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Book 1 in The Time Travel Journals of Sahara Aldridge

2022 CHRISTY AWARD® FINALIST & FHL READER'S CHOICE AWARD WINNER!

Her Future Destiny is Hidden in the Ancient Past.

Sahara Aldridge, a brilliant young Egyptologist in 1922, is on the brink of discovering Egypt's most significant archaeological discovery—the tomb of Tutankhamun.

But when a lost journal hints at the possibility of time-travel, Sahara is forced to confront a mind-blowing suspicion: Were her parents time travelers? And has she inherited their gift?

As she delves deeper into the secrets of her past, she finds herself drawn to the enigmatic journalist, Jack Moretti. But as the attraction between them grows, Sahara suspects he may be hiding more than he's revealing.

Now, catapulted back in time to the days of King Tut, Sahara must unravel the whispers of conspiracy surrounding her parents’ death, and the truth about her own destiny.

But with the stakes this high, what secrets are better left buried?

Get ready for a thrilling, award-wining adventure that combines ancient history, time travel, and a dangerous conspiracy that will keep you turning the pages until the very end!

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“Fast-Paced Thrilling Adventure!”

“A page-turner that is not to be missed!”

“An exceptionally well written time travel book!”

“Within the first few pages… I was hooked.”

“I struggled to put the book down at night so I could get enough sleep for the next day. It’s just THAT good!”

“Adventure with witty writing and a hint of romance. Just the way I like it.”

“This is the true definition of a page turner.”

“I absolutely loved this book!”

“Outstanding Writing”

“Wow; I loved this book and will anxiously await the second novel of the series.”

“Tracy Higley does not disappoint in this edge of your seat adventure. I can't wait to read the next book in the series!”

“I love Tracy Higley’s books and this one blew me away!”

“I was fascinated by the well-researched historical setting, the intriguing characters, and the descriptions that left me feeling like I was really in Egypt watching the story unfold.”

“Time travel at its best!”

“I couldn't put it down for very long!”

“What an incredible story line. Well woven together and exciting to read.” 

“The mystery and twists kept me on the edge! Beautifully written!” 

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Enjoy a sample from A Time To Seek

PROLOGUE

The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.

~L.P. Hartley

April, 2021

The first time I watched the television series Downton Abbey, I wept.

Not for the characters. Not for the story set in that magnificent place, in that far-off time.

No, I wept for my story. For my time. The story of my life, in which Highclere Castle was the place I sometimes called home.

Long before the Downton Abbey creators set up cameras at the real-life family estate of Highclere, home to eight successive generations of Earls, the scenes of my own story were unfolding there at that estate, amidst those who had taken me in and called me family. 

What a decade. The Roaring Twenties, they call it now. In hindsight, part of that slip of time between two great wars. But we were heedless of the horrors that were coming and only felt relief for what was past. Relief that spilled out into a throaty roar of freedom, into glittering decadence and gluttony, into smoky jazz clubs and mobsters dealing Prohibition-outlawed alcohol in American speakeasies tucked into alleys.

Some of this wildness touched us in the English countryside of Highclere, of course, but it was a frivolity restrained into house parties lasting a week, into fox hunts and duck-shooting excursions and dancing into the night. My heart was never in any of it. My heart longed for only one place — the parched and sand-blown stretch of Egypt known as the Valley of the Kings. 

In the early months of 1922, my fourth winter season digging in Egypt was finally getting underway after a late start. It was to be the last season before the discovery that would change Egyptology forever, but again, only hindsight tells me that. On that first day of digging in February, I had no idea that I was about to make my own life-changing discovery. Not a discovery in the sand. Rather in a bit of old paper, brought in the hands of a friend…

CHAPTER ONE

February 8, 1922

Valley of the Kings, Egypt

Three hours into the season, and already tightness gripped my lower back. I straightened, jammed my pick into the ground, then my thumbs into the muscles weakened by a year of suffering through dinner parties and garden walks.

Before me, a desert jumble of bleached tunics and dark skin climbed over miniature peaks and valleys. The swarm of hired Egyptian men sang and dug as though their lives depended on how much sand they moved.

I grabbed the pick again. No one would have reason to think me less capable than any Egyptian laborer. Or than the dig’s director, Howard Carter, himself. 

“Alsahra’, here!”

I shaded my eyes against the morning sun and followed the chirp of the youthful voice, calling out my Arabic name.

Across the digsite, young Nadeem was jumping and waving. “Here, Alsahra’, come!” 

A thrill bloomed in my chest. So soon?

I glanced across the sand for Howard, past scattered ivory canvas tents glowing under the blinding sun. Past sagging canopies stretching shade over worktables. Where was he? Nadeem must have found something of interest. But it was too good to be true, this early into the season.

The boy’s enthusiasm slowed the line of men hauling baskets of rubble on their shoulders out to the growing pile at the edge of our grid. 

I strode across the site, pulse pounding, to the grinning boy.

“What is it, Nadeem?” 

“It is good, Sayida’!” He tugged me toward a trench. A rickety ladder disappeared into its depth.

I peered over the edge. Four meters below, several laborers stood around what appeared to be the lip of a jug poking from the orange sand. It bore the characteristic blue-green of Egyptian faience.

“Good, yes?” Nadeem’s head bobbed. 

His gap-toothed grin was contagious. 

I wrapped one arm around his shoulder. “Na’am jayid.”

“English, my lady! English!”

I ruffled his wavy hair. He’d grown at least ten centimeters since last season, as his too-short tunic attested, and was hungry to learn.

“Yes, it’s good, Nadeem. But we must wait for Mr. Carter.”

He puffed his chest, then yelled down to the men, as authoritative as a foreman. “Yjb 'an nantazir!” We must wait.

Yes, we must wait. And probably far too long. 

The dig director must have sensed the interest spreading across the sand. He was at our side a moment later. 

“What is it?” The question was more of a grunt, aimed at no one. Though nearly fifty, Howard’s full hair and trimmed mustache were still dark, his physique still lean from years of digging his life’s work out of the Egyptian desert. And his manner hadn’t softened since my childhood.

“Sayidi!” Nadeem took Howard’s hand in his own and pointed it toward the jug. “We have found!”

“I told Nadeem we should wait for you. But perhaps—”

“Yes, we’ll let Porchy dig it out. He’ll love that. And a find on the first day. Lucky omen, and all that.”

“Indeed. But incentive enough for Porchy to keep the money flowing?”

He huffed. “Don’t count on it. But they’ll be here soon enough.”

I dragged myself to the shade of a tent to wait out the frustrating interval, and sketched a few scenes in the smooth leather-bound sketchbook Porchy had given me last Christmas. I needed to finish the drawings soon.

Lord Carnarvon, formerly styled Lord Porchester, had gained the nickname Porchy in childhood. He soon arrived, roaring into the digsite in a hired dust-raising, clankety Model T with its top pulled back, a shabby imitation of one of his sleek roadsters back in England. 

Howard stood beside me at the worktable strewn with small finds, under the dirty canopy propped up by poles. He scanned each of my sketches with half-lidded eyes, shrugged, and said nothing.

I rose from my chair, but remained with fingertips braced on the table, avoiding the automobile’s sandstorm. “The man does love to move fast. It’s a mystery to me how he tolerates the snail’s pace of this work.”

Howard responded to my comment with silence. Howard was a man of few words, and had made it clear he resented Porchy’s insistence I be allowed to dig. Too young, too female. After four dig seasons, I was still an outsider, still trying to prove myself worthy. Still trying to find my place and purpose in this inhospitable world.

“He’s brought the Countess.” My spine straightened.

The Lady Almina Carnarvon sat beside her husband, furiously batting at the kicked-up desert that threatened to descend on her head. Porchy’s wife typically preferred the opulence and service of the Winter Palace Hotel, on the other side of the Nile in Luxor, to the sandy grit of the digsite.

Their daughter, Lady Evelyn, sat upright in the seat behind her parents, but bounded out of the car nearly before it stopped. She wore a lemon-yellow beaded dress with a low-waisted sash and fashionable matching cap, and looked like a golden-petaled Narcissus blooming in a hostile wasteland. 

“Oh, Sahara, I am so glad to see you!” Her embrace nearly knocked me flat, despite her feeling as petite as a child, next to me.

I pulled away. “Eve, I only left England three weeks ago!” She smelled of perfume and I was conscious of what the heat had already done to my morning bath, and of the riding breeches and men’s shirt I wore.

“I know, but, my dear—” her voice lowered to a whisper and she clutched my arm—”I have so much to tell you! It’s about your—” 

“It’ll have to wait.” I inclined my head toward this morning’s excitement. “We have something to show you.”

Her eyes widened, and she covered a tiny gasp with gloved fingertips. “You’ve found something!” 

“Come and see.”

“I’ll come, but Sahara—it’s about your parents.”

We were already walking, and I nodded a greeting to Lord and Lady Carnarvon, who were slower to remove themselves from the automobile. The Earl still leaned heavily on a cane for support.

But Eve’s words ricocheted off the inside of my skull. What could she possibly have to tell me about my parents?

At our approach to the trench, the laborers on the surface parted like the Red Sea.

They enjoyed calling me Alsahra’—the Arabic name of the Great Desert. Probably believed I didn’t catch the elbow jabs and smirks and whispers. Barren as the desert, eh? Apparently it was their only explanation for why a single woman of my age would be dressed as a man and digging in a trench. Yes, women got the vote in England four years ago, but I had yet to earn the respect of a dig crew. 

Behind us, Howard hailed Lord Carnarvon with a shrug. “A bit of a find, nothing more.”

Porchy grunted. “Hoping for more than a bit this season, old man.”

Eve and I crossed the digsite to the sound of the men singing as their trowels scraped and dug. The mournful chant always sounded funerary—appropriate for our grim work, searching for tombs. Above us, the wide blue sky went on forever, and the orange sand under our feet stretched out to meet it. 

Eve ran ahead, one hand holding her cap against the hot wind.

“Darling, do be careful!” Lady Almina cupped a red-and-white-striped parasol above her head. “Your English-winter skin will freckle terribly under this Egyptian sun!” 

But careful was not something the young Lady Evelyn thought much about. At the edge of the site, the sand crumbled under her heeled leather boots, and in one fluid motion she sank into the trench as though it were quicksand.

“Eve!” I was at the trench in a moment, heart thudding in my chest and half-expecting to see her lying dead at the bottom.

Instead, she had one arm hooked around the rung of the ladder, tiny leather boots flying free, and three Egyptian men staring up in terror at the underside of her flounced dress.