Love Through Time and a Book Giveaway!

I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of time travel. The Time Traveler’s Wife is one of my favorite books from the last decade, and a lot of my teenaged fantasies involved me introducing a boy from the 50’s to the ways of the modern world. I blame that on Happy Days. But I never thought I’d attempt to write in that genre until I got the chance to contribute a short story for THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF TIME TRAVEL ROMANCE.

I love a good “modern girl falls for a Regency era Duke or Highland Warrior story” as much as the next gal, but I wanted to try something different. Something a little darker.

Around the time I got the chance to submit this story, I’d been watching Life on Mars on TV, and loved the idea of someone being trapped in the wrong time but no one believing them. And of course I loved the heartbreakingly romantic notion from The Time Traveler’s Wife of meeting someone you love when they’re not at the right age, and/or don’t remember you’ve already met.  I also concede that my story, in hindsight, has similarities to Groundhog Day, although I didn’t notice them until a beta reader pointed it out. (And other than the repeating date thing… well, not much similarity.)

But from somewhere in all that confluence of influences sprang the idea for “Lost and Found”, the story of Jake who, angry and upset at his father’s death and the whole world, takes a tab of acid in Central Park on April 17, 1967 and then proceeds to wake up every day in the same place, on the same date, in the same clothes, just in a different year, leaping forward and backward in time every day he wakes. By the time he meets the heroine Kara, for the second time in 2009, he has given up on the hope of ever ending his torturous leaps through time. But, of course, the story’s a romance, so it all turns out well in the end.

Today is the official release date for this anthology, which in addition to my story, includes 19 great authors’ stories, including Gwyn Cready who won the RITA® for best paranormal romance last year. I’m thrilled to have been included, even though they spelled my name “many more” on the cover. At least they got my initials correct. Actually, on this image of the cover, I’m not even there as “many more”, but it is on the actual book. I promise.

To celebrate my first ever release, I’m giving away a copy of THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF TIME TRAVEL ROMANCE to one random commenter! I’ll announce the winner this Saturday — to give everyone a few days to enter.

If you could travel through time, when would you most want to go?