Why A Time Travel?

A nice long weekend to relax and be with family. What could be better? I hope you have time to read a good book. Like OUT OF THE BLUE, hint, hint.


Someone asked me today why I wrote a time travel. My belief is a writer should writer the kind of book he or she likes to read. One type book I love is time travel romance. The first one I read was by Kathleen Kane. I fell in love with the concept and read every one of her books I could find. Then I met Diana Gabaldon. What a great lady, researcher, and writer! I bought all of her books, too. A bookseller I trust suggested Janet Chapman’s series on Scots warriors who were transported mid-battle to the U.S. What fun!

Writing is more involved than reading. Even a contemporary novel usually requires research to set up the world the writer will describe. My husband and I took our dream trip to Ireland and fell in love with the country. We also love our home state of Texas. What better than to combine the two? The heroine of OUT OF THE BLUE is from 1845 Ireland while the hero is a Texas police detective in the fictional city of Radford Springs. The town’s name sounds logical, right? What sounds fictional is the actual lake, Possum Kingdom Lake. Yep, I’m serious, the name is genuine. Not only that, it’s a beautiful lake. And there really is a cliff formation called Hell’s Gate.

The name comes from the early Anglo trappers in the area who trapped possums for their fur and also bought hides from the Comanches. Two trappers decided to steal from some Comanches they’d traded with, and were killed. Apparently someone survived to report that before they died, one of the trappers said “he’d see Hell’s Gate before he returned” the hides to the Comanches. The cliff formation is named for him, sort of a posthumous tribute to his stupidity.

I hope you enjoy time travel romances, too. I’ll include a copy of mine in the prize drawing on June 1st. You have until 11:59 pm on May 31st to enter. If you don’t win, don’t worry, in June I’ll have weekly drawings. To enter either, you simply comment on my blog and include your email address. If you sign up as a follower, that counts as an extra entry. Couldn’t be easier.

Have a safe and happy Memorial Day. Don’t forget the reason for the holiday.