Dr. Victoria Von Dietz's arrogant husband betrays her when he beds a flirtatious coed. Her feminist and antiwar views keep her from getting tenure. Meanwhile she's infatuated with American pragmatic philosopher George Herbert Mead and German existentialist Martin Heidegger, both dead.
So, when Victoria discovers she has the ability to escape her life and travel back to the time of her favorite philosophers, even if it means landing in Nazi Germany, she takes the plunge. Her journey finds her married to Mead but still infatuated with Heidegger, despite their conflicting philosophies.
Meanwhile Annabelle Carter Jackson, head of a federal grant agency, funds Victoria's research and urges her to kill Adolf Hitler. But once there, she can't decide whether to do the deed or inspire Hitler to change his views.
Author Valerie Bentz takes her interest in the two late philosophers to a new level in her philosophical and historical romance novel, Flesh and Mind: The Time Travels of Dr. Victoria Von Dietz. Is someone's attraction to a philosopher's work only intellectual, a matter for the mind, or is it deeply emotional as well? Can the right person change one of history's most dangerous characters? This may be a romance novel, but it boldly tackles some lofty questions.
About the Author: Growing up in a German-American family during World War II gave Valerie Bentz a love-hate relationship with her heritage. She loved Germany's music and philosophy, but despised its connection with Nazism. She made it her life mission to work for peace and justice and the fight for women's rights.
Bentz, professor of human and organization development at Fielding Graduate University, has written numerous articles about philosophers George Herbert Mead, Martin Heidegger, Alfred Schutz, and Helmut Wagner; all of whom she cleverly fictionalizes in her novel, Flesh and Mind: The Time Travels of Dr. Victoria Von Dietz. Also a psychotherapist for twenty years, she is additionally a certified yoga teacher and massage therapist.
Bentz won the first prize novel award in the Lillian Dean Writing Competition for Flesh and Mind. She lives in California with her husband and pets, where she is currently working on Spank Me with a Wooden Tie, a book of fictionalized memoirs.
