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Posted by John Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/06/26/the-big-idea-kelli-estes/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=56240

When strangers meet on the road, can lives change? What if those strangers are something other than just strangers? With Smoke on the Wind, author Kelli Estes has a chance encounter for the ages… in more ways than one.

KELLI ESTES:

When I started writing my novel, Smoke on the Wind, I thought it would be just like my last two: a dual timeline where the present-day protagonist learns about history taking place in the historical storyline and it changes her life in some way. But then, wouldn’t you know it, my historical protagonist ends up seeing my present-day characters walking past her on the road and her journey alters because of it.

Wait. What? I reached for the delete key but then stopped. What if I left that in? What if she – a woman in 1801 Scotland – really does see a woman and her son from 2025? What would that mean to her? What would that mean to the story?

Now, before we go any further, let me explain that I do not write science-fiction or fantasy. I write historical fiction, dual narrative, sometimes referred to as women’s fiction. We in this genre tend to stick to historical facts and realism. Readers will light our inboxes on fire if we alter history or get too, as one reader put it, “woo-woo.” (She was referring to a harbor seal that keeps reappearing to my character in a previous novel. Something tells me she really won’t like what’s happening in Smoke on the Wind!)

But, reservations aside, the idea felt exciting. And, even more, it felt possible. I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen ghosts. I’ve recalled past life memories. I’ve seen movement out of the corner of my eye when no one was there and known I was seeing the lingering energy of someone who’d been there before me.

Even more, this book is set in Scotland, a place that feels mysterious and magical, where generations of people believed that Fairy Folk helped keep their livestock safe and peering through a hole in a stone could show you the future. When I’m in Scotland walking the hills and glens, especially when I know the history of what once occurred on that land, I can feel the spirits of the people who came before me as though they are standing right beside me. In other words, the veil is thin in Scotland and it wouldn’t surprise me one bit to find myself touching a standing stone and traveling back in time or turning a corner and bumping into someone who’d lived three hundred years in the past.

Smoke on the Wind is set on Scotland’s most popular long-distance hiking trail, the West Highland Way. It is dual timeline meaning that there is a historical story interwoven with a present-day story and, together, they address themes such as identity, what makes a home, and the bond between mothers and sons. Because both stories occupy the same geographic space, they rub up against each other even though they are separated by over 200 years.

My present-day character, Keaka, learns about the historical character’s life which influences the trajectory of her own life. But, also, my historical character, Sorcha, sees glimpses of Keaka, which in turn, affects her life and the decisions she makes. I stuck to the facts of history – the Highland Clearances and Scotland in 1801 – but I allowed a bit of magic to come through, and I think the story works as a result. After all, we don’t really know if our own decisions are being influenced by whispers from the past, or even from the future.

As I wrote, I intended to stick with vague connections between the two women that could easily be explained away – a glimpse here and there, a whispered voice on the wind, a carving on a stone. But then I reached a scene near the midpoint of the story when, suddenly, the two women are standing face-to-face. I won’t spoil the book, so I’ll leave this vague and simply say that it’s not time-travel, but the women do see each other and communicate. I feel excited every time I think back to that scene because it feels so possible to me. Surely if I just squint hard enough, someone from another time period will appear to me, right?

It’s that sense of possibility that makes me love this story so much. Well, that and all the other things woven through the story that I equally love – the Highland Clearances, moms and sons, long-distance hiking, slow travel, visiting historic sites and feeling the weight still present, personal reinvention, the Scottish Gaelic language. Smoke on the Wind blurs time just enough that all things seem possible. History is relevant to our lives today, but maybe we’re relevant to it, too.

Smoke on the Wind: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Powell’s

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Read an excerpt here.

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/06/26/the-big-idea-kelli-estes/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=56240