Tone down our gold coin enthusiasm

Gold coins, wine and science fiction might seem like unlikely partners, but a new book that I have read was just released Oct. 25.

I have always enjoyed books and movies about time travel. This new book is a near miraculous combination of time travel and numismatics.

I write miraculous because while numismatics is an essential ingredient to the story, it does not overwhelm it or seem hokey or clunky or rammed into the story where it doesn’t belong.

It fits.

It adds to plot and makes it great fun for any collector who wants to take a break from the usual nonfiction works that we depend on.

But this is no surprise because the author is Marc Emory, the director of overseas operations at Heritage Capital Corporation.

The presence of a numismatic element does not mean there is no plot.

Far from it. The plot is compelling.

Once you start reading. It is hard to put down.

This work is available as a Kindle book and as a paperback on Amazon.com.

The Kindle is priced at $1.99 The paperback is $11.64.

I had the pleasure of reading this book around three years ago. Marc gave me a manuscript. He wanted to know what I thought of it.

I was drawn in when I read it.

I thought Marc had written something others would like to read and I encouraged him to find a publisher and put it out there.

He has done so.

Here is your chance to see if I have a future as a judge of science fiction literature.

I do not want to give away the plot, but I will share the first paragraph of the Amazon description with you.

“Robert Packard, born in Los Angeles in 1974, love-starved wine nerd, frustrated physicist, and over-qualified gofer for a California law firm in the year 2010, suddenly gets two accidental windows to the past: Château Lafite in 1860, and Monticello, Virginia in 1818. They appear courtesy of the proverbial ‘Dark and Stormy Night.’”

Notice that coins are not mentioned in Robert Packard’s background.

There is probably good reason for that.

Tell a noncollector that there are coins in the story and he or she will probably head for the hills instead of deciding to buy this book.

The second paragraph of the description does mention coins, so I guess the blurb writer thinks readers will have already been hooked by the time they reach it.

So let’s spread the word among collectors.

It’s our secret.

Don’t tell any of your noncollecting friends you like it because there are coins in the story.

We don’t want to spoil its chances by saying coin collectors like this, now would we?

The link to the Kindle version is here:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OOEYOD2

If you are more interested in the paperback, this is the link:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Time-Cellar-Marc-Emory/dp/159967971X/ref=sr_1_cc_7?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1414331995&sr=1-7-catcorr&keywords=the+time+cellar

P.S. It is called "The Time Cellar."

Buzz blogger Dave Harper is winner of the 2014 Numismatic Literary Guild Award for Best Blog and is editor of the weekly newspaper "Numismatic News."