Viv DuLac present day – a university lecturer in medieval studies who has recently been betrayed and swindled by her live-in partner. The stress of the ending of this relationship coupled with the imminent loss of her home create the perfect circumstances for her to ‘time-slip’ back to the year 499 A.D.  For some time she dismisses her time travels to the fact that she is ‘dreaming’ due to her current stresses, but eventually she realizes that events are happening concurrently in both worlds…

Lady Vivianne 499 A.D. – betrothed to the evil Sir Pelleas, Lady Vivianne seeks to escape his pagan, Saxon control and bring her community back under a more peaceful, Christian existence.

While reading, I learned several new words such as ‘geburs‘ and ‘thegns‘ in this historic saga which pays tribute to the “Lady of the Lake” legend. The book explored the ‘space-time continuum’ and made reference to “The Einstein-Rosen Bridge” theory. It also paid homage to the eternal ‘good vs. evil’ battle.

The ‘shapes on the air‘ reference from the title alludes to the spirits and shadowy shapes of the dead.

Essentially a ‘time-travel’ romance, the book was well-researched as one would expect as the author is an academic and  historian. Personally, I felt that less emphasis on ‘hard thighs’ and ‘muscular forearms’ would have made it more credible as a serious literary work rather than a ‘bodice-ripper’ romance.

All in all, I think this time-slip romance will be enjoyed by many fans of the genre as long as you know that you will have to suspend your disbelief for parts of the story. Many want to do just that, so their enjoyment will be unmarred.

This review was written voluntarily and my rating was in no way influenced by the fact that I received a complimentary digital copy of this novel from Endeavor Press via Laura Lawrence.

Publication date: July 28, 2017      Publisher: Endeavor Press (now Lume Books)

ISBN: 9781521987391    ASIN: B07PJKBZDH    220 pages

Award-winning author Julia Ibbotson is fascinated by the medieval world and concepts of time travel.
She read English at Keele University, England, specializing in medieval language, literature and history, and has a PhD in linguistics.
Julia first worked in Ghana, West Africa, where she spent a turbulent but exciting time teaching and nursing.
She wrote her first novel at 10 years of age, but then became a school teacher, lecturer and researcher. Julia has published both academic works and fiction, including A Shape on the Air (a medieval time-slip), a children’s book S.C.A.R.S (a fantasy medieval time slip), a memoir, and the Drumbeats trilogy (which begins in Ghana in the 1960s).
Apart from insatiable reading, she loves travelling the world, singing in choirs, swimming, yoga, and walking in the English countryside and through the Madeiran laurisilva forests and levadas. She and her husband divide their time between the UK and Madeira.

Follow Julia Ibbotson on Twitter and/or visit her website.