Reincarnation, Time Travel, and a Dark Brew
- Joie Lesin
- 9 hours ago
- 8 min read
An Interview with Author Diana Rubino
This month Diana Rubino joins me to discuss her Book, Dark Brew.
Diana writes about folks through history who shook things up. Her passion for history and travel has taken her to every locale of her books: Medieval and Renaissance England, Egypt, the Mediterranean, Virginia, New England, and New York. Her urban fantasy romance Fakin’ It won a Top Pick award from Romantic Times. She is a member of the Richard III Society and the Aaron Burr Association. With her husband Chris, she owns CostPro, Inc., a construction cost consulting business. In her spare time, she bicycles, golfs, practices yoga, works out with her trainer, plays her piano, devours books, and lives the dream on Cape Cod.
Welcome to the blog, Diana!
To get us started, can you share a bit about how your real-world experiences and interests inform your writing?
I am a huge lover of history and strong people who shook things up and made a difference in the world. I write biographical novels, not straight biography. I find that writing fact-based fiction leaves much more room for creativity, imagining how these people felt and telling their stories through their emotions. It also allows me to include dialogue. Of course we don’t know exactly what they said, but that is what makes fiction the creative art it is.
For fun: What is your favorite non-writing past-time and why?
I have several favorites. I read my favorite genres— biographies (the same types of bio novels I write), and paranormal books (mostly books about ghosts, haunted houses), and time travel. I work out in my home gym, and weather permitting, golf and bicycle.
Please tell us a little about your novel Dark Brew that is not included in the book’s official blurb.
I read about Lady Alice Kyteler in an article by Pamela Butler titled “Witchcraft & Heresy” in the Spring 2004 issue of the Ricardian Register, the Richard III Society’s quarterly publication. She was the richest woman in Kilkenny, Ireland in the 1300s. She was accused of witchcraft and vanished from history. According to legend, she fled to England.
I knew I had to write about her, and a time travel novel was the perfect vehicle to convey her story. As I’m a believer in reincarnation, I created my modern heroine Kylah, a Druid, who believes she’s the reincarnation of Alice. A ‘brew’ of certain herbs brings her back to 1324 Kilkenny as she becomes Alice and changes history. Kylah's parallel timeline in the present mirrors her life in the past, as she clears her name of falsely killing her husband and finding the true killer.
How did you come up with the title?
I originally called it Strange Brew but thought Dark Brew was more dramatic and compelling. It refers to the herbal brews Kylah, the modern heroine, mixes and drinks to transport her to 14th century Ireland, to solve the mystery that consumes her life today, and her past life then.
What inspired you to write Dark Brew?
Alice’s life in the Dark Ages, and all the false accusations of witchcraft and heresy.
Do you have a favorite character? If so, why?
I'd say Kylah is my favorite, as she's determined to travel to her past life to right an injustice, and she's very brave to attempt living in those times, which were very dangerous.
Since Dark Brew is based in part on a true story, how much research did you conduct for this story? What was the most interesting thing you either did or discovered while conducting your research?
I was able to find the transcript of Kylah’s trial and the events leading up to it in a short book, The Sorcery Trial of Alice Kyteler by L.S. Davidson, and some bits and pieces I picked up online about her husbands, where she lived, and how she made a living (she was an innkeeper). There’s isn’t all that much about her, so I did need to use ‘creative license’. The most interesting thing I did was attend a ghost tour of the oldest wooden jail on Cape Cod, where one of my scenes takes place (Kylah in modern times lives on Cape Cod.)
How did you decide to make it a paranormal?
I’m a believer in reincarnation, and I go on paranormal investigations whenever I can. I’ve gone on several past life regressions. Cape Cod has a lot of history and paranormal activity. I’ve been on many ghost walks and ghost hunts here. I wanted to connect Alice in the past with someone in the present, her reincarnation.
Why did you make it a time travel?
Because my heroine, Kylah McKinley, is a Druid and has done many past life regressions, she knows she’s the reincarnation of Alice. So she has to go back and find out what happened to Alice, because too many weird things are happening to her in this life that parallel Alice’s life.
Kylah lives on my beloved Cape Cod. She’s a Druid, a ghost hunter and owns a new age store in a restored Revolutionary War-era tavern. She was also the target of a hit-and-run. Another hit-and-run crippled her husband Ted. That’s no coincidence—she’s convinced someone’s out to get them both.
She brews an ancient Druid herb mixture, goes back in time and enters Alice’s life to find out exactly what happened and who killed her husband.
These two months of hell change her life forever. Kylah’s life mirrors Alice’s in one tragic event after another—she finds her husband sprawled on the floor, cold, blue, with no pulse. Evidence points to her, and police arrest her for his murder. Kylah and Alice shared another twist of fate—they fell in love with the man who believed in them. As Kylah prepares for her trial and fights to maintain her innocence, she must learn from her past or she’s doomed to repeat it.
Inspire us: If you sit to write and you’re feeling uninspired, what do you do to get your creativity flowing?
I refer to my outline, as I write extensive outlines before starting a book. That gets me going for the writing session, which is always 2,500 words (10 pages) at a time.
Inspire us: Do you believe in the concept of a Muse? If so, what is yours like and how did you “meet” them?
I’ve always wanted a Muse but I just sit down and combine facts I’ve researched with imagination and there it is!
Were you a young writer, a late bloomer, or something in between? What advice would you give to others who took up writing at a similar phase of life?
I started writing short stories in grade school, as most writers. I advise others to follow their dreams, even if not writing for publication, it’s a powerful creative outlet where you learn much about the human condition, and about yourself.
What theme or message do you hope readers will take away from your work?
My recurring themes are fate vs. free will, as I do believe we have some control over our fate but not always, and that determination, drive, and belief in oneself can lead to success.
What are some of your biggest writing influences and what have you learned from them?
As a beginner I wrote romances, and my greatest influences were the romance superstars; the most inspiring were Bertrice Small and Jennifer Wilde (the pen name of Tom Huff).
Can you give us a sneak peek into what you’re working on next, and what readers can expect from your future books?
My next book is about Josephine Marcus Earp, western lawman Wyatt Earp’s last wife, who stayed with him until his death in 1929 (she lived until 1945). It’s a dual-timeline book, and the parallel timeline centers on Josephine’s (fictional) niece Angela, 100 years later. Angela is a descendant of the McGlorys, the 3 generations of my New York Saga. This is my first dual-timeline book, and I am enjoying writing about the connections between Josephine and Angela (in dual timeline books, there needs to be an ironclad connection between the characters of the past and present—this connection is about forgiveness). I would enjoy writing more dual-timeline books and adding paranormal twists to them.
About Dark Brew
Two months in the spotlight changes Kylah McKinley’s life forever. Falsely accused of murdering her husband Ted, she learns through past life regressions that she’s the reincarnation of Alice Kyteler, a Druid who lived in 14th century Ireland. Major events in her life parallel Alice’s.
Someone tried to kill Kylah along with Ted in a hit-and-run. Who can hate them both this much? Her journeys to the past as Alice give her the answer.
As Kylah’s trial date approaches and she fights to maintain her innocence, she must learn from her past or forever be doomed to repeat it.
Excerpt:
Kylah shut Ted’s den door. She couldn’t bear to look at the spot where he gasped his last breath. His presence, an imposing force, lingered. So did his scent, a blend of tobacco, pine aftershave and manly sweat. Each reminder ripped into her heart like a knife. Especially now with the funeral looming ahead, the eulogies, the mournful organ hymns, the tolling bells . . .
These ceremonies should bring closure, but they’d only prolong the agony of her grief. She wanted to remember him alive for a while longer, wishing she could delay these morbid customs until the hurt subsided.
Throughout the house, his essence echoed his personality: the wine stain on the carpet, the heap of dirty shirts, shorts and socks piled up in the laundry room, the spattered stove, his fingerprints on the microwave. But she couldn’t bring herself to clean any of it up. Painful as these remnants were, they offered a strange comfort. He still lived here.
“I’ll find that murderer, Teddy,” she promised him over and over, wandering from room to empty room, traces of him lurking in every corner. “I’ll do everything in my power to make sure justice is served. Another past life regression isn’t enough anymore. I know what I have to do now. And I promise, it will never, ever happen again—in any future life.”
She inhaled deeply and breathed him in. “Go take a shower, Teddy.” She chuckled through her tears as the doorbell rang. She cringed, breaking out in cold sweat when she saw the black sedan at the curb.
“Not again.” No sense in hiding, so she let the detectives in.
“Mrs. McKinley, we need your permission to do a search and take some of your husband’s possessions from the house,” Nolan said.
“What for?” She met his steely stare. “I looked everywhere and found nothing.”
“Mrs. McKinley, the cupboard door was open, four jars of herbs are missing, and the autopsy showed he died of herb poisoning. Those herbs,” Nolan added for emphasis, as if it had slipped her feeble mind. “Foxglove, mandrake, hemlock—and an as-yet unidentified one,” he read from a notebook. “The M.E. determined it was a lethal dose.”
Sherlock Holmes got nothin’ on him, she thought.
“Where’s this cupboard, ma’am?” Egan spoke up.
“Right there.” She pointed, its door gaping exactly the way she’d found it that night. Nolan went over to it and peered inside.
“Ma’am, it would be better if you left the house for a half hour or so. Please leave a number where you can be reached,” Egan ordered.
Nolan glanced down the hall. “Where is your bedroom?”
What could they want in the bedroom? “It’s at the top of the stairs on the right. But we didn’t sleep together,” she offered, as if that would faze them. It didn’t.
After giving him her cell number, she got into her car and drove to the beach.
An hour later, she let herself back in and looked around. They’d taken the computer, her case of CDs, her thumb drive, her remaining herb jars, Ted’s notebooks, and left her alone with one horrible fact: This was now a homicide case and she was the prime suspect.
Until next time,
P.S. — Be the first to know. Follow this link to subscribe to my newsletter.
About the Author
Award-winning author, Joie Lesin is a life-long fiction writer and poet. She is most recently the author of The Passenger. She has long been fascinated by anything otherworldly including mermaids and ghosts. Joie writes character-driven, emotional, atmospheric tales about heartache and hope.