man, she’s terrified she’ll never embrace her beloved again.

Can two women torn apart by centuries help each other finally find peace?

Love Lost in Time is a vivid standalone historical fiction novel for fans of epoch-spanning enigmas. If you like dark mysteries, romantic connections, and hints of the paranormal, then you’ll adore Cathie Dunn’s tale of redemption and self-discovery. 

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Cover Art: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is the kind of book that doesn’t just tug at your emotions—it grabs them and refuses to let go. The opening feels like a quiet warning of what’s coming, and even though the pieces don’t fall into place right away, when they finally do, it hits with full force. I didn’t just cry at the end—I was completely undone. By the time this book was finished with me, I felt wrung out, hollowed, and deeply moved.

What made it hurt so much is how Love Lost in Time slips so easily between comfort and dread. It gives you moments that feel almost safe—small, familiar, gentle—and then quietly pulls the rug out from under you. Everyday actions turn into revelations. Simple sensations turn into memories that don’t belong where they surface. The book doesn’t rush these shifts, and it doesn’t soften them either. You’re allowed to sit in the discomfort, and that’s exactly why it lands so hard.

The medieval storyline broke my heart in the best and worst way. Life is harsh, choices are limited, and love exists under constant pressure from duty, belief, and survival. There is tenderness here, but it’s fragile, always at risk of being taken away. Even the moments of warmth carry a sense of loss, as if you know they won’t last—and that knowledge hangs over everything.

The modern timeline feels deceptively ordinary at first, which makes the emotional cracks that appear later even more painful. When the past starts bleeding into the present, it doesn’t feel dramatic or theatrical—it feels personal. Unavoidable. Like something that was always waiting to be found.

What stayed with me most was the atmosphere. The past in this book doesn’t shout—it lingers. It seeps into the story through touch, scent, fragments of memory, and half-understood truths, until you realize it’s not content to stay buried. There’s something deeply intimate about the way it unfolds, like you’re being let in on a grief that was never properly laid to rest.

By the end, I wasn’t looking for answers—I was just sitting there, emotional and shaken, trying to catch my breath. The book doesn’t offer neat resolutions or easy comfort, and that feels intentional. It leaves you changed, carrying the weight of what you’ve witnessed, knowing that some stories don’t end cleanly—they stay with you.

This is not a gentle read. It’s a beautiful, painful, emotionally demanding one—and I won’t be forgetting it anytime soon.

Cathie is an Amazon-bestselling author of historical fiction, dual-timeline, mystery, and romance. She loves to infuse her stories with a strong sense of place and time, combined with a dark secret or mystery – and a touch of romance. Often, you can find her deep down the rabbit hole of historical research…

In addition, she is also a historical fiction book promoter with The Coffee Pot Book Club, a novel-writing tutor, and a keen reviewer on her blog, Ruins & Reading.

After having lived in Scotland for almost two decades, Cathie is now enjoying the sunshine in the south of France with her husband, and her rescued pets, Ellie Dog & Charlie Cat. 

She is a member of the Historical Novel Society, the Richard III Society, the Alliance of Independent Authors, and the Romantic Novelists’ Association.

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