Ars Memoriae

A novella. Introduction by Kage Baker. Cover art by Vincent Chong.

In this richly woven, highly dramatic, and in the end warmly romantic novella, Beth Bernobich paints an alternate Earth of Ruritanian atmosphere and suspenseful high danger. Here, Ireland, called Éireann, is the seat of a powerful empire, having resisted English rule and its infinite tragedies; here, Europe is split into many contending states, always intriguing, always fencing; here, savants are investigating methods of altering the current of Time, threatening the fabric of history itself. As reality quivers at its roots, as a deadly conspiracy seeks to plunge the continent into war, Éireann’s best agent is dispatched to the Balkans, to probe a network of treachery and murder that could evolve into something far worse...

That agent, Commander Adrian Dee, is brave and competent, but he is tormented by visions of a different timeline and a murder that has not been committed. In addition, he suspects that someone in his own government is playing a double game. His progress through Vienna and points south is intensely perilous, rife with false identities, secret conferences, mysterious assaults, near-fatal abductions, and hairsbreadth escapes; and it is a journey of personal discovery too. Dee, and all of Europe, stand on the brink of redemption or destruction.

Ars Memoriae is a powerful debut book from one of the brightest new talents in SF and fantasy, alternate history of a high order.