Bonfires, Castles, and Time Travel

Today I am featuring another main character from the Birthrite-verse and this time it's Gail Carr Johnson. Enjoy and enter the two raffles below (double your chances at winning but there is only one day left for the first)! Gail Carr (or Gail Carr Johnson as she has become in Kindred (The Birthrite, #2) ) was born in Plains, New York in the summer of 1913 as the daughter of Alan Carr and Janina Carr (nee, Calabrese). Her father is of German/Scottish descent, and her mother Persian/Italian. Gail also has two older brothers, Lorenzo and Rory. Gail spent much of her childhood in the town of her birth, having grown up playing with her two best friends, Linda Parker and Dorothy Blake. Out of the three girls, Gail is the most outspoken. She is not one to shy away from discussing politics, subjects like women’s issues, and just simply stating her opinion, especially if it’s on a topic she feels strongly about. She is the polar opposite from the more soft and high maintenance L

Throughout the month of November, I will be posting excerpts from Kindred (The Birthrite, #2), along with excerpts from the previous two installments in the series, Descent and Sacred Atonement: A Novelette.  Today I am featuring one of the most complex characters in the series, Maxine Fleming. We first meet Maxine as a child of ten at the very beginning of Descent when she has a rather peculiar and unsettling exchange with James Livingston, indicating that she may or may not be an ordinary child... Maxine Rosalind Fleming was born in the year 1834. Her birthplace and birth parents, as are those of her brother Nathaniel, are unknown as both were adopted as infants by Cedric and Margaret Fleming. As a child, Maxine lived well as her parents were among New York’s wealthier class. They were close friends with the Livingston family and Maxine got on well with her older brother, Nathaniel. The two had a close relationship until he passed away at the age of twelve afte