Guest Post: Time Travel Romance Author Stella May Asks, What's in a Name?

Haveyou ever wondered if or how a person’s name affects his/her personality? Doesyour name determine your fate? Or was Shakespeare right to shrug off labels?The older I get, the more I am convinced that the Bard was wrong—that there issomething in a name, after all.

My great-grandmother was named Tatyana. There are several different meanings of that name. From ancient Greek, it translates as "founder of order" or "organizer." According to other translations, it means “a fairy queen,” or “fairyprincess.” She was both. Born to a noble Russian family, she was raised like aprincess. Later in life, by fate’s capricious will, she became head of thehousehold, where she reigned supreme, bringing order and organizing the livesof her family. 

Let’sstart from the beginning: Tatyana Fortushina was born in 1901 in Qusar(Kusary), located in the foothills of the Great Caucasus Mountains inAzerbaijan. One of her brothers was an orthodox priest. The other was in the army.She also had two sisters. 

Unfortunately,the details about my great-grandmother’s family are sketchy at best. Accordingto all the people I have talked to, Tatyana (or Baba Tanya, as everybody calledher) wasn’t close with her parents or siblings. My guess? Probably because ofher highly unusual marriage. As I said, my great-grandmother was raised andeducated like a princess, graduating from an establishment (St. Nina’s) forgirls of prominent Christian families, and was the apple of her parents’ eye…. untilshe met my great-grandfather, that is. 

Here,we draw a big, fat blank. To this day, no one in the family knows how or why MeshadyAbbas, the son of an Iranian manufacturer, ended up in post-revolutionaryAzerbaijan.

Whendid my great-grandparents meet? And how on earth did a Muslim merchant get parentalpermission from one of the prominent members of Christian society to marry hisdaughter? The details are shrouded in secret. One thing we know for sure,though, is that in order to marry my great-grandmother, my great-grandfatherconverted to Christianity. And so, Meshadi Abbas became Artemy Kurdov andmarried my great-grandmother. Vera, my grandmother, was born the next year. 

Theirsmall family was happy—at least I want to believe that they were—but not forvery long. When my grandmother Vera was a toddler, Artemy Kurdov, who embracedthe Communist ideology wholeheartedly, was executed as an enemy of the nation. Ironic?Not in the least. It’s hard to understand now, but, during Stalin’s regime,just sneezing the wrong way was enough to be labeled as an enemy of thestate—literally.  And my daredevil of a great-grandfatherhad managed to become something of a Major in the small city where he lived.  I assume that’s why he was ultimatelyexecuted… or perhaps he just said something, or did something, or looked atsomeone in passing, and some zealot took a notice and reported it. I don’t wantto think about my great-grandfather’s days in prison or the beatings heendured. Torture was a regular practice of the NKVD—the original name of theKGB. 

Thus,my great-grandmother Tatyana was left a young widow with no income to supporther and her daughter, and no family to turn to for help. But instead of fallingapart, this delicately built dark-haired princess squared her shoulders andspat fate in the eyes. She showed everybody what a graduate of St. Nina’s wasmade of! Remembering the sewing lessons she took in school, Baba Tanya soonbecame one of the most sought-after seamstresses—all the wives of the city’selite were dressed by her. Much later, her granddaughters, my mom and my aunt,paraded in the clothes that were the subject of envy to their friends.  She had finally found her footing, and lifein her household became content. They had a roof over their heads, food on thetable, but, most importantly, they had each other. 

Andthen… 

Heronly daughter, her whole world, the reason of her being, fell in love with aman almost twice her age… and had to get married, or else. I can only wonderwhat Baba Tanya felt, when her nice and quiet world suddenly fell apart, as herown daughter repeated the same fate she had? As a mother, how would I react ifI were in her shoes? Would I let my daughter chose her own fate, or would I tryto interfere? I honestly don’t know. 

Inthe end, my great-grandmother gave the couple her blessings and stepped aside. Forthe next five years, she lived alone. Was she hurt? I imagine she was. Feelinglonely? Abandoned? Oh, absolutely. But she was too proud to show her emotions.Always restrained, now she became coolly aloof. 

Yearslater, when her beloved daughter became a widow with two small children at theage of twenty, she immediately took all of them under her wing. How could awoman, a mother, and grandmother keep harboring grudges when three people sheloved more than life itself needed her? Hence, she became the head of anall-female household, one she ruled for almost three decades. The secondmeaning of her name – the founder of order—had come into play. 

Accordingto my family, she was a stern woman, fair and loving, but reserved. She didn’tsuffer fools, didn’t forgive easily, and meted out punishment with a precisionof a surgeon. Her scalpel was her tongue—sharp, cold, and merciless. But herlove for her girls, although never visible, ran deep and was true. 

Mygrandmother Vera always said that, if not for Baba Tanya and her sacrifices, theyprobably wouldn’t have survived the hunger of World War II. During thathorrible time, to suppress her own hunger, Baba Tanya started to smoke. She wenthungry for days, giving her tiny bread portions to her granddaughters. She learnedto cook from bran and waste products, conjuring meals out of thingsunimaginable. She stood hours on end in bread lines, barely alive from hunger, allthe while puffing away her disgusting handmade cigarettes. That cheap tobaccomix affected her lungs, ultimately causing her to pass away years later when Iwas barely three years old.  

Mymemory of her is vague: a frail figure in a starched white kerchief, thin andpale-faced, coughing loudly. I remember I was afraid to enter the room when the‘scary old woman’ was lying in bed. I suppose, for a small child, her frailty,her illness-ravished face, that horrible dry cough could and did look scary.

Butstill…to this day, I feel ashamed of myself. 

Interestinglyenough, while I don’t remember much of my great-grandmother’s face, one thingthat stuck with me is her hands, which I can remember clearly. 

Isn’tthat just strange? 

Oris it just the wonders of human memory?

Here is a peek atStella’s time travel romance novel for your reading pleasure. 

One key unlocks the love of a lifetime…but could alsobreak her heart.  

Nika Morris’s sixth sense has helped build a successfulbusiness, lovingly restoring and reselling historic homes on Florida’s AmeliaIsland. But there’s one forlorn, neglected relic that’s pulled at her from themoment she saw it. The century-old Coleman house.  

Quite unexpectedly, the house is handed to her on asilver platter—along with a mysterious letter, postmarked 1909, yet addressedpersonally to Nika. Its cryptic message: Find the key. You know where it is.Hurry, for goodness sake! 

The message triggers an irresistible drive to findthat key. When she does, one twist in an old grandfather clock throws herback in time, straight into the arms of deliciously, devilishly handsome ElijahColeman. 

Swept up in a journey of a lifetime, Nika finds herselffalling in love with Eli—and with the family and friends that inhabit a time noteven her vivid imagination could have conjured. But in one desperate moment ofhomesickness, she makes a decision that will not only alter the course of morethan one life, but break her heart. 

’Til Time Do UsPartis available in Kindle and Paperback at AMAZON. 

Talented author Stella May is the penname for Marina Sardarova who has a fascinating history you should read on her website. 
Stella writes fantasy romance as well as time travel romance. She is the author of 'Till Time Do Us Part, Book 1 in her Upon a Time series, and the stand-alone book Rhapsody in Dreams. Love and family are two cornerstones of her stories and life. Stella’s books are available in e-book and paperback through all major vendors.
When not writing, Stella enjoys classical music, reading, and long walks along the ocean. She lives in Jacksonville, Florida with her husband Leo of 35 years and their son George. They are her two best friends and are all partners in their family business.

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