Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Gold by Talia Vance Blog Tour Guest Post and Giveaway: Talia Vance on Time Travel in Books

 
Today we have the pleasure of hosting the Blog Tour for Talia Vance's Gold!!!  The YA Sisterhood loves Talia, and we always jump at the chance to read her books.  Gold is a must read, even better than Silver!!!
 
Gold by Talia Vance
Published by Flux and AVAILABLE NOW!
 
 
 
Descended from an Irish demigod, Brianna has fled to Ireland to escape destruction at the hands of her sworn enemies, the Sons of Killian. Taking refuge at the estate of her former nemesis, Austin Montgomery, Brianna discovers a rift in time that opens to an era before the feud began.

Wrestling with her newfound feelings for the more innocent Austin, Brianna begins to wonder if she can alter the past. But when Brianna and Austin learn that the Sons are raising an army of mythical beasts, the pair will need to use their magical strength in the present to avoid a tragic end.
 
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Talia Vance on "Time Travel in Books"
 
 
 
Time travel is one of those subjects that has always fascinated me, especially stories where someone travels to the past.  My favorite time travel stories don’t end with dramatic Back to the Future-style changes to the present, but rather show how the ripples created by the time traveler’s involvement in past events led to everything being exactly as it is and always has been in the present.  My theory of time travel is called the Theory of Compossibility (it’s a real theory- I looked it up)- which basically says that since the past has already happened, it’s set in stone and can’t be changed.  But the past is also part of a traveler’s future, because the time traveler, in the present, hasn’t experienced those events yet.  There’s a certain inevitability to it, fate, if you will, but also an enticing desire to believe that things could still be changed- since the time traveler still has choices and free will when he or she goes to the past.  I don’t think the events can be changed, but there is no question that the impact of those events have on the person who travels to the past can change the person who goes back.
One of my favorite time travel books is THE TIME TRAVELERS WIFE by Audrey Niffenegger.  In the book, Henry is afflicted with a genetic defect that causes him to travel into the future and past of his own life.  He’s anchored to people he cares about, so he often travels to visit family members.  At the beginning of the story, and adult Henry of various ages, travels back in time to visit his wife, as a child and a teen, before they ever meet in the present at college.  I loved the tension as various Henrys from the future and Claire got to know each other in the present, all while the present Henry had no knowledge that Claire even existed.  The moment when Claire “meets” Henry at college is perfect, because she knows all about him and has known him for years, but for Henry the “past” hasn’t happened yet.  Throughout their relationship in the present, as the travels back to see her, he gradually experiences those same events and “catches up” with Claire in the present.  It’s a beautiful, romantic story (one of my favorites), but I found myself frustrated with the ending, which I felt didn’t allow for poor Claire to have closure she needed after his death.
Another book with a great romance and time travel element is OUTLANDER by Diana Gabledon.  The main character (another Claire) is a mid-twentieth century nurse who travels back to eighteenth century Scotland, where she falls in love with James (“Jamie”) Fraser.  Although she stays in the past at the end of the first book, in the second book, Dragonfly in Amber, Claire returns to the present, changed by the great love and events of the past, and pregnant with Jamie’s child.  She stays in the present for 21 years, during which she investigates what happened to Jamie, believing he died in battle.  At the end of the second book, she learns that he did not die in battle as she had believed, and in the third novel, Claire goes back in time again to find him.  But when her adult daughter continues to research the past (in the present) and finds out that Claire and Jamie die in a fire in America, she goes back in time to try to save them.  The concept of going back to the past to try to change it is the great temptation of time travel.  But the conundrum is always this- if the time traveler succeeds in changing the past, how can she have learned of the horrible event in the future- such that she would be motivated to go back and change the past to begin with?  The past is fixed, isn’t it?  Perhaps everything the time traveler does is part of what makes the past happen the way it did.  Then again, the history we learn is not always the whole truth.  History is like a giant game of telephone, with information being twisted and lost as it’s relayed from one generation to another, and only tiny bits surviving at all.
These two stories probably influenced the time travel storyline in GOLD more than any others.  I GOLD, Brianna goes back in time to the year 1009, a time before the feud between the Sons of Killian and the Bandia- a time before Danu is killed.  She meets Austin in the past, a boy she has a relationship with in the future (Austin is immortal), and their relationship in the present is shaped by the things that happened in the past.  Brianna wants to take advantage of her ability to travel to the past, by preventing the events that led to the feud in the future, but Austin, who has already experienced those events (and Brianna’s efforts to change them) warns her it’s not possible.  I loved playing with the contradiction between what’s already happened and what’s still to come.  It was fun to see everything come full circle as the past caught up with the present and the future caught up with the past.  And, Brianna, if nothing else, got her closure.
 
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Talia Vance is a practicing litigation attorney living in Northern California with her real life love interest, two-point-five kids, and a needy Saint Bernard named Huckleberry. Talia has been writing since she could talk, making up stories for every doll, stuffed animal and action figure she could get her hands on. She grew up hoping to write the great American novel, but her life ran more along the lines of tortured romance and fast paced thrillers, so that's what she writes.

 
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Be sure to enter the giveaway and check out all the other stops on the tour!!!

The Giveaway is US Only.


Tour Schedule:

Week 1

9/9/2013- My Guilty Obsession- Guest Post

9/10/2013- Fiktshun- Blake Interview

9/11/2013- Magical Urban Fantasy Reads- Guest Post

9/12/2013- Ravenous Reader- Guest Post

9/13/2013- Taters Tall Tails- Austin Interview

 

Week 2

9/16/2013- Book Pics- Brianna Interview

9/17/2013- What the Cat Read- Interview

9/18/2013- Ya Sisterhood- Guest Post

9/19/2013- A Book Obsession- Interview

9/20/2013- Two Chicks on Books- Austin Guest Post- Quarters Scene from Austin’s POV
 
 


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