Blood Brothers

About the Book

Sam is a girl growing up with a spirit guide, Kevin the Rat. In A Rat's Tail, she and Kevin travelled in a separate reality, another life. But in Blood Brothers, her second sortie into the book of possibilities, she has not only skipped tracks but has also switched genders. Sucked into a life in North America in the 1800's she finds herself in a past life regression, when white pioneers traversed the domain of the red man, exciting, challenging and hauntingly familiar.

Beyond the fantasy perimeters of her first adventure she now faces issues that are very real. As a Native American youth she meets a Bluecoat commander and through a telepathic understanding learns she must flee, with her mother and sister, across the plains to the rivers divide and there, led by a familiar spirit, abandon her old life for the forests where her mother grew up.

On her own vision quest she discovers the real meaning of brotherhood and when the Bluecoat re-enters their lives their union is sealed. As a family they move to join an itinerant forest tribe and she meets her phantom, the soul brother who led them across the big water, and a lifetime bond is forged. But dissent and destruction await her new family and Sam must return, taking with her the ongoing search. Wolves, cougars, men, boys, creeds and races, past and future, the spirit of brotherhood links them all. With Kevin to guide, Sam looks through her past eyes, seeing more but understanding less, except that where that link is broken harm ensues.

The strands of her previous journey are woven into this new reality like threads of a tapestry. The issues now are very real and so is the pain. Kevin is there but she is often left alone to practice and test the validity of the understandings she learnt then. But the path is not so clear, nor the choices so well defined and the ambivalence of her feelings is reflected in the life she is experiencing.

Can we ever return to a state of simplicity when we have known complexity of modern life?

Can we choose what we want, leave the rest and be content? Must we embrace the whole or leave everything?

Is there a place on earth where we belong and to which we can return, if we choose, when we choose?

About the Author

Bridget Trafford was born in a South Humberside steel town in 1952. After, what might be described as a 'conventional' upbringing she spread her wings, moving to live in many areas of the British Isles. She has visited other parts of the world and has now developed a deep feeling for the space and sense of freedom found in the Prairie regions of the USA and Canada.

After experiencing the 'triumphs and tribulations' of business she applied both the practical and personal experiences as a business advisor and counsellor before moving to rural Cumbria, in the north of England. She now lives there with her daughter Alex and an assorted menagerie of animals.

She now describes herself as "a bit of a hermit, with hippy tendencies" and has developed a sense of the completeness and spirit of life and the values that bind us all, irrespective of age, gender or background. These concepts are an ever-present thread running through the fantasy and adventure woven into the Circular Scrolls.