The Legend of Blackbeard's Chalice the time-travel series, by maddie james

From Maddie James, the author of The Legend of Blackbeard's Chalice series...

The Jolly Roger. A universal symbol of piracy.

This is the Jolly Roger supposedly flown by the legendary Blackbeard aka Sir Edward Teach, among other names.

Teach wreaked chaos over the eastern coastal waters of America in the years around 1712-1718. He made several homes in the inlets and on the barrier islands of the Carolinas as well as in the islands of the Carribean. He stole, he plundered, he killed and kidnapped, and he showed no mercy.

Blackbeard was killed in a battle near the Outer Banks of North Carolina on the orders of then Virginia Governor Alexander Spotswood. He was, according to accounts of the times, beheaded. As legend and lore goes -- and there is plenty of it surrounding this notorious pirate -- his head was hung from the bowsprit of one of the ships for a while after the battle. It is also said that Blackbeard's body swam at least three times around the ship, headless, before he sank into the brackish waters of the sound. Other lore says that bobbing lights in the sounds and inlets at night are the spirits of Blackbeard and maybe of his crew. The lore around Blackbeard's buried treasure still calls to many.

The story that fascinates me most, however, is the one telling that Blackbeard's head was never recovered. That someone, no one knows who, kept Blackbeard's head until it turned into a skull. And that once it was a skull, it was made into a silver-plated cup. A cup, that is still rumored to exist. And a cup, that may even be a part of a secret Blackbeard society today.

I know nothing more of this lore than that, and what I've read in books and on the Internet. But the lore, as I said, fascinated me. After many family vacations on the Outer Banks, the mystery of the legend surrounding this silver-plated cup, or chalice as I call it, took hold of me and wouldn't let go.

I had to write my version of it. That's when the first book in my time-travel series, The Curse, was born. Soon, I realized it was not a single book and I set out to write a trilogy. The Cult and The Quest, followed. But the story and its characters would not let me go, and two more books in this series will be available in 2010 and 2011.

This spring, I am going back to the Outer Banks and the coastal areas where Blackbeard lived and haunted to write and research book four, Wanderlust, and for book five, The Chosen: Full Circle.

I hope you find this series as fascinating to read as I found it while writing. Please visit the pages here on this Web site to learn more about each of the books. As always, I look forward to hearing from my readers, so feel free to contact me at maddie.james@insightbb.com with your comments or questions about the series.