Exclusive interview with author Jeanette Baker and a review of her newly rereleased historical time travel novel
Rating: 3 Stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
“While visiting Stirling Castle in Scotland, I climbed the stairs to the watchtower where Margaret Tudor, daughter to Henry VII of England and wife to James IV of Scotland, waited for her husband to return from the Battle of Flodden Moor,” says author of Catriona Jeanette Baker. “The battle was particularly difficult for her because her husband and father fought on opposing sides. While she waited she carved a poem into the wall. It is no longer legible and no one really knows what her thoughts were.”
Jamie Stewart was a handsome, charismatic king who spoke several languages, fathered 38 illegitimate children, founded universities and demanded that the nobility learn to read. “History tells us the marriage was not a love match. I decided, for purposes of my novel, that it was,” says Baker. “That day, the idea for Catriona was born.”
Catriona tells the story of Kate Sutherland, who all her life has had visions she could not explain. When she goes to Scotland to scatter her mothers ashes, the visions become much more vivid. Kate becomes Catriona, a long-deceased ancestor. She’s transported back in time and lives Catriona’s life of passion and bloodshed in 15th-century Scotland. She discovers there’s a wrong she must set right. Can she do it before time runs out and it destroys her life in the modern world?
The book’s concept draws anyone who likes time travel books. Baker writes with an engaging style with lively plot and character development. The addition of time travel and reincarnation brings a different spin to a romance novel. In 1997 Catriona was originally released thought Pocket Publishing.
Because Catriona deals with DNA memory, the Sight, Magick, and herbal medicine, Baker researched the practices of Wicca, of white witchcraft. “I found that earth religions were nature-based, honored women and had nothing at all to do with satanic ritual, the Bible or Christianity,” says Baker.
Baker’s typical approach to writing is to read everything she can about the time period, particularly the political situation, alliances and religious affiliations. Then she creates the characters, filling in the plot points, conflicts and the resolution. Details such as clothing, architecture, meals, weapons, scenery, etc. are completed at the very end when Baker visits the actual sites. “Times have changed enormously in 500 years,” says Baker. “The great forests and bogs are now fields and pastures. But with a little imagination I manage to fill it all in. Catriona evolved from an event so the process reversed itself, beginning where I usually end with the details first, then the characters and finally the background.
Baker couldn’t view the actual primary documents, did use secondary sources for descriptions of 15th century noble weddings, clothing, food preparation, the making of perfume, sword fights and battle formations and scenes for Flodden Moor. “These are available on the Internet,” says Baker. “At the castle sites, maps are frequently provided outlining where specific rooms were originally, how they were furnished, where the fireplaces were and what they looked like. I used these as well.”
Baker has won three Reviewers’ Choice Awards for Best Paranormal Fiction for Catriona, Irish Lady and Nell. She’s received the RITA award for best paranormal fiction for Nell. She was named the Orange County Woman Writer of the Year Award for Paranormal Fiction for those three books.
Baker is currently working on an Irish contemporary paranormal called Hannie Rising. Baker is based in Lake Forest, California, and summers in Tralee, Ireland. She was born in Long Beach, California.
Catriona author Jeanette Baker. Paperback, 464 pages, Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca (August 1, 2011). Language: English ISBN-13: 978-1402255861
