Meet the Team of In Saecula Saeculorum: Jonathan Drake

My novel In Saecula Saeculorum tells the story of four high school students trained to be sent back in time to Ancient Rome to save the modern world. It combines Espionage/Action/Adventure with a touch of Latin language dialogue for authenticity. 

The team that tries to save our world consists of the following characters. The cartoon avatars of these characters are based on descriptions of them found in the novel.

Jonathan Drake

Jonathan is going through a rough patch. His parents died three years ago. He's been living with an uncle who's so careful not to replace Jonathan's father, that Jonathan feels quite alone. 

And now, as graduation nears, he has to see the other kids' parents at all the events and it reminds him of what he's lost.

I lost both my parents earlier than most people do. And so I feel Jonathan's pain of being an orphan. 

But Jonathan's also about to be thrust into a dangerous mission. And I know what it means to try and set aside my grief to face the challenges of the moment.

Read the book to find out how Jonathan copes and forms a new life on the other side of sorrow.


Click on the pictures to meet the rest of the team:

Will Stanhope

Layla Ramzy

Carmen Mattila

Meet the Team of In Saecula Saeculorum: Carmen Mattila

My novel In Saecula Saeculorum tells the story of four high school students trained to be sent back in time to Ancient Rome to save the modern world. It combines Espionage/Action/Adventure with a touch of Latin language dialogue for authenticity. 

The team that tries to save our world consists of the following characters. The cartoon avatars of these characters are based on descriptions of them found in the novel.

Carmen Mattila

Carmen is quite a contradiction. She's a girlie-girl while simultaneously being the best hand-to-hand fighter at the Academy. She's the best at sword fighting and horse-back riding as well. 

And because of those skills, she will be tasked with fighting and killing the team's enemies when they arrive back in time. 

And her tender heart will not be ready for the trauma of taking another human life.

I worked at the National Security Agency as an Arabic linguist for four years following 9/11. And I served in Iraq for three months in 2004. Did I ever fire a gun in anger? No, thank God. But I worked in a world wherein my actions meant life and death for others. And anyone with a conscience will feel it burdened in the midst of all that.

And so I know what Carmen experiences. Read the book to learn the despair into which she falls and how she finds the grace to move on.

Click on the pictures to meet the rest of the team:

Will Stanhope

Layla Ramzy

Jonathan Drake

Meet the Team of In Saecula Saeculorum: Layla Ramzy

My novel In Saecula Saeculorum tells the story of four high school students trained to be sent back in time to Ancient Rome to save the modern world. It combines Espionage/Action/Adventure with a touch of Latin language dialogue for authenticity. 

The team that tries to save our world consists of the following characters. The cartoon avatars of these characters are based on descriptions of them found in the novel.

Layla Ramzy

Layla is a linguistic wizard. She was a native speaker of Spanish and Arabic before she came to the Academy. Now she's also fluent in Latin, Classical Greek, and every Romance language there is.

But she's insecure. She loves Will but would never dare tell him. She's been driven by her mother to be the best there ever was, but she's stressed beyond her limits.

I love languages and I'm good at learning them. So Layla channels my linguistic talents. I endowed her with something I wish I could have had--a second language as a child. And I envy her the fact that she came to Classical Studies already speaking a Romance language. 

And who among us has not loved from afar and yet kept our heart secret? Read the book to find out if Layla can ever speak her love for Will.


Click on the pictures to meet the rest of the team:

Will Stanhope

Carmen Mattila

Jonathan Drake

Meet the Team of In Saecula Saeculorum: Will Stanhope

Travel back in time to Ancient Rome. In Saecula Saeculorum. Sword fights. Chases on horseback. Adventure. Love. Loss. Latin.

My novel In Saecula Saeculorum tells the story of four high school students trained to be sent back in time to Ancient Rome to save the modern world. It combines Espionage/Action/Adventure with a touch of Latin language dialogue for authenticity. 

The team that tries to save our world consists of the following characters. The cartoon avatars of these characters are based on descriptions of them found in the novel.

Will Stanhope

Will Stanhope

Will is the only Brit on the otherwise all American team. He's a member of the British nobility and a science whiz. Will is also utterly, madly, and unrequitedly in love with Layla.

My overall goal in crafting this novel was to create a team of kids who were from wildly different backgrounds, but would be forced to gel around their common mission. So we needed a Brit on the team (it's a joint MI-6/NSA project, afterall).

Will channels me in several ways. First, Will is the only openly professing Christian on the team. He's an Anglican; I'm Eastern Orthodox. But the novel by no means preaches at you. It's an Espionage/Time Travel/Adventure, not a catechism. Even so, Will's faith creates a plot tension when he faces moral dilemmas in the course of the adventure.

While I was at the NSA, I was occasionally put into a leadership role. And with the stakes so high (force protection of our men in the field, for example), I loathed such responsibility. Will is put in charge of the mission and he at times buckles under the burden because he, and I, are human and feel pain and loss if we can't bring everyone home safely. The other team members will need him to somehow hold it together if they are to survive. Read the book to learn how he does.


Click on the pictures to meet the rest of the team:

Layla Ramzy

Carmen Mattila

Jonathan Drake

Etsy - Etsi - A Latinist Trying to Make a Living...

I heard an interesting report on NPR this morning about the hand-crafted product site Etsy. I have a student who makes incredible knitted products and I was happy to learn that she is already on Etsy and I expect her to eventually make a living wage off her talents.

As I listened to this report, however, I momentarily thought through my thesis, never before published but about to be here, that the Romanian basic conjunctive și (and) is actually descended from Latin etsi (and yet). Some say it's derived from the Latin word sic (thus). But that just makes no sense.

That's quite beside the point. I was intrigued as I heard the report that makers of hand-crafted products have essentially found a way to do exactly what I've done in the publishing world. I could, of course, have persisted in trying to find a traditional publisher for my fiction. But my experience in writing Intermediate Arabic for Dummies convinced me that the future lay in independent publishing. So I created Lingua Sacra Publishing, which has published books by me, David Justice, and Melinda Johnson. 

My latest book is entitled In Saecula Saeculorum. It's the story of four high school students who didn't know it, but their high school was a secret front by the NSA and British MI-6 to prepare them to undertake a mission back in time to save the world from destruction. 

They'll face trials in the areas of attractions, addictions, and overall emotional turmoil. But that only makes them normal teenagers.

In Saecula Saeculorum is a story of triumph and tragedy--victory and loss. These four students are on a mission to save the world. But can they also save each other?

In Saecula Saeculorum

By Keith Massey, PhD.  Connect with me on Google+ and Twitter. Explore my novels at Lingua Sacra Publishing.
 

In Saecula Saeculorum is Latin for "Forever and Ever." It is also translated, in various liturgical traditions as "Unto Ages of Ages" and also "Worlds without End."

I chose it as the title of my young adult time travel action-adventure, espionage-thriller back to Ancient Rome for obvious reasons. It's Latin and it conveys the concept of eternal time.

In Saecula Saeculorum tells the story of four high school Latin students who don't know it, but their last four years have been a lie. While they thought they were studying at the Fairfax Classical Academy in Virginia, they were actually being trained in a joint NSA/MI-6 operation for a mission to go back in time to save the world.

The four seniors at the Fairfax Classical Academy in Virginia are just a few short weeks away from graduation. They've got all the typical worries of teenagers. Grades and romance top the list of their dramas. But what they don't know is that their last four years have been a lie. They thought they were in high school, but they were actually being trained in a joint NSA/MI-6 mission to go back in time to save the world.

As they embark on the greatest adventure in the history of humankind, they will struggle with attractions, addictions, and emotional turmoil. But that only makes them normal teenagers.

They're on a mission to save the world. But can they also save each other?

This is a unique novel in which the Latin language is used at times in the dialogue. The Latin appears in contexts where any reader will understand what is being said. But if you've studied some Latin, In Saecula Saeculorum will be an engaging way to deepen your knowledge of that language.

If you'd like to explore how the Latin is introduced, here's an excerpt from the novel.

But whether you've studied Latin or not, In Saecula Saeculorum is an action-adventure for all.