Guest Post by Sofia Grey

You’ve heard me gush about her more than once. I simply adore her, as a person and as a writer, and you’ll get to see why in her post below. Say hi to the brilliant and lovely Sofia Grey.

---

 

A Doomed Love

 

The beauty of writing time travel romance is that sometimes the heroes, or in this case the heroines, can know more than they should. In Isabella’s Airman, my two time travelling students become friends with Davy and Teddy, part of the crew of a doomed Wellington bomber aircraft. When friendship turns to love, it adds an extra poignancy, for Isabella.

 

She’s never experienced love before, and now having found it with Davy, she doesn’t want to let go. Even if it means breaking all the rules of her society.

 

 

 

Excerpt

 

As soon as we had our break, I dragged Juliet back to our room, the only place I felt safe to talk.

“I need your help. I can’t let Davy die.”

She sat bolt upright on her bed, eyes huge in her face. I pressed on. “So as we work in the kitchens, I figured I could slip something into his food. Just enough to make him ill so he can’t fly.” She opened her mouth, but I spoke over her. “He’s only got four ops left. He might not have to finish them if he misses a couple.”

“Jesus, Bella. You can’t do that. You can’t mess with the timeline.”

“What if Teddy ate the same? If you could prevent them both from taking that fatal mission?” She started shaking her head, her mouth opening to protest, but I plowed on. “We can save them, Juliet.”

“But—”

“Timelines change. That bomb wasn’t supposed to have fallen on the shelter last night. There was nothing in the archive about that. They have records of every detail of enemy action. Everything. And you’re telling me that bomb never made the records? So maybe the timeline has already changed. And right now in the future, they’re recorded as having survived the war.”

I sank to the bed beside her and gripped her hands. “And there’s something else I need your help with.”

We stared at each other for a long moment, and then she blanched. “Oh no, Bella. Don’t tell me you want to stay?”

My tiny nod was enough. She threw her arms around me and held me tight. “You can’t, you know you can’t.” I closed my eyes and buried my face in her neck. “The ghardians will find you. And you know what the punishment would be.”

If they caught me, I’d be facing ten years in the penal colony.

They’d have to catch me first.

Taking a deep breath to calm my frazzled nerves, I pushed back, smoothing my hair with my damp palms. “They track runaways through the markers that exist in our blood, the ones from the vaccinations.” Juliet reached for my hands again. I could feel her trembling. “But the markers fade after about a month.” I swallowed and tried to get my voice under control. “If I can evade them for, say, six weeks, they won’t ever find me. And here, in wartime, I can disappear. You could say I died.”

Her sucked-in breath gave my answer, even before she spoke. “No. I… No, Bella. I can’t do that.” I squeezed her fingers and saw the tears that glistened in the corners of her eyes. “Please don’t do this. I don’t want to go back without you.” One tear emerged and trickled down her cheek. She tried again. “Even if I tell them you…they’ll still come to look for you. They won’t believe me.”

“They might. It’s all the chance I need.”

“And then what?” Her tears were falling freely now. I felt as though I was being torn apart.

“I pray that Davy survives his other ops, and then we can be together.”

She tugged her hands free, rubbing her face and standing abruptly before moving to lean against the window. The afternoon sun shone on the grass beyond. Conditions were perfect for nighttime bombing missions. “Please, Bella. Don’t ask me to do this.”

I stared at her back, her silhouette against the lit window. Juliet was my closest friend, and I would miss her so much. And it was ironic that she’d always been the rule breaker, while I never stepped out of line. This was different, though. It wasn’t just a minor infraction.

The prospect of leaping into the unknown was terrifying. The idea of making a new life in this ancient culture where everything was alien to me was paralyzing. Did I have the courage for this? I thought again of Davy.

“I love him, Juliet.” My voice was little more than a whisper.

She whirled to stare at me, tears pouring down her cheeks. “What if Marc is sent to hunt you? Your cousin. What about the shame to your family?” Her breath hitched. “What about me? I thought we’d always be together.”

So had I. We’d planned our futures that way. They’d never included a dark-eyed Welshman who’d steal my heart.

“If you won’t help me, I’ll do it on my own.”

 

Blurb:

 

Time travel student Isabella Gillman is about to embark on her most challenging assignment–leaping back to 1941 to observe World War II. The rules are simple: don’t get emotionally involved, and don’t interfere.

 

She breaks the first rule when she falls in love with rear-gunner Davy Porteous. The second is on its way out as well, when she realizes history says he won’t survive the war. Torn between the fundamental laws of her society, and the man she loves, Isabella faces a harsh reality: does she risk both their lives for a future that may not happen?

 

She can’t predict the results if she corrupts the timelines, but without her actions, Davy is out of time.

 

 

Trailer link:  https://youtu.be/81eQC1WmBks

 

Book links: Amazon | Goodreads

 

 

Author links: www.SofiaGrey.com

 

Goodreads | Facebook | Pinterest | Twitter | Amazon

 

Author bio:

 

Romance author Sofia Grey spends her days managing projects in the corporate world and her nights hanging out with wolf shifters and alpha males. She devours pretty much anything in the fiction line, but she prefers her romances to be hot, and her heroes to have hidden depths. When writing, she enjoys peeling back the layers to expose her characters’ flaws and always makes them work hard for their happy endings.

 

Music is interwoven so tightly into my writing that I can’t untangle the two. Either I’m listening to a playlist on my iPod, have music seeping from my laptop speakers, or there’s a song playing in my head – sometimes on auto-repeat.

 

Check out my playlists on Pinterest and Spotify