The Spirit of the Times: A Historical Novel of the Silk Road, the Black Plague, and the Mongol Empire

In fourteenth century Central Asia, Karia lives under the yoke of Mongol occupation.
She sees strange purple skies at dawn and, soon after, the pestilence ravages her village. To escape, she saves Abi, her sister’s newborn, and joins a caravan on the Silk Road. Even as Karia struggles to accept her powers of premonition, she conjures a protection around each city the caravan visits – to keep out the Black Death. But each time it breaches her supernatural ring and she’s chased further west into Europe where fresh jeopardy awaits.

When Karia meets an English sailor fleeing the Knights Hospitaller, together they seek to unravel the meaning of the purple skies, a dance, a perplexing rhyme, a ring of roses, and the greatest mystery of all – the spirit of the times.