What Are Your Thoughts On Tradition?

By Rachel Macready

I’m an art major, so when I think of tradition, I think of the various schools of art: classical, romantic, photorealistic, etc. Some of those disciplines didn’t appeal to me.  But my professors said you have to understand the past to go forward. Besides, in art, you’re never straitjacketed; creativity and innovation are paramount. But when you ask me about tradition, I think you really mean, what do I think about the Order?  Do I feel bad that it collapsed, taking its rules and its bloodlines and its Great Houses with it, leaving telepaths and other psychics to shift for themselves?

The Order was the guiding hand behind Britain’s age of Empire. Imagine it: three hundred white men, all telepaths, held sway over one-fifth of the world. They did it with new inventions – steam-powered ships, telegraphs, dynamite. They did it by remaining in the shadows, allowing England’s nobility to believe they ruled in truth as well as name. And they did it by telepathically reinforcing societal rules that encouraged everyone to keep to their place. In other words, they taught the populace to emphasize and revere tradition. Not all traditions. Just the ones that kept them in power.

I can’t claim to know the whole history of the Order. Before the car crash that brought back memories of my past life as Cassandra Masters, I didn’t even know I was a telepath. I never dreamed I could read minds, force weaker people to obey me, even gather my psionic energy and throw it like a lightning bolt. And heaven knows uncovering the whole truth about the Order will take time. But I know telepaths first arose in ancient Greece. I know Queen Elizabeth I had telepaths for advisors and a telekinetic assassin. And I know that until about 1750, the Order was matriarchal.

Why matriarchal?  Because before DNA testing, no man could ever be sure a child was his. So each Great House was headed by a mother or grandmother. But then the bloodlines started to die off. Gradually there was a shift in power – a generation where more male telepaths survived to adulthood than female. As the Order transitioned to all-male rule, British society tightened like a noose. Especially around the necks of the women. By 1870 they were too tightly corseted to manage even a brisk walk and mentally corseted, too. In a world where a 22-year-old unmarried man had his whole life ahead of him and a 22-year-old unmarried female was a failure (an “old maid”) the Order’s ruling class felt secure. They weren’t afraid the marginalized females in their midst would rise up to challenge them.

Except in 1870, one did. Cassandra Masters. I guess in those days I wasn’t too blinded by tradition. And now that I’ve come back as Rachel MacReady, I feel very much the same.

Who is Rachel Macready? She is the main character in Stephanie Abbott’s latest novella, Past Lives #1 Rachel. A near-fatal car crash unlocks memories from Rachel’s past life, dredging up secrets taken to the grave. And even as Rachel discovers the hidden power that is her birthright, she finds herself drawn to the reincarnates of two very different men. In that past life, both loved her. One might even have loved her to death... 

About the author - Stephanie Abbott is the face behind the popular pseudonym, S.A. Reid. Well-known for her “real and likeable characters”, she also writes  paranormal fiction (a new series titled Past Lives is currently being penned), fantasy, and sci-fi. Additionally, she also pens cozy mysteries as Emma Jameson.

How many times can you die for love?

A near-fatal car crash unlocks memories from Rachel MacReady’s past life, dredging up secrets taken to the grave. And even as Rachel discovers the hidden power that is her birthright, she finds herself drawn to the reincarnates of two very different men. In that past life, both loved her. One might even have loved her to death... 

(First of a 6 book series.)

******

At the moment of impact, I wasn't surprised when a life flashed before my eyes. I just expected the life to be my own.

The silver Porsche must have been doing eighty when it hit black ice. I couldn't swerve, couldn't get out of the way. There was nowhere to go as the Porsche whipped around, skidding toward my little car. Headlights rushed toward me, flooding my windshield, obliterating the night. And then I was someplace else. A home that once belonged to me. A place I'd loved, the only safe refuge in an increasingly dangerous world. 


I recognized my surroundings - Belgrave Square, London. But not modern London, with its funky cars, punk rockers, and Virgin Mobile billboards. No, this was Victorian London. Cobblestone streets, iron fences, gaslights glowing through thick yellow fog. And I was myself again, my former self ...The memory stream jerked, flickering like an old zoetrope camera. Images flew by, pulling me deeper. Past the big oak tree shedding its leaves ... past the front step whitened by a maid each morning ... past the red-lacquered door with lanterns glowing on either side ... Beyond it all - wallpapered foyer, brass spittoons, coat rack, maid and butler - I saw myself.

I was seated in the drawing room, two men who meant more to me than anything in the world on either side. Dominic Belden - black eyes, black hair, handsome as a Greek statue. I trusted him with all my heart, yet didn't fully love him. And Theodore Harrington - tall and broad-shouldered, mouth curving sardonically, pale eyes alight. I loved him with all my soul, yet couldn't fully trust him. Dominic and Ted, Ted and Dominic ...

Was it right, how I remembered my feelings for those two? Or did I have it reversed?

So begins the first book in the Past Lives series.  In 1870, in the steampunk subculture that once ruled Britain -- and the Western world -- a woman named Cassandra Masters took on the Order, a cabal of telepaths, and paid the ultimate price.  Now she lives again as Rachel MacReady, haunted by memories and compelled to relive the events of that dangerous prior existence.

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Genre - Science Fiction & Fantasy / Mystery
Rating - PG13
More details about the author 


Connect with Stephanie Abbott on Twitter
Website http://stephanieabbottbooks.com/

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