| name | The Skin Map |
|---|---|
| orig title | |
| translator | |
| image |  |
| author | Stephen R. Lawhead |
| cover_artist | |
| country | United States |
| language | English languageEnglish |
| series | |
| classification | Fiction |
| genre | Christian Fiction |
| publisher | Thomas Nelson |
| release_date | August 2010 |
| media_type | Print (Hardcover), Kindle, Audio, CD, Audiobook, Unabridged |
| pages | 448 |
| isbn | ISBN-10: 1595548041, ISBN-13: 978-159554804 |
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The Skin Map is a novel by Stephen Lawhead, an American, best-selling author known for novels that blend elements of science fiction, fantasy, and historical fiction. The Skin Map is the first of five books in Lawhead’s Bright Empires series. Lawhead’s other fiction includes the King Raven, Song of Albion, and Dragon King trilogies. Lawhead’s publisher is Thomas Nelson in Nashville, Tennessee.
“The Bright Empires spans vast distances of time and space. This is a book that I have been writing for fifteen, maybe twenty years. In my mind I’ve thought of it as my ‘super fantasy’ and during that whole time I’ve been preparing myself to write it,” said Lawhead.
The Story
Kit Livingstone is living an ordinary enough life in London when he meets a man who introduces himself as his long-dead, great-grandfather Cosimo.
Cosimo claims to have traveled through time to find Kit so that they may recover a secret map. This map charts ley lines. Cosimo tells Kit that the ley lines throughout Britain are not merely the stuff of legends but truly are pathways to other worlds.
Together Kit and Cosimo travel back in time to 17th century London, but Kit realizes that it is a slightly altered city. His great-grandfather tells the story of Arthur Flinders-Petrie, a 17th century explorer who, more than anyone else, was able to determine and map the ley lines, these pathways to other times and alternate universes. Jealous of his discoveries, Flinders-Petrie protected the locations by tattooing a coded map onto his skin.
In The Skin Map, Kit and Cosimo must battle rivals and discover the stolen map. In what is most like a scavenger hunt for time travelers, they visit locations as far and wide as Egypt and China. Along the way, Kit’s girlfriend, Mina, travels through a ley line and into the world of alternate realities. Kit is deperate to rescue her and return her to her own time and place.