In this richly woven, highly dramatic, and in the end warmly romantic novella, Beth Bernobich paints an alternate Earth of Ruritanian atmosphere and suspenseful high danger. Here, Ireland, called Eireann, is the seat of a powerful empire, having resisted English rule and its infinite tragedies; here, Europe is split into many contending states, always intriguing, always fencing; here, savants are investigating methods of altering the current of Time, threatening the fabric of history itself. As reality quivers at its roots, as a deadly conspiracy seeks to plunge the continent into war, Eireann's best agent is dispatched to the Balkans, to probe a network of treachery and murder that could evolve into something far worse . . . Beth Bernobich's first full-length novel, Passion Play, a fantasy of passion, political intrigue, history, and magic, is forthcoming from Tor Books in 2010."