Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Jaclyn Moriarty to HJ!
Hi Jaclyn Moriarty and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, TIME TRAVEL FOR BEGINNERS!
Please summarize the book for the readers here:
Time Travel for Beginners is the story of a nondescript storefront on a suburban Sydney street. It’s between a gelato bar and a sushi place, calls itself the Time Travel Agency and offers customers short trips to anywhere they like in time—from Ancient Rome to the Swinging Sixties, from your great-grandmother’s kitchen to your own teenage bedroom. The catch is this: nothing you do in the past will alter the present.
Anna has just got a job at the Time Travel Agency. Teddy is a customer who wants to time travel and figure out where he went wrong in his marriage. And Jade, who’s taking writing classes in a room upstairs from the agency, thinks the place is a hoax and wants to burn it down.
Please share your favorite line(s) or quote from this book:
I am a very indecisive person so this is an impossible question for me to answer. (Also, each time I think, ‘Maybe that line?’ I immediately cringe, as if I were singing: ‘Look at this great line, aren’t I clever?’)
So, I’ll say that I like the reviews that customers write for the Time Travel Agency. For example, someone visits Ancient Africa then complains: ‘Not a single person spoke English, and no subtitles. Absurd’. I also like Doctor Nastevski, the owner of the Agency who claims to have discovered the secret to time travel. Nobody can understand the science behind her secret, either because she’s a super-genius or she’s delusional. I like how she plays with the metaphors of quantum physics: ‘Ah, you know Shrodinger’s cat? Well, it is not in the box. It is here in my handbag’, and ‘The cat is a glass of orange juice… And the electrons spill and graze their knees.’
If you think about it, this is exactly what might happen if you invented time travel (or if you were delusional).
Please share a few Fun facts about this book…
- The working title of the book was The Tango Dancer’s Guide to Stopping Time. I had trouble letting go of that title, but now I’ve almost forgotten it. (Sorry, title.)
- The inspiration for the book was a bus trip down a busy suburban shopping street where I glimpsed a Time Travel Agency. For a moment, I honestly believed the secret to time travel had been discovered and was fervently excited. Then I looked again and realised that a billboard for Time Magazine had slipped against the window of a local travel agency…
- I spent around twenty years writing this book. As it’s about a time travel agency, it seemed important to me to research history (yes, history, all of it), common regrets (not flossing teeth; not getting travel insurance; not visiting Grandma enough), and quantum physics. Eventually, I had to put my foot down and start writing.
- Much of this book was written at Coco Chocolate, a tiny chocolate shop which is a 15-minute walk from my home and which makes its own chocolate. I regularly convince myself that I can’t write a word without one of their Rose and Black Pepper hot chocolates.
What first attracts your Hero to the Heroine and vice versa?
Well, this book has one hero, Teddy, and two heroines, Anna and Jade.
Teddy’s marriage has fallen apart and he doesn’t realise he’s attracted to Anna at first. He’s too focused on trying to win back his wife. However, he exchanges emails with Anna and finds her unique, funny and warm. In person, he’s drawn to her smile and her serenity: he imagines her as a cellist.
Anna is drawn to Teddy immediately, despite herself. It’s her first day working at the Time Travel Agency, and Teddy is a customer in jeans and t-shirt who walks in, surveys the room and sends a glancing smile in her direction: ‘The smile of a teenage schoolboy who fleetingly charms the shy girl, even as the teacher is berating him.’
Jade is also immediately attracted to Teddy, but in a kind of ruthless way. She’s in a destructive, casual relationship with a tango dancer, and wants to find a man who’ll divert her attention from that guy. She likes Teddy’s ‘wicked smile, mischievous, edgy,’ but it’s the profound sadness she can hear inside his laugh that draws her most powerfully to him.
Did any scene have you blushing, crying or laughing while writing it? And Why?
I do sometimes laugh at my writing and then I blush because I’m embarrassed to find my own jokes funny. I’m also embarrassed when I tear up at sad parts, but I definitely became emotional when an elderly customer time travels so she can play with her childhood dog on a beach.
Also, I smiled when Teddy and Anna walk to their cars on a rainy night, and a stream of water tips down Anna’s face and onto her coat.
‘Ah,’ said Teddy concerned. He reached out and brushed raindrops from my face—the side of his thumb brushing my cheekbone.
The next day Anna feels the ‘flustered way you feel when a sexy man has brushed the side of his thumb over your cheek’. I also like when Teddy and Anna time travel together to meet the Bronte sisters, and Teddy realises they’ll be safer if he holds her hand—his big warm hand wrapped around her smaller gloved one.
Readers should read this book….
Why yes, they should. They absolutely should. Otherwise, what was the point in my writing it?
(I hope readers can have an immersive experience of time travel, get to know and like the characters—and, after reading it, maybe call off an unhealthy relationship, or forgive themselves for any overwhelming regrets.)
What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have in the works?
I’m working on another novel for grownups with a magical twist—this one is set in an apartment complex, and is told through the perspectives of various residents. Time Travel for Beginners comes out in August, but then I have a new book for children (8 to 12-year-olds) out in November. It’s the latest in the Kingdoms and Empires series and is called The Accidental World-Slip of Astrid Verity.
Thanks for blogging at HJ!
Giveaway: A copy of TIME TRAVEL FOR BEGINNERS by Jaclyn Moriarty
To enter Giveaway, please share this post on your Socials and Leave a comment below to this Q: Are there any small moments in your life that have set you off on a trajectory you didn’t expect? If you could, would you change that moment or keep it exactly as it was?
🎉 Giveaway Rules 🎉 ✨ Must be 18 years or older to enter. ✨ MUST leave a comment answering the giveaway question. ✨ Bonus Entry:Share this post on your social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) and drop a comment below letting me know you've shared it. ✨ Winner(s) will be selected at random. ✨ No purchase necessary—just enter and cross your fingers! ✨ If you win, I'll need your full name and mailing address to send your prize. This information will be shared with the author, publisher, or publicist solely for prize fulfillment purposes. ✨ Giveaway closes 3 days from the date this post is published.
Book Info:
On a bustling road in Sydney, Australia, lies a nondescript storefront known simply as the Time Travel Agency. Inside, you’ll be welcomed by the smell of fresh-brewed coffee, a selection of baked goods…and the question, Where in time do you wish to go?
The guidelines are simple: you can go whenever you wish into the past, and there’s no fear of altering the present. Have tea with Jane Austen, scream at a Beatles concert, witness the Olympics in ancient Greece. Perhaps a more personal trip? Visit your long-lost grandmother, recapture the heady days of your youth, return to the idyllic time when your teen was a babbling baby—or watch yourself make the one decision that changed everything.
Is it a hoax? And if it’s real, what’s the catch?
When single mother Anna is offered a job at the agency, she glimpses the possibility of happiness. Meanwhile, Teddy’s a customer hoping to untangle his recently imploded marriage. And Jade, who has a deeply buried secret, despises the agency for offering false hope.
In Jaclyn Moriarty’s incandescent novel, Anna, Teddy, and Jade leap headlong into time, hurtling on a crash course toward one another. At turns entertaining and illuminating, Time Travel for Beginners explores the moments, big and small, that shape our destiny.
Meet the Author:
Jaclyn Moriarty is the award-winning author of books for readers of all ages. She has been the recipient of the NSW Premier’s Literary Award, the Queensland Literary Award, and the Aurealis Award for Fantasy. Her books have been named Boston Globe Honor Books, White Raven selections and recognized by the American Library Association.
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