J. D. ROOT

Ghosts and Scotland go together.

What’s that oft-quoted, ancient Caledonian prayer? “From goulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties, and things that go bump in the night, good Lord, deliver us!” A sensible sentiment to most.

Writers, on the other hand, welcome them. Supernatural stories always find an audience, and historical fiction author Linda Root (writing here under the pen name J.D. Root) has come up with a stonking good one, as the Brits would say. Thea Jameson, a best-selling California author hawking her latest historical novel on a promo trip to Scotland, inexplicably time-slips back to 1612 and gets tangled up with the axe-wielding clan Kerr, and a mysterious entity called the “Green Woman.”

Our heroine – “a cross between Hillary Clinton and Angelina Jolie” – is a sassy, middle-aged, hard-drinking, Amex Gold card-toting divorcee who travels around with a bottle of Jameson’s, a pocket flask of V.S.O.P, and a fifth of Glen Livet, and happily pub crawls with rugby players. Drunks propositioning her she can handle; she’s taken self-defense lessons from the LAPD, and holds a second degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do. The dead are another question. Returning inebriated to Ferniehirst Castle, the site of her imminent book-launch party, the bewildered Thea finds the castle’s Great Hall filled with Border reivers strutting around with daggers at their belts, women busy with needlework. Delirium tremens? A theme wedding? An evening bash of the local chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism? Fleeing up a back stairs which suspiciously wasn’t there before, she bumps into the specter of Sir Andrew “Dand” Ker (d. 1628) who instantly takes a strong liking to her – showing a “cow cumber in his britches,” as the quaint Scots saying goes – and our time traveler is swept backwards four centuries, into his arms, and into the adventures of the Kerrs of Ferniehirst, Catholic allies of the tragic Mary Queen of Scots.

It’s a demon-haunted era, and Root deftly exploits some of the more promising material. Dand’s cousin, the Earl of Bothwell, pops up repeatedly throughout the story. “Wild Frank” Stewart (1562-1612) enjoyed a reputation as a warlock, and in 1591 was arrested and accused of employing sorcery in an attempt to knock off Scotland’s King James VI (fact, not fiction). James VI bequeathed us the famous “King James” version of the Bible, the most widely printed book in history. Less known, His Highness also considered himself an expert on witchcraft, penned an 80-page treatise on demonology, and was personally involved in the infamous North Berwick Witch Trials which led to the torture (and in some cases, execution) of 70-plus victims. The “Green Lady” herself predates the 17th century; references can be traced back to pre-Christian Celtic folklore. Nowadays, the Scottish Tourism Board promotes a half-dozen castles haunted by a green ghost, but Root cleverly imagines for this now-garden-variety discarnate a complex, mythological backstory which will send readers scrambling for their Bulfinch’s.

Root originally wrote “The Green Woman” in three weeks as an exercise for the 2013 NaNoWritMo (National Novel Writing Month) contest; it challenges authors to come up with a 50,000 word novel in one month. Besides pulling off that rather remarkable feat, she managed to slip into her genre-busting fantasy a final plot twist which caught me completely by surprise.

Halloween is coming soon. My suggestion? Instead of plopping yourself down on the sofa and watching stale, Hollywood horror flicks this Oct. 31, download “The Green Woman” and enjoy a Scottish spooking.… (more)