Since the age of seven, Leslie Claire Walker has wanted to be Princess Leia—wise and brave and never afraid of a fight, no matter the odds.

Leslie lives in the rain-drenched Pacific Northwest with a cast of spectacular characters, including cats, harps, fantastic pieces of art that may or may not be doorways to other realms, and too many fantasy novels to count.

She is the author of The Faery Chronicles and Soul Forge, two complete series of urban fantasy novels, novellas, and stories filled with found family, angels, assassins, faeries, and demons.

Time Out of Mind by Leslie Claire Walker

The stories in Time Out of Mind acknowledge the intense, difficult times we're living in and offer some escape. The characters fight for, find hope in, and risk their lives for each other. Most importantly, they see and hear one another, discover unlikely allies, build something new together.

A ghost with a mission. A little sister lost in time. A woman fighting to remember who she is. Notes that live on in hearts and minds. One moment in time that changes everything.

CURATOR'S NOTE

Leslie Claire Walker is known for her urban fantasy, but she writes some heartfelt time travel stories as well. These tales don't skip over the dark, but as is the case with all of Leslie's work, there is hope at the heart of the story. Stories about building alliances, helping ghosts on a mission, and building something new out of the ruins of the old. Touching tales, all. – Kristine Kathryn Rusch

 

REVIEWS

  • "Leslie has an enviable ability to make a reader fall into a story. I've read a number of novels and stories set in her worlds, and they are so real they feel like my own memories. Leslie's stories have a healing power."

    – Kristine Kathryn Rusch, USA Today Bestselling Author
 

BOOK PREVIEW

Excerpt

Someone's in the house.

I hike up my skirt and run, heedless of the spiny rows of seaweed, splintered shingle, and shards of glass that in the afternoon sun set the beach afire. The bulbous blue bodies of jellyfish pop under my bare feet. They are dead things, too, but their souls fled from here long ago.

Gulls circle, dive in to feast. The wind half drowns their caws and the tinkling of the Carraways' chimes next door. But the blasting music and hammering coming from the window are thunder in my head.

I go around the side of the house. The storm tide has left a coat of sand on the concrete-and-shell driveway. Parked in front of the door to the generator is a little white car. In a heartbeat I'm upstairs. She left the door open, the screen on the outside latched tight. I pass the through plastic-and-wire mesh.

The pantry door's ajar, the metal rims of cans and the edges of boxes peeking out. Beans and soup. Cereal. Chocolate sandwich cookies. A lamp sits in the center of the bar, and a new package of soft-white bulbs. A roll of shelf paper. My belly flutters. I clamp a hand to it to still the butterflies. This is wrong. All wrong. Every time.

Mildew's growing like gangbusters in Tim's room. The bedding has been stripped from the soaked mattress, the shag carpet peeled away from the wall. Sneakers sunk into the exposed square of padding, a woman hammers heavy plastic sheeting in place of a broken pane.

She sings off-key to the music blaring from the boom box on the dresser. It's edgy, throbbing. It has its own pulse. Permeates everything around it. Weaves itself into my bones. Into the bones of the house.

"Hey!" I holler. I keep yelling, louder, to no avail. It's like I'm not here. I'm not getting through. She just keeps on hammering when she should be listening.

I sock her shoulder. She yelps. It's a good sound. A powerless sound. Still, she looks right through me.

Balling all my strength into my throat, I shoot it like an arrow from my tongue. "Why are you here?"

She hears me this time. She makes a break for it, running into the dresser, rebounding off the wall. Her retreating footfalls shake the house. The screen door slams with the force of a gunshot, then the little white car's engine revs and the car roars away.

But it won't stay away.