[Blog Tour] 'Kingfisher' (The Kingfisher Series, Book One) By D. K. Marley #HistoricalFiction #TimeTravel

Kingfisher - Blog Tour Banner

The Book:

Kingfisher
(The Kingfisher Series, Book One)
By D. K. Marley

Publication Date: June 28, 2021
Publisher: The White Rabbit Publishing (HFC Press)
Page Length: 530 Pages
Genre: Historical Time Travel

The Blurb:

The past, future, and Excalibur lie in her hands.
Wales, 1914. Vala Penrys and her four sisters find solace in their spinster life by story-telling, escaping the chaos of war by dreaming of the romantic days of Camelot. When the war hits close to home, Vala finds love with Taliesin Wren, a mysterious young Welsh Lieutenant, who shows her another world within the tangled roots of a Rowan tree, known to the Druids as ‘the portal’.
One night she falls through, and suddenly she is Vivyane, Lady of the Lake – the Kingfisher – in a divided Britain clamoring for a High King. What begins as an innocent pastime becomes the ultimate quest for peace in two worlds full of secrets, and Vala finds herself torn between the love of her life and the salvation of not only her family but of Britain, itself.
"It is, at the heart of it, a love story – the love between a man and a woman, between a woman and her country, and between the characters and their fates – but its appeal goes far beyond romance. It is a tale of fate, of power, and, ultimately, of sacrifice for a greater good." - Riana Everly, author of Teaching Eliza and Death of a Clergyman

Buy Links:

Available on Kindle Unlimited.✔ Universal Link.✔ Amazon UK.✔ Amazon US.✔ Amazon CA.✔ Amazon AU.✔

]Blog Tour] 'Kingfisher' (The Kingfisher Series, Book One) By D. K. Marley #HistoricalFiction #TimeTravel

Kingfisher - Book Cover

'Kingfisher' - Excerpt:

Excerpt from Chapter 2 “The Rowan Tree”
Five pairs of eyes gazed up at my face when I approached, all in various states of inebriation—glazed, half-closed, wide-eyed, curious, and another with a look I dared not label from the leer on his lips. I raised my chin and steeled my courage, holding out the two pennies.
“Is there a fortune-teller here?” They looked askance at one another, murmuring and gesturing. One of them, a thin wiry man with a snaggled grin, slurred out an answer.
“Dw I dymm yn dallt.”
He did not understand. I smiled, my mind searching the Welsh tongue still tucked beneath my English facade. Father insisted on his girls speaking English on an everyday basis, especially when visiting London or attending the Season in search of husbands, as he concluded the high-born aristocrats of London society never stooped to learn the language of the least populated section of Great Britain. He was right, for even Edward, the Prince of Wales, knew only a smattering of the tongue. Even our house staff he hired from Dorset and Warwick instead of any locals to ensure we maintained the speech. In truth, his insistence on all things English piqued my curiosity on more than one occasion. I dared never ask, though.
“Dach chi’n siarad Saesnag?” I answered back, hoping at least one of them spoke English.
Each of them, in turn, shook their head. I held up the coins again, this time asking for the fortune-teller in their language.
“Ble mae’r rhifwr ffortiwn?”
The same wiry man stood up, brushed the dust from his trousers, and motioned for me to follow him. He approached one of the wagons and tapped his swarthy knuckles against the frame.
“Kezia,” he belted out. “Mae gennych fusnes ac arian.”
The woman, upon hearing that she had business and money, peeked out through the small square side window. She looked as ancient as the Black Mountains, gray hair, furrowed brow, and eyes full of fog.
She opened the door, her twig-like fingers beckoning for the coins and curling over them once obtained.
“Come in,” she said, her voice unmatching her appearance—wispy and soothing, yet rich like fine boxed Belgian chocolate.
I glanced back to the carriage and waved to Isla who stared out the window, biting her fingernails, while Harri stood near the campfire with the other men, accepting an offer of a cup of something to warm his gut. Blowing Isla a kiss, I mounted the steps and entered the cramped quarters.
The woman cackled softly and pointed towards a chair across from a round table in the center of the room. I sat, taking in the surroundings. A fire burned in a iron-belly stove at one end of the room, the scented heat inundating the ambience with oakwood and anise. Snatches of herbs dangled from a hemp rope along the ceiling and rich burgundy scarves embroidered with botanical scenes lined the walls, as well as decorating my chair and the cushions behind my back. The air exuded mystery.
The woman, Kezia, blended into the atmosphere as naturally as a butterfly on a flower, even in her worn, aged state. She poured out two cups of tea and sat across from me, smiling a quite uncomfortable yet knowing grin.
“Ye sister not want to come?” Her question billowed out and her dark midnight eyes narrowed.
“My sister? No, she did not . . . how did you know?”
She chuckled and took a sip of her tea, tapping one finger to the side of her head. “I am knowing many things.” Leaning forwards, she stared deep into my face. “Like this . . . I know who ye are, my lady of waters.”
A sudden flush of nausea flooded my stomach and I touched my hand to my neck, my pulse racing beneath my fingertips.
“Lady of waters, what do you mean?”
She leaned back, draping her arms over the thick brocade upholstered arm chair she sat on. “Is this not why ye came . . . to hear ye ffortiwn?”
The nausea morphed into fear and I made a move to stand, but she stilled me with her words.
“I remember ye mam-gu, ye nain,” she said. “Illya was her name, was it not?”
“Wha . . . what?” I sputtered, easing back down. “How?”
“Ooh, ‘tis fifty years now, I think, when she died. I knew her before the Major, before India . . . that journey kill’d her, ye know.”
I huffed through my nose, an sardonic sneer as I pushed my teacup away and crossed my arms. “No, I wouldn’t know.”
She replied with a wink and a chuckle. “No, I suspect ye wouldn’t living with secrets now, would ye?”
“Secrets?”
She snickered and struck a white-tipped matchstick, lighting a thick beeswax candle in the center of the table. The flickering flame danced in her pupils and she held the smouldering stick in between her thumb and forefinger; the smoke wafting in two slender entangling streams.
“White phosphorous . . .” she said, “very deadly, if eaten. One pack of matchsticks can kill a person.”
I arched my eyebrow, uncertain if I ought to sip any more of the tea. She blew away the smoke with a blast of breath, finishing off with a wave of her hand and crooked a smile.
“Useful information, is it not?” She added.
“I suppose, if you need to know such a thing.”
She nodded in agreement and pointed to my teacup. “Go on, finish the tea and with the last few drops, swirl the leaves and hand me the cup.”
With much trepidation, I finished the strong brew, deciding if she indeed poisoned me, at least Harri and Isla were close enough to ensure a rescue.
Handing her the cup, I waited for a moment as she turned the cup clockwise from the handle, her slight hum pausing once, twice, and a third time, with a ‘hmm’ or ‘ahh’.
She set the cup down and pointed to a long line close to the rim, formed by the residue of the leaves.
“Ye will take a long journey . . . far away from here. And here . . . near the bottom . . . the ‘T’. Do ye see it?”
I squinted and tilted my head, unsure, but agreed any ways. “Yes . . . I think.”
“This is for love . . . ye will look for this letter in your search for love. And the last, ye are a traveler as ye grandmother before ye.”
My heart leapt in my chest. “And where does it show that?”
She smiled and pushed the cup away, wrapping her warm hands over mine. “I need not the cup to see that.” Raising her hand, she pointed her forefinger and jabbed her rounded fingernail into my chest, right above my pounding heart. “Here . . . in ye soul and in ye eyes.”
The words lured me in with a strong pulling sensation, creeping into my core. “You said you remember her,” I said, hoping to draw more information from her about my past.
“Yes, she was like me.”
“A gipsy traveller, you mean . . . a Kale . . . from Caernarfon.”
She snickered. “Ooh, much more than just a Kale . . . for she knew the ways of travellers from long ago. She was a woman Bard with a voice like a nightingale—her favorite was Keats . . . do ye have a favourite?”
“Yes . . . I do. I adore Tennyson.”
“Ah,” she acknowledged, her eyes alighting with a long ago remembrance. “Of course, ye love Tennyson . . . the days of King Arthur. Romantics, both poets in search of escape, and dreamers of days long gone.” She narrowed her eyes. “Ah, I am seeing doubt in ye eyes. You have listened to rumours that we gipsy folk are ignorant . . . illiterate, even. Some are, no doubt, but ye nain was special, like a muse of fire to poets. She used to read poetry to me late into the night. One of her favorite lines was from Keats—‘O, for a life of sensations rather than of thoughts!’”
I grinned at the quote. “I know that line . . . my mother recites that quite often. But, what do you mean ‘of course, I love Tennyson’?”
She chuckled and lifted the teacup, tilting the rim for me to see inside. “What do ye see when ye look inside?”
I thought, for a moment, that her question answering my question was her attempt to evade, but as I stared into the cup, a clear picture formed in my thoughts. I shook my head and touched my fingers to my temple, just above my right eyebrow.
“The roots of a tree . . . like my ancestry reaching deep into the soul . . . searching for water . . .”
She cackled, reached across and touched my arm. From her fingertips, the goose flesh sped across my skin, all the way to the crown of my head. She narrowed her eyes and quoted another line. “Lo! I must tell a tale of chivalry, for large white plumes are dancing in mine eyes.”
Keat’s poetic words compulsed from my heart and throat. “Last night I lay in bed, there came before my eyes that wonted thread of shapes, and shadows, and remembrances . . .”
She continued. “You know the Enchanted Castle—it doth stand upon the rock on the border of a lake . . . ye know it well enough, where it doth seem a mossy place, a Merlin’s hall, a dream . . .”
And I added, without volition. “Here do they look alive to love and hate, to smiles and frowns; they seem a lifted mound above some giant, pulsing underground.”
She leaned towards me, her eyes narrowing. “And from them comes a silver flash of light, as from the westward of a summer’s night; or like a beauteous woman’s large blue eyes gone mad through olden songs and poesies . . . it is a flaw in happiness to see beyond our bourn—it forces us in summer skies to mourn, it spoils the singing of the nightingale . . .”
“I have a tale to tell,” I rhymed. “And yet, I cannot speak it.”
“And yet, your dreams speak the tale, do they not?”
I shook my head, scattering her question tingling the hairs on my arm, and rubbed my brow again.
“What . . . what just happened?” I asked.
She answered only with another low chuckle.
Even with much eye-lash blinking and lip-biting, confusion bubbled inside me, fearing what just passed between me and the gipsy. Looking over to the empty tea cup, I felt a sudden fear that more than tea, indeed, poured from her kettle and down my throat.

]Blog Tour] 'Kingfisher' (The Kingfisher Series, Book One) By D. K. Marley #HistoricalFiction #TimeTravel

D. K. Marley

Author Bio:

D. K. Marley is a Historical Fiction author specializing in Shakespearean adaptations, Tudor era historicals, Colonial American historicals, alternate historicals, and historical time-travel. At a very early age she knew she wanted to be a writer. Inspired by her grandmother, an English Literature teacher, she dove into writing during her teenage years, winning short story awards for two years in local competitions. After setting aside her writing to raise a family and run her graphic design business, White Rabbit Arts, returning to writing became therapy to her after suffering immense tragedy, and she published her first novel “Blood and Ink” in 2018, which went on to win the Bronze Medal for Best Historical Fiction from The Coffee Pot Book Club, and the Silver Medal from the Golden Squirrel Book Awards. Within three years, she has published four more novels (two Shakespearean adaptations, one Colonial American historical, and a historical time travel).
When she is not writing, she is the founder and administrator of The Historical Fiction Club on Facebook, and the CEO of The Historical Fiction Company, a website dedicated to supporting the best in historical fiction for authors and readers. And for fun, she is an avid reader of the genre, loves to draw, is a conceptual photography hobbyist, and is passionate about spending time with her granddaughter. She lives in Middle Georgia U.S.A. with her husband of 35 years, an English Lab named Max, and an adorable Westie named Daisy.