Bretton is back
with a new book!
He’s been a guest
before and we are most pleased to have him return. If you missed the previous
visit, please go HERE.
This new story
sounds intriguing and I’ll be in the lineup for a copy.
Read on, my
friends.
I am a novelist and non-fiction writer who in 2022 published the
novel, Joe Howe’s Ghost. I have published two previous books that were
nominated for Whistler Independent Book Awards: in 2018 for my first novel, The
Last Hockey Player and in 2015 for a biography, Rebel With A Cause: The Doc
Nikaido Story.
A journalist for more than 20 years in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, I
also worked in communications for the Government of Nova Scotia for 16 years. I
live in Halifax with my wife, Karen Shewbridge. For more information, please
see go HERE.
Synopsis:
In Unsettling Time, I tell the story
of Ryan Treiber, a
Saint Mary’s University lecturer, who falls while walking in downtown Halifax
and is unexpectedly hurtled back in time to 1749 and the city’s first days.
Incapacitated by the side effects of time travel, he is found by Aubry
De Courcy, a member of Governor Edward Cornwallis’s council. As Ryan struggles
to survive in an eighteenth-century settlement, he and Aubry learn of the
brutal murder of a servant.
The authorities refuse to investigate the crime because of the
servant’s alleged homosexuality. That injustice launches Ryan and Aubry on the
hunt to find the killer.
The intelligent and intriguing Mrs. Athena Dunfield, her Black
assistant, Joseph, and Ryan's new Acadian friend, Michel, join Ryan and Aubry
on the quest to solve the murder. Ryan’s growing feelings for Athena make his
new life increasingly more appealing.
Unsettling Time offers intimate insight into colonial Halifax
and the people who shaped it.
The Story Behind the Story:
In 2013 while I was reading Jon Tattrie’s great book, Cornwallis:
The Violent Birth of Halifax one particular passage fired my
imagination. It described how many of Halifax’s main downtown streets,
including George Street, were the first clearings carved out of the dense woods
by the English colonists when they arrived in 1749. That passage was the seed
from which the idea for this book grew.
I wanted to tell the story of Halifax’s founding from a broader
perspective to include poor English settlers, Acadians, people of African
descent, and the German and French Protestants who first settled in Kjipuktuk (Halifax),
located in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq.
I inserted an inadvertent time traveler from our era to provide
context that characters of that era would have no knowledge of to again give
the story broader perspective. I created the murder mystery to propel the story
along and to introduce various historical characters of colonial Halifax.
Website: Please go HERE.
Scribbler: What has been the most enjoyable about your writing journey? The least enjoyable?
Chapter 1
July 16
A man awoke with his head in a muddy puddle. A turd
floated near the corner of his eye. He lifted his head
in horror and snorted out water. The ground started to
spin. A deafening ring pierced him, and hot bile
rushed up
his windpipe and spewed out. He fell with a thud,
missing
the puddle, and landed on ground coated with leaves
and
pine needles that imprinted on his wet cheeks.
He revived to the thwack of an axe and the screech of
a tree falling close by, its branches whipping the
forest floor
a few metres from his face.
“Are you okay, master?”
A strangely dressed young man looked down on him,
concerned, face dripping with sweat. He wore a stained
tricorn hat, a loose-fitting shirt, breeches, and
buckled
shoes. A large axe balanced on one shoulder.
As the man carefully lifted his head, all he could see
were trees and rock and bush. Not a building, road, or
streetlight broke nature’s dominion. He noticed a
crude,
narrow path making its way downhill toward a glint of
water.
The young man’s gaze left his as he heard another man
stride purposely toward them.
“Master De Courcy, I found this man lying on the
ground. Yet I swears he was not here a moment ago when
I passed by to look for the surveyor for me
instructions.”
Still on the ground, the man looked from the young
man to the newcomer, who wore a tricorn hat along with
a
long coat, vest, and breeches. The newcomer was about
his
own age with a pleasant face but sunken, tired eyes.
He
struggled to get to his feet.
“Are you alright?” asked the newcomer. “You appear to
have fallen into the mire.”
“Don’t know what happened,” he said, before
collapsing onto his knees and falling face first, once
more,
into that same pool of dirty water.
“Woodsman, this fellow is oddly dressed, do you not
think? Long breeches, a peculiar shirt, and no hat. He
does
not smell of drink. Probably done in by the sun. Help
me
take him to my quarters,” De Courcy said. He and the
woodsman grabbed under the man’s arms and, swerving to
and fro like drunken revellers, dragged him downhill.
“And
for God’s sake, do not mention him to the soldiers. We
do
not want him shot by a sentry. They are nervous
Nellies
and fear that a French spy or Mi’kmaw warrior lurks
behind every tree. When he awakens, I will sort out
the
rights of it.”
When he regained consciousness, he
was lying on a
simple wooden cot, looking up at the ceiling of a
tent. Once his head cleared a little he realized it
was a
large sheet of white canvas draped over a few poles
made
from thick branches, cut and stripped of bark. No one
else
was inside.
Outside there was a riot of birdsong, conversations
among men with English accents, and the crack of axes
against trees. He peeked out the end of the shelter.
It was
dusk. A redcoat soldier with tricorn hat walked past
cradling a musket in his arms. Campfires glowed in a
small
clearing crowded with tree stumps.
The flap on the other side of the canvas shelter
snapped back, and the man he heard called De Courcy
poked a head in and smiled.
“You have finally stirred. You were out for most of
the
afternoon. Are you better?”
He did feel better, but where was he? The last thing
he
remembered before collapsing was walking up George
Street, in downtown Halifax, on the way to the Grand
Parade square to meet a local historian for lunch. The
noon cannon on Citadel Hill had gone off and was
echoing through the concrete canyons when he folded
like
a paper bag and fell to the sidewalk.
He recalled waking up in the puddle. He had no idea
how he got from downtown Halifax to this forest, nor
did
he understand why everyone was dressed like historical
reenactors
or movie extras from an eighteenth-century
period piece. Had he been abducted? Was he still
unconscious
and this was all a vivid dream?
“I’m feeling better, but I’m confused. Where am I?”
Thank for being our guest this week, Bretton. We wish you continued success with your writing.
And a BIG thank you to all our
visitors and readers.
Feel free to leave a
comment below.
We’d love to hear
from you.