World weary, despondent and widowed, Angelica, an anthropology professor from the University of San Francisco, takes a trip to heal her soul. While canoeing on the Russian River, she collides with a submerged tree and becomes pinned underwater where she has a near-death experience. The Shape-Shifter’s Wife tells the story of how Angelica, transported to California’s Gold Rush era in 1848, meets a … meets a handsome Frenchman shackled with a family curse, and an Indian medicine man who is compelled to reveal a prophecy that will change her life.
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Welcome to San Francisco’s Russian River, where the line between 1994 and 1847 blur for an anthropology professor. In an incredible journey, Alexis is transported to California during the goldrush where desperate people meet offense on their own terms. Women are especially vulnerable and viewed without the rights their sisters of the future enjoy. The air and country are fresh, clean, and raw. Nature hasn’t been compromised yet. The time had come for Alexis to live what she’d always dreamed of.
The Shapeshifter’s Wife is the first of two books in a series about sisters who time hop. Due to traumatic encounters, both sisters decide to take time out of their regular lives to pull themselves together. The focus of the first book is on Alexis, known also as Angelica after she transports through time. The second book focuses on Heather. The story begins when Alexis decides to pursue research on shape-shifting with Native Americans near Healdsburg in Northern California. The trip would allow her time to relax, something she really needed. All goes well until the canoe she’s in enters the “frothing, tumultuous” water of the Russian River, and runs her into a dead tree. The canoe turns over and she prepares for her demise. Alexis soon wonders if she’s hallucinating when water nymphs pull on her arms and provide her with a way to breathe under water. When Alexis surfaces the river, she is in 1848 and meets Reynard, a man who may help her with the loss of her husband.
Alexis begins a series of excitement, romance, and belonging. Unfortunately, she also experiences the dark side of people as well. The goldrush brought out the worst in some, along with a sense of superiority. The now Angelica learns straight from Native American people their shapeshifting knowledge, and finds herself shapeshifting at will. In the end, Angelica faces the decision of whether to go back to her own time and find her sister who is alone, or stay in 1849 where she is content.
Speculative fiction readers and those drawn to unusual possibilities will enjoy this tale. Is transportation to another time-period merely a near-death experience, or a ride though a dimensional door? Radmanvich explores the idea through the main character of her story after suffering near-death herself in the Russian River. History buffs will enjoy The Shapeshifter’s Wife too, especially because Radmanvich shares details and historical events about California’s goldrush. Readers will want to unravel her second book in this series to learn what happens to Angelica and her sister, although the first book stands alone just fine. An engaging and fascinating tale.
Every wonder if you could travel back in time? But it feels so real that do you not know. A young woman some how travel back to the California gold rush Era. Once she does, she does not know why or the reason. She seem to take her time to adjust to the time period.
She meets a young man. She finds out that she need help a family get out of the family curse. To do this they need her. She learns about Indians culture and traditions. In the process she starts to fall in love with this young man.
She deals with this while her sister is still away. When she returns to her era, she does not know if she really was with a man named Reynard. She meets an Indian medicine man and go on a trip with her soul and life.
Will she end up going back to her husband? How did she travel back to her world and still be pregnant with a child? What Shape-Shifter animal does she become? What ever happens to Joseph? Will she fulfill the reason of the family curse?
This is a great book for those that enjoy history. If you are into historical fiction or California gold rush this is the book for you. Are you into time travel. This one is filled with it. The author does a beautifully good job with telling the story though Angelica’s and her sister.