FATHER DONOVAN'S TREE

Book excerpt: Jessica Stearne, though happy in her chosen profession has a true passion for history, the only medium by which she is able to experience romantic flights of fancy. Her elegant apartment in a part of what was once an imposing Georgian residence, later a Victorian prison, overlooks an ancient but magnificent oak tree. While compelled to climb the oak tree one day to rescue her cat, Jessica discovers a message cut into the bark dated1820 by a man sentenced for the gruesome murder of a young woman and for which he was subsequently executed. Jessica, driven by curiousity proceeds to investigate. As she delves deeply into the tragedy then so does her life take strange and unexpected turns. She becomes drawn into virtual contact with a man whose life is inextricably woven with hers, from the past, the present and the future. She soon finds herself in a rabbit warren of differing time lines, startling illusion and altered reality.