Overview

1974. Katrina, a stormy teenager in an ancient Bavarian village, plunges herself into love adventures and ends up seeing ghosts. Ghosts belong to the natural occurrences in the village. The heart of the community, St. George's Chapel hill, has seen a dragon, a witch, and a hell hound. No wonder, the hill was once a Celtic sanctuary, the building blocks of which rest in the chapel foundation. The newest ghost is the Celtic stallion. Sightings had been reported ever since a white horse got trapped in the chapel and starved to death. Katrina writes all these stories that she has grown up with--plus she adds her own imagination. Mara, a Celtic princess, whispers stories in her ear. Yes, there was a metaverse before the computer age. Katrina, an 11th grade high school student, has a lot of imagination. She types up her stories like mad in the hen house, while her grandfather outside peens away at his scythes. Yet Katrina fails each essay in the History Marathon until she plagiarizes her dead grandmother's diary. All hell breaks loose over her revelations after this gets printed in the newspaper-but her essays and grades improve. Not much later, another sensation excites the village: a 2000-year-old Celtic princess is unearthed. The archeological find is discovered in Mike's house during a renovation project. Mike, by now almost done with his carpenter training, is Katrina's secrete love interest. However, he plays hard to catch. Finally, during the St. John's fire, Katrina and Mike get to make out in the forest, although interrupted. The village Bully, Beni, exposes their hanky-panky. Katrina flees off into the night, only to discover that her best friend Luise had lied to her as well. Luise didn't go to the disco, as she claimed: she is participating in a Celtic rite on solstice day. Katrina breaks off their friendship. All along, the mute grandfather, who has never processed a bitter strike of fate, observes his grand-daughter's comings and goings. He worries that Katrina mingles with the riff raff. He hammers on his scythes while Katrina clinks away in the henhouse. Gramp's worst fears come true: Katrina eventually is blamed by her father for a conspiracy in a church robbery. Many votives and two saints in St. George's Chapel are stolen. Gramps decides he must help that girl! As Katrina writes her stories, many ghosts canter around St. George's Chapel. And the Celtic stallion soon becomes all too real. Another surprising find delivers the proof for the Celtic presence. In Katrina's multi-layered world, the long-deceased grandmother speaks from the Otherworld through all the happenings. Grandmother Kathl was a sage. Proof for her special talent of foreseeing the future is a very remarkable votive she painted. And the clues to many fates speak from Kathl's diary. The good old days weren't so good after all.

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Reviews

The author draws powerful imagines of history through the ages with the endearing stories of her young heroine. This well crafted book is a good read for anyone who loves a good story with interesting characters woven into a whole lot of facts. Edda Buchner AnnElise has created a literary masterpiece that draws the reader into the lives of Bavarian country folks with all the intricacies of a tight-knit rural community. Through the observing eyes of our adolescent protagonist we are taken on an adventurous journey filled with a wide range of emotions and aspirations. Steeped in an ostensibly mundane culture our heroine begins to chip away on the edifice of accepted normality, only to uncover a deep and palpable history going back to Celtic influence in medieval times. Harry Jabs

Author Information

AnnElise Makin, a native of Munich, Bavaria, writes from Phoenix Arizona. She helps other authors produce and publish their works. As an anthropologist, she likes to get on the bottom of human nature and endow her characters with that experience. Her fictional realms draw on German and American sources. On her iMakiNations website she chides the New Normal and celebrates the Old Crazy. Aside from The Celtic Stallion (Der Keltenschimmel), she has authored Kreuzfeuer in Texas (US Civil War Western), the storybook Random Accident (illustrated by her daughter Priyanka Makin), and a series of Bandana Story books. Soon to come is a pulpy romance called a Cowboy in Pune and a fantasy story called The Miracle Machine.

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