Every time travel romance needs a catalyst:
a magical, mystical, or completely unexplained force that rips the characters
out of their timeline and drops them into another.
Why did I decide to write time travel?
Because Time for
Love by Constance O’Day
Flannery kept me up all night reading. A woman gets dental work done inside
what used to be a train depot. A mysterious force ignites, and suddenly she’s
in 1876 and mistaken for a mail-order bride.
I was hooked.
Years later, after plenty of research, I wrote Time to Save a Cowboy.
My heroine travels back to 1890, triggered by two things: an antique garnet ring and an old
locomotive.
Time Travel Catalysts in Romance
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
While wearing an antique jeweled watch, the humming stones of a Scotland ruins
pull Claire back to 1743.
A Highlander for Hannah by Mary Warren
A love spell meant to find “the one” accidentally summons an 18th-century
Scottish Highlander.
The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston
A hidden compartment in inherited furniture transports the heroine to seven
years in the past.
A Love Song for Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams
A magical Harlem garden and a haunted piano bring a handsome Renaissance man
across time.
Why I Love Writing Time Travel
My favorite part—the history.
For Time
to Save a Cowboy, I chose 1890 Hesperia, California and went deep. I discovered that the hotel had running
water, rare for the time, and learned about the Los Flores Ranch. I even
visited the land while it was still a working ranch.
In the past few years, that property had been
replaced with houses.
Time may move on … but in stories, love always
finds a way back. 💕
2 comments:
I love time travel romance. I just read one with the 'unexplained force' as the means to go back in time. My absolute favorite is A Knight in Shining Armor by Jude Deveraux. Not only was a I caught up in the romance, but everyday things we take for granted (like a shower), Ms. Deveraux incorporated into the story and brought to the page the traveler's horror or excitement or confusion upon each little discovery. Thank you for a great memory, Niki, and for the reminder time travels are sooo much fun!
Our favorite time travel movie is Somewhere in Time starring Jane Seymour and Christopher Reeves. One week staying in The Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Reeves is haunted by the picture of a beautiful woman in his room. He finds out she is Elise McKenna an actress. By using Self Hypnosis he was able to go back to 1912 to the Grand Hotel. A beautiful romance follows but I felt the tension that any moment he would fall back into his former time. And just when it seemed that everything was going to fall into place for them he pulls a coin from his suit he had just put on and the current date on the coin dropped him back into his former life. He tried and tried to self hypnotize himself but to no avail. When he doesn’t make his appearance, Elise goes to his room to find it empty and nothing there that belonged to him. She spends the rest of her life looking for him and he wears himself out trying to get back. My husband was so unhappy with the ending that he wrote an alternate ending that reunited the couple so they could live happily ever after. I ll admit because of that movie and the way it ended—I have shied away from other time travel movies or books. I just don’t like the tension and usually how they have to end. Unfortunately time does get in the way of some time travel romances. Debra
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