Chester Alumni Virtual Reunion 2020!

I'm Beth Linton, I'm an author of romance novels and I completed my MA in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of Chester, graduating in 2006. I have fond memories of my time studying at Chester - so much so that I'm still a local and Chester is the setting for my present series!

Hello University of Chester Alumni!

As anyone who has tried to make it as a writer will tell you, it takes time and serious graft... and mine is finally starting to pay off. Hurrah! My debut series was accepted by a publisher at the start of lockdown and book one is due for release on the 8th September 2020. Books two and three are expected to follow about a month afterwards.

When writing my series, I (like many writers) drew on what I know and love - Chester! Although, as a fantasy/paranormal romance writer, my imagination created the rest...

The Guardians' Trust series is based in two worlds: the human world at the Guardians' Trust who live in a hall based upon the National Trust's Erddig in North Wales and the Other Realm, a tropical world at war.

There are many local links: the heroine in book 1 is a vet at Chester Zoo and the heroine in book 3 is a junior doctor at the Maelor Hospital, Wrexham. In fact, some of my villain's victims are students from the university! 😮

To listen to an extract of The Guardians' Trust: Ana (book 1) please click the audio box below. If you'd rather read the extract for yourself (my reading might be a bit dodgy - I'm no actor!) you can find it at the bottom of this page.

Blurb for The Guardians' Trust: Ana (book 1)

Some women are born identical - one in the human world, one in the jungle of the Other Realm. It is their fate to change places. In The Guardians’ Trust series Doubles embrace their fate with the men born for them…

WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU LEARNT THERE WERE TWO OF YOU?

Dr Ana Jones learns it is her destiny to leave the human world and cross into an Amazonian realm to join the Resistance who are fighting for survival – a fate that is akin to stepping back in time... A Double, she must pass through the gateway and marry a stranger.

HE WAS BORN FOR HER

A warrior, leading the Resistance is Brenin’s life but Ana is his fate. Brenin embraces his marriage, and the shapeshifting gift his mating brings, but will her love be enough to help both man and panther survive the war?

• Ana, book 1 of The Guardians' Trust series is available to purchase at Amazon Kindle, Evernight Publishing, Barns & Noble, Smashwords, Bookstrand, iBooks and Kobo.

• To find out about The Guardians’ Trust series click here and visit my books page where you can find the blurb for the first three books.

I'm lucky, I'm getting a shot at my dream and I'll receive the book cover I've coveted since I was eight years old any day now. To pay it forward, I've been writing a series of blogs to support would-be writers. The biggest learning point for me as I went through the professional editing process for the first time was understanding point of view. For new writers this can be a killer! If anyone reading this has writing aspirations, I'd recommend checking this out.

If you'd like to follow me, or know someone (perhaps at Chester Zoo or who works at the hospital?) who'd enjoy some romantic escapism, you can find bethlintonauthor on Instagram and also on Facebook and Twitter.

Any support you can fling my way would be great!

Best Wishes

Beth Linton - former University of Chester student!

Extract from The Guardians' Trust: Ana (book 1):

Ana’s cup hit the table, its contents sloshing onto the wood unnoticed. “Human? What, from fourteenth century history we’re now talking UFOs?”

Maddox laughed. “Not extra-terrestrials, no.” His expression sobered, his belief in his next words evident. “But Others.”

“Others?” Ana squeaked. Glancing around, she was relieved to see the kiosk worker was still there. A handful of tourists mulled around, too. She wasn’t alone—her skepticism would have done Scully proud, if not Mulder. “Look I saw the X-Files, who hasn’t? But Others? If the Trust is some sort of cult or something, I’m really not up for recruitment.”

Pryce almost smiled. “We are largely what we appear to be. A family who works in the Trust the Gatekeeper’s replacement formed centuries ago to keep our land safe.”

Ana frowned. They had both seemed so normal, and good-looking. It was such a shame. “And these Others?”

“I am an Other,” Maddox said calmly. “Or rather my parents were. I was conceived in the Other Realm and came here when still inside my mother’s womb.”

“The gateway between the two worlds is one of those secrets we spoke of,” Pryce said.

Ana stared from one to the other. How could two such respected businessmen be quietly bonkers and the world hadn’t noticed? “Next you’ll be telling me you are three hundred years old as well,” she scoffed.

Pryce shook his head, his lips twitching again. “I’m thirty-one.”

“I, on the other hand,” Maddox said, “am six hundred eighteen years old. My father’s Double was the Gatekeeper. I was born to take his place. I am the Caretaker of the Guardians’ Trust.”

“Six hundred eighteen?” Ana said faintly. She really needed to make her excuses and go.

“Given my youthful good looks,” Maddox said and smiled roguishly, “I can see why you’d doubt me, but every word we have said is true. We protect the land and the secret gateway it holds.”

Ana searched for something to say. She felt like a character in one of those novels where an impossible secret was told and the heroine was just supposed to swallow it. She glanced around warily. Perhaps she was being filmed? What was that American show called? Candid Camera? Did they even still make it?

This was ridiculous!

With deliberate care, Ana pushed her cup away. “I’m not sure what’s going on, or if someone put you up to this, but I think your joke is over.” She started to rise. “I thank you for the coffee, but I have work to do.”

“Tell me,” Maddox said as she climbed to her feet, “do you ever dream of a jungle?”

Ana froze, one leg mid-air over the picnic bench she’d been sitting on. “What did you say?”

“Do you ever dream of a jungle?”

Slowly, Ana lowered herself back down to the bench. “That’s impossible,” she said. “I never told anyone about my dream.”

“And yet I know,” Maddox said, his expression one of infinite patience. “The jungle in your dreams is dense and green but not flat. It coats cliffs and mountains of jagged peaks and deep ravines. There are terracotta cliffs and yellow stone rises. There is a pool of turquoise water at the base of a waterfall. I wonder, in your dreams, did you ever see an old woman kneeling at the water’s edge washing her clothing?”

“She wasn’t old.” The admission puffed through her stunned lips. “She was young and beautiful, with hair like spun sunshine.”

“Yes, that’s her.” Maddox smiled, enigmatically.

Ana blinked. “But how can you know? I have seen this place since I was a small girl. It is real to me, so very real, but I have searched and searched and it does not exist. It only lives within my mind.”

Maddox shook his head. “In my mind, too. It is the place where I was conceived. It is my true home. The Other Realm.”

“Then how do I know it?” Ana asked. “If you are going to tell me I am one of these Others, I won’t believe you. I already think you half mad.”

“Other? No. You are as human as they come, Dr. Siana Jones,” Maddox said. “But you are a Double.”

Before she could ask, Pryce told her, “Throughout history there have been people born on either side of the gateway with the same face. Usually female, one is human and one is Other. Although different people, these Doubles are identical. At two points in history, the creator has asked them to cross and switch places.”

“The creator? You’re bringing God into this?” Ana asked, appalled.

“The Mother we speak of is the ancient one. The bringer of life. Mother Nature. She created a trinity of worlds that form a whole. Usually, these worlds coexist separately, neatly, but there have been periods of unrest where the exchange of these Doubles has redressed an imbalance. The exchange, marriage, and mating of these Doubles has lessened growing evil.”

“Evil?” Ana felt cold. From vet to parrot in one bizarre conversation.

...“Wait,” Ana said, almost desperately. “Are you saying it is time for this Exchange again? That women need to swap places? That these identical Doubles, as you called them, are wandering around doing goodness knows what?”

“Not wandering around, no. More like sitting, drinking Americano, and wondering if she’s lost her mind because she’s believing an impossible story when she knows she shouldn’t.”

Ana’s brown eyes had to be as wide as saucers. Her gaze swept from Pryce to Maddox and back again. “In the words of John McEnroe, ‘you cannot be serious!’”

Pryce’s lips lifted in what seemed to be an apology…

Ana’s head sank into her hands. “This is just so unbelievable. I’m a scientist. A vet. I like rational order, data, and proof. I don’t believe in prophetic dreams, or visions, or Other Realms, come to that.”

“Tell me. Did you see a man in your visions?” Pryce asked.

Ana’s head snapped up. “A man? No. I saw a jungle and cats: panthers, leopards, jaguars…” Her voice faded and her eyes narrowed. “Wait. You said marriage and mating. I’m supposed to marry someone over there? Like an arranged marriage?”

…Ana jerked as she thought of something else. “Hang on a second, didn’t you say there was some sort of civil war going on there? You want me to cross and marry a stranger and live in a war zone?”

Maddox calmly took another sip of his tea. “I never said that accepting the fate you were born for would be easy, Dr. Jones.

Chester Alumni link If you'd like to learn more about my series' local connections click here.