A #Romance Across Time #amwriting #timetravel #scifi

Hi, I'm Pippa Jay, author of scifi and supernatural stories to engage your emotions. And my main romance series includes time travel. Why?

Rocking my Anakin cosplay on the Iron Throne!

Well. While I'm a huge Star Wars fan (and it's the universe I tend to focus on for my cosplay creations), I'm also a life long Whovian. My parents were fans. My earliest memory from Doctor Who is The Planet of the Spiders--the final adventure of Jon Pertwee, the Doctor's third incarnation, and the episode I can possibly pin my spider phobia on! His companion Sarah Jane Smith was my first heroine inspiration.

Me aged 18, with the then 7th Doctor Sylvester McCoy

So perhaps it's not surprising that my debut novel and the main series it started are time travel romances/adventures. Even the book I refer to as my 'Star Wars' story--Gethyon, set about twenty years before my time travel series and sharing some of the same characters as well as the same universe--still has a time travel element to it. While not a romance, my hero accidently catapults himself twenty years back in time to meet a girl he falls for. He comes to learn and hate some of the restrictions this kind of travel carries while being thankful for it as well.

Gethyon

But in my main series I have to deal with how and why they time travel, the limits of their abilities, the benefits and consequences. For example, at one point my heroine has to face an ancient nemesis responsible for the death of her sisters, her home world, and even the powers she considers more of a curse than a blessing. But she can't kill her because it would directly impact the very existence of the hero and cause a paradox. She also can't leave the woman free to cause any further harm. What to do?

There are also things they can't go back and change. Their method of time travel involves a certain amount of focus on a place or person to work. So if someone dies, the knowledge of their death stops anyone from going back to any point in their life before their death and possibly preventing it - a psychological block rather than a physical or temporal one. There are also certain worlds that can only be accessed by special portals - gateways.

So it's a little more complicated than jumping in a TARDIS, though probably just as haphazard. The thing I love most about time travel romance is I can have my characters jump anywhere, any time, exploring alien worlds but also the ups and downs and complexities of time travel, and how even love can cross such barriers between those destined to be together.

Keir

Keir's Fall

Want to chat? Find me at my website or blog, but my favourite place to hang out and talk all things geek and scifi romance is as @pippajaygreen on Twitter.

British SF Romance Author Pippa Jay

    Hi, my name is Pippa Jay and I'm an author. Y'know, it still feels a little odd saying that? My debut novel came out in May 2012, but it was a while before I felt brave enough to say it to a total stranger when they asked me what I do.

PIPPA JAY

Then she asked me, 

"What do you write?"

     "Science fiction romance."

"Oh, you mean like Twilight?"

Long pause.

     "Er, no, not like Twilight at all."

Moving swiftly on...

I write scifi, usually with romance woven through it. If you're wondering what science fiction romance is, think Star Wars (Han and Leia), Avatar and John Carter. Maybe even Farscape and the revamped Doctor Who? But I try to keep my stories tech light and avoid too many unpronounceable names, focusing mainly on my characters. I love to write tortured souls, and the more I can torture them, the happier I am! Bwah-ha-haaaa!

KEIR

I live in the glorious and historical town of Colchester in the UK - Britain's oldest recorded market town - with my husband of 20 years and our three little monsters. Colchester Zoo, the nearby coastline of East Anglia and the town's Roman and medieval past have all had their influence on my writing. My debut novel Keir starts in a setting probably more suited to a fantasy, based on my love for the medieval period and local landmarks like the Layer Marney Towers. But my characters are soon swept away to other worlds, including the tropical planet Metraxi, and the island paradise of Kasha-Asor (both based on hot, lazy days at the local beach). Yep, we do get hot days even in the UK! 

TERMS & CONDITIONS APPLY

 For my most recent release, a hot scifi romance called Terms & Conditions Apply, the story takes place on a luxury space station that promises to fulfil all your dreams with holographic suites and an empathic AI capable of seeing and fulfilling your darkest, deepest desires. But even there, the meeting area at the opening of the story is based on a setting in my home town. Culver Square doesn't have the statue of Venus in the centre, but a collection of seashells and sea holly that once had a fountain - until it was repeatedly polluted with detergent that made the pool foam over. Pretty, but it meant the council was constantly having to flush it out, and it just became too much work. :(

GETHYON

For my upcoming release Gethyon, I took myself back to my teens, along with some angsty music by My Chemical Romance and 30 Seconds to Mars, and modelled the younger version of my hero on my then six year old son. In part, Gethyon is a tribute to my first crush - a certain young hero by the name of Luke Skywalker, and the reason why I switched from writing elves and magic to aliens and spaceships. But even though Gethyon isn't strictly speaking a romance, a romantic element has still crept into this YA scifi novel. Does he get the girl? You'll have to read it to find out.

Bio and links –

A stay-at-home mum of three who spent twelve years working as an Analytical Chemist in a Metals and Minerals laboratory, Pippa Jay bases her stories on a lifetime addiction to science-fiction books and films. Somewhere along the line a touch of romance crept into her work and refused to leave. Between torturing her characters, she spends the odd free moments trying to learn guitar, indulging in freestyle street dance and drinking high-caffeine coffee. Although happily settled in historical Colchester in the UK with her husband of 20 years, she continues to roam the rest of the Universe in her head.

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