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Book Title and Author Name
Daughter of Mercia
by Julia Ibbotson
Blurb:
Echoes of the past resonate across the centuries as Dr Anna Petersen, a medievalist and runologist, is struggling with past trauma and allowing herself to trust again. When archaeologist (and Anna’s old adversary) Professor Matt Beacham unearths a 6th century seax with a mysterious runic inscription, and reluctantly approaches Anna for help, a chain of events brings the past firmly back into her present. And why does the burial site also contain two sets of bones, one 6th century and the other modern?
As the past and present intermingle alarmingly, Anna and Matt need to work together to solve the mystery of the seax runes and the seemingly impossible burial, and to discover the truth about the past. Tensions rise and sparks fly between Anna and Matt. But how is 6th century Lady Mildryth of Mercia connected to Anna? Can they both be the Daughter of Mercia?
For fans of Barbara Erskine, Elena Collins, Pamela Hartshorne, Susanna Kearsley and Christina Courtenay.
Buy Link:
Universal Buy Link: https://myBook.to/DOMercia
This title is available to read on #KindleUnlimited.
Author Bio
Julia Ibbotson is fascinated by the medieval world and the concept of time. She is the author of historical mysteries with a frisson of romance. Her books are evocative of time and place, well-researched and uplifting page-turners. Her current series focuses on early medieval time-slip/dual-time mysteries.
Julia read English at Keele University, England, specialising in medieval language / literature / history, and has a PhD in socio-linguistics. After a turbulent time in Ghana, West Africa, she became a school teacher, then a university academic and researcher. Her break as an author came soon after she joined the RNA’s New Writers’ Scheme in 2015, with a three-book deal from Lume Books for a trilogy (Drumbeats) set in Ghana in the 1960s.
She has published five other books, including A Shape on the Air, an Anglo-Saxon timeslip mystery, and its two sequels The Dragon Tree and The Rune Stone. Her latest novel is the first of a new series of Anglo-Saxon dual-time mysteries, Daughter of Mercia, where echoes of the past resonate across the centuries.
Her books will appeal to fans of Barbara Erskine, Pamela Hartshorne, Susanna Kearsley, and Christina Courtenay. Her readers say: ‘Julia’s books captured my imagination’, ‘beautiful story-telling’, ‘evocative and well-paced storylines’, ‘brilliant and fascinating’ and ‘I just couldn’t put it down’.
Author Links:
Website: https://juliaibbotsonauthor.com
Twitter / X: https://twitter.com/@juliaibbotson
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JuliaIbbotsonauthor
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julia.ibbotson
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/juliaibbotson.bsky.social
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/juliai1
Amazon Author Page: https://Author.to/JuliaIbbotsonauthor
Goodreads: https://goodreads.com/juliaibbotson
Excerpt 2:
Dr Anna Petersen experiences haunting flashbacks in the archaeology dig tent as she tries to analyse the seax runes
Anna peered at the remains in the tray. The shape of the medieval skull – the rounded slope of the forehead indicated a female. She knew that much. Yet it made her think of her mother, her body thin and bony now, illness ravaging her, despite her still beautiful face, hating her dependence on others’ care, hating being stuck upstairs in the big, draughty rectory, hating making Anna feel guilty. She bit her lip. How long would she have her before this disease finally snatched her darling mother away from her?
Death. How strange that she could work with it so objectively, so impersonally, when it was a question of ancient bones, when at the same time, on another level, the personal level, it could fill her with so much anguish.
She shuddered and dragged her eyes away from the skull and photographs to the tray beside it. She saw a seax, a smallish, narrow dagger, but she was surprised at the length of the blade in proportion to the hilt. Quite unusual for the period. She had the sense of something special, perhaps the possession of someone high, powerful. Her eyes focused on the detail before her. The seax was single edged and there were markings on the blade and hilt. Anna dipped her hand into her pocket and pulled out a pair of disposable non-latex gloves, slipping her fingers smoothly into them, not taking her eyes from the hilt before her. Tenderly she picked up the seax and rested it on her palms. She peered down closely.
“Good Lord,” she breathed. She sensed Matt Beacham and Edie moving in closer at her side but she didn’t look up, lost in what she was observing, all irritation of the past few minutes relegated to the back of her mind. “See, here. There are braided bands engraved on the blade, its single edge and back are curved towards the tip which is nicely set at the centreline. So far typical of early Saxon.”
She drew in a long breath. “But the hilt, look, bears runes carved neatly and others – well, scratched really – into it. It’s very early and I can identify already a couple of runic symbols that are indicating to me early Angeln, not Saxon. A most unusual find.” She peered closer, holding the seax across her hands like cradling a tiny baby.
“Edie, could you dip into the side pocket of my anorak and get my eye-piece out, please, while I hold this carefully?” She felt a hand delve into her clothing. It felt bigger than she thought Edie’s would and for an embarrassing moment she wondered if it was Professor Beacham’s. Why would it be? Stupid! Without turning, she balanced the seax on the edge of the tray and reached out for the eye-piece, quickly and carefully fitting it to her eye. “It looks … goodness, it looks like a name …” She shook her head. This was most strange.
“You can tell that already?” It was Matt Beacham’s voice that cut across her thoughts, her concentration, but she bristled at the tinge of sarcasm she thought she heard.
“Well,” she tried to ignore his tone, “I’m guessing, making a stab at the runic symbols. But the markings are so small and unclear. I need to look at it under a powerful microscope sure and to identify the other runes. It looks like some kind of inscription, for or about some named person.”
“Wow,” Edie breathed. “It’s all so real, isn’t it? A name, a real person living that long ago, over a thousand years ago.”
“Maybe even 1500 years ago, Edie.”
“You do know that the seax was found in the grave with two sets of skeletal remains, don’t you?” Professor Beacham demanded. His voice was steady but somehow urgent. “So I need to know if the runic inscription gives us any clue as to why this is. The placing and the soil continuity indicate that they were all buried at the same time, the bodies and the seax. But one of the sets of remains is modern – that’s what the police are investigating.” He frowned. “It makes no sense, archaeologically. It’s impossible.” He exhaled sharply, and Anna had the impression that he was not really addressing her, but himself. “And it’s a bloody nuisance, playing havoc with my dig. Police and forensics all over the place. We’re trying to keep the press away, but I doubt it’ll be long before they’re swarming all over the site. So what the hell’s going on here?” She saw out of the corner of her eye that he raked his fingers through his hair, and she recognised the signs of stress.
“Perhaps the early medieval burial was discovered before you excavated it and for some reason someone else was buried in it in recent times,” Anna suggested. “But I don’t really know about soil disturbance or indicators of relative burials. Maybe a crime was involved, with someone trying to hide a body where nobody might ever find it?”
“Seriously? That’s ridiculous, Dr Petersen.” Professor Beacham shook his head. “Nobody with two brain cells to rub together would deliberately try to hide a body somewhere it’s likely to be excavated by archaeologists.”
Anna took a deep breath and closed her eyes to calm herself. She spoke slowly and carefully as though she was explaining to a child. So much for his scoffing. “Well, they may have assumed it wouldn’t be, not in this remote spot. After all, nobody would have predicted HS2 a few years ago, or these excavations, would they? And also I’m guessing there might possibly be a few not-so-intelligent criminals around.” She shrugged. “I don’t have any other plausible explanation.”
He snorted. “It’s just a fanciful idea. Perhaps if you read a lot of crime novels you may deduce that. However, if you could just get on with interpreting the runes on the seax, it might give us some clue.”
She gritted her teeth and forced herself not to lash out in response. Keep control, keep a distance. She laid the seax gently back in the tray, and removed her eye-piece. “I certainly will do. But, what’s your considered theory, then?” She could almost feel the air between them crackling with tension. She didn’t want to look at him and see his arrogant expression, so she turned to the medieval skull and reached out.
She felt a compulsion to touch the ancient bone. It was as though there was some kind of magnetic pull.
Her thin-rubber-gloved fingers lightly made contact with the bone. But even that tentative touch with her fingertips set off an explosion in her mind.
The space around her seemed to tremble. Her brain felt as though it was juddering in her head, wobbling against her own skull as if it had loosened its moorings and was coming adrift. The purposeful noise of working around her seemed to recede and echo dully around her head. She felt giddy and the tent swayed, the world swayed. Oh Lord, was she about to faint? Shadows at the edge of her eyes drifted and formed. She looked up wildly to the roof of the tent, but it wasn’t the canvas she could see. It was open to the sky. And it was dark, a night sky. Stars. And then the streak of a fireball across the firmament, trailing flames and smoke behind it. She knew what it was. Yet part of her brain could not hold that understanding and strange words wafted through her mind: “the gods’ fury … impending doom … disaster …”
Anna withdrew her fingers from the skull and shook her head to clear away the weirdness. What was that? Why on earth did those words come into her head? It was no divine mystery, no superstitious nonsense. It was a comet, for God’s sake! But … she glanced upwards again and saw – of course – the roof of the tent, rippling a little but reasonably taut and solid. She made a determined effort to draw herself back into the room, making her eyes focus on the tray with the seax. That felt a lot safer. Yet her heart was thumping so loudly that she thought the others must be able to hear it too.
And then the image of the runes she’d just been staring at wafted and focused behind her eyes. The F ōs rune, the symbol of the great oak tree, of strength, power, and immovability. Someone’s personal rune symbol, perhaps? And a name … Mylduth. No, maybe Mildryth? A part of her was sure she’d never heard that name before, so why did it somehow sound so familiar?
