The Spirit of the Times

2026 | Fiction & Poetry

Fourteenth century Central Asia. A young woman marked by visions. A plague that will not stay buried.

Karia lives under the yoke of Mongol occupation, watching purple skies streak the dawn and sensing a darkness moving west with the caravans. She is a fighter with supernatural powers she barely understands and does not fully trust, gifts that could hold back the Black Plague itself, if only she can overcome her own self doubt.

Travelling the Silk Road with her young cousin Abi, Karia faces dangers seen and unseen: sandstorms, slave traders, the desert djinn, and villagers who whisper that she is a witch. Every city she protects buys only a little time before the pestilence breaches her ring again, driving her further west into Europe and deeper into danger.

When Karia falls in love with an English sailor fleeing the Knights Hospitaller, the two of them, with Abi at their side, set sail for England to unravel a mystery bound up in purple skies, a nursery rhyme, a dance, and a ring of roses.

The Spirit of the Times is part history, part fiction, and part speculation: on the origin of disease, the power of innocence, the weight of custom and dogma, and humanity's ability to answer the governing spirit of its own age.

Justin Newland (Author)