CATENAE by S.E. Curtis

Debut author S. E. Curtis has penned an intriguing science fiction novel about one family’s fight to defend  humanity’s natural timeline. The family, consisting of two generations of noble fighters, has been tasked with guarding the time continuum of all reality, ensuring that no one can alter it in such a way to change the course of history.

The story begins in present day, when beautiful, young Tamara Decaire, a second-generation Family member, is injured in a battle against her enemy.  She quickly time-travels back to a present-day hospital ER for treatment. Danny Nolan, an ER surgeon who works the night shift, struggles to save her life. Though her unusual wounds don’t appear to be fatal, she is also presenting symptoms of some type of toxic poisoning. He makes a risky decision to treat her as if she has been poisoned, thus saving her life. However, in the process he has temporarily damaged the tiny nano-processors inside her body that give her the extraordinary powers she uses to fight her galactic enemies.

Upon awakening, Tamara realizes that her ability to fight off her assassin is temporarily weakened. She enlists the help of Danny to get her out of the hospital and moved to a location where she can recover. Thus begins a race against Time to identify Tamara’s powerful, elusive enemies, in which Danny travels into the future and to other planets with the aid of Tamara’s Family members.

S.E. Curtis has written an action-filled adventure that is sure to engage science fiction readers. The author describes a world built on the fascinating premise that all of history is connected, in a cause and effect continuum, back to the origins of reality itself. Those continuums, called catenae, must be protected against any type of modification. The Family, whose members squabble and fight in engagingly human ways, must ensure that no catena is altered in such a way that it changes the course of history. To do that, they must guard their own catena, to ensure their own survival and thus the survival of Reality itself.

The author seems to have left open the possibility of more books, making Catenae, hopefully, the first novel in what should become a very popular series.

Warning of Adult Content: This novel contains non-graphic depictions of rape and torture that may offend some readers. There is a description of repeated rape and torture of the main character in exposition, in the first part of the book. However, the events are not graphically depicted, just told.