The Great Famine, by 1849, has devastated Ireland and its hunger-stricken people. Their plight is made worse by the evictions imposed by the landlords, who send tenants to the workhouses and the roadside ditches, where many die from starvation and disease.

Archie and Kristin travel through time and space to return Finbar the Guide to Donegal. They encounter Lord Castleforde, a landlord cursed as a Varakite, a creature that seeks humans to satisfy a hunger for energy.

Kristin is abducted by Castleforde, who believes her to be the incarnation of his dead wife. Archie and his team join forces with the rebel Ribbonmen, in a desperate attempt to find her before she disappears with the Varakite.

There are three known parallel dimensions in the multiverse. Archie and his father have left Old Earth to live and work at Mount Tengi on New Earth in the second parallel. Archie is now in command of a Time Escort Group (TEG) that journeys through spacetime zones to other worlds to return timecrack travellers to their Points of Origin.

It's on one such journey to Ireland during the time of the Great Famine in 1849, they return the Irishman, Finbar the Guide, to his home in Donegal. Shortly after they arrive, Archie and his girlfriend, Kristin, the mission artist, encounter Lord Castleforde, a ruthless landlord responsible for the evictions of starving tenants on land he has inherited from his late wife, Lady Jane.

Castleforde suffers the curse of being a Varakite, a creature who can only survive by taking energy from other humans, which render him temporarily invisible. When he sees Kristin, he believes her to be the reincarnation of Lady Jane. He abducts her and takes her to the Red House estate, where she learns the terrible truth of what he intends to do with her.

Archie's brother, Richard, who has the power to communicate telepathically with people in other worlds, arrives unexpectedly in Donegal from the third parallel universe. He joins Archie and the rebel Ribbonmen in their fight against Castleforde, and their attempt to rescue Kristin.

Theta, known as the Widow Cassidy, was taken from Xantara also in the third parallel, by a strange blue cloud into the vortex of a timecrack, and landed in Donegal. She has settled into a farm and uses her skills as a herbalist and healer to help the people survive the cruel persecutions inflicted by Castleforde.

Theta helps Archie and Richard, along with the Ribbonmen, to rescue Kristin during the destruction of the Red House. But Castleforde escapes to flee through a timecrack back to Amasia, Kristin's world in the second parallel.

The adventure sees Castleforde continue his killings in Amasia. As a Varakite in his efforts to seek energy, he steals valuables from his victims in order to pay for his living expenses. Through his activities he meets the wealthy art collector who buys his spoils, Amelda Beck the Dragon Lady, and learns from her about the art works she buys from Kristin, now a famous artist with her own studio. They strike a bargain for Castleforde to obtain the priceless Immortal Wand she desires, in exchange for Beck to arrange a meeting with Kristin.

It has come to the attention of Archie and Richard that the killings are taking place in the city of Sitanga, where Kristin is working on a mural at Beck's home. They suspect Lord Castleforde of being responsible for the murders and go to Sitanga to hunt him down and find Kristin.

They are too late. A timecrack has swept Castleforde and Kristin into its swirling vortex, and returned them to Donegal.

The story ends at the Red House – with a surprise for both Archie and Kristin.

Long hits the ground running with Varakite, his latest venture in the sci-fi/fantasy series. With this gripping, memorable story, the characters, including the Varakite monster, have become as big as the adventures they are a part of. It helps that he paints them with a cinematic prose and flair to make an engrossing, enjoyable plot.

Mike De Angelo  Tellest.com

Varakite is another Timecrack Adventure as Archie and Richard travel through time and space to 19th century Ireland.

Paloma Fraile  Film Producer

Congratulations on a ripping yarn. It's a marvellous Victorian melodrama with all the added interest of time travel and Irish history.

Maurice Neill  Author and journalist

The reader is thrust headlong into other worlds that are all the more unnerving because they blend the fantastic with the familiar.

Karen Maitland  Bestselling author

An adventure through the wormholes of time to Ireland during the Great Famine will have you gripped to the last page.

M.McCullough  Daily Mirror

William Long is a retired businessman based in N. Ireland. With a long and varied career in sales and marketing, running a business designing and promoting branded goods for high profile companies such as Coca Cola. One of his creations is the internationally famous Five Nations Rugby Championship tie, now regarded as a collector's item. After working for Union Carbide in Toronto, he left to explore the rest of Canada. He contracted to deliver a Volkswagen Beetle to a client in Vancouver, driving alone 3,500 miles to British Columbia. During his time there he teamed up with two others to explore more of the country and the USA. Another drive, involved 2,500 miles from Los Angeles to Miami Port, Florida, to deliver a Toyota Landcruiser for the movie producer, George Englund, who was shooting 'Dark of the Sun' in Jamaica. After enjoying a spell in Nassau, Bahamas, it was back to Toronto, before returning to N. Ireland. It was a two-year adventure he sees as a future writing project, He continued his travels with an interest in ancient cultures, exploring Mexico, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Spain, Portugal; including nearer home, Newgrange in Ireland. His interest in aviation and the cosmos, along with the possibility of other dimensions and new worlds, led to the idea of writing a series known as 'The Timecrack Adventures'.