Traci Harding - The Ancient Future Trilogy
I'm a huge fan of Australian author Traci Harding. She's written quite a few books by now, has an online community dedicated to her work and the ideas that inspired her work, and would very easily qualify as "one of the authors who has inspired me the most". I came across her first book, The Ancient Future , some time in 2002. It looked like an interesting and entertaining story of a modern Australian woman, Tory Alexander, who accidentally goes back in time through a stone circle while on holiday in Britain, then finds herself in Wales some 1500 years ago where she meets and marries the love of her life, Prince Maelgwn Gwynedd. She becomes Queen of Gwynedd (in modern-day Wales), enforces new child- and female-friendly laws and teaches the ancient Britons a new way of fighting and with it, a new way of thinking. As the book unfolds, Tory learns that her coming to the 6th Century wasn't an accident but deliberate, and was orchestrated by Merlin - yes the Merlin...