Twin Time by Olga and Christopher Werby

 

Twin Time is a time travel historical fiction urban fantasy by Olga and Christopher Werby. Today you'll have the chance to take a sneak peek into the book, plus some background information from the author. Be sure to let her know what you think! And then follow the tour for more. Best of luck in the giveaway!

Alex and Sasha are twin sisters, physically identical down to their freckles. But the resemblance is only skin deep—Sasha is profoundly autistic, while Alex is not. Sasha can’t communicate and acts bizarrely, and the family revolves around her and her intense needs. Yet the aged, wealthy, and mysterious Aunt Nana seems to have a particular interest in both girls. Offering a helping hand, she encourages the family to move to San Francisco to be near her. And when the young twins discover a tunnel in Nana’s tool shed, it leads them on a journey across the world and back 100 years in time. The tunnel is a pathway to the Firebird Estate, the home of their ancestors, located in rural Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century. Even more remarkable, through the effect that twisting time has on cognition, Sasha is not autistic when she’s at the Firebird Estate. Now, growing up in two strikingly different times and places, the twins must face their separate destinies among the ravages of the incipient Russian Revolution. Can they save their families on both sides of the tunnel? Can they simultaneously stay true to their own hearts, to each other, and to the people they left behind? Each sister must face her own personal challenge—but only together can they discover their own future within their family’s past.

Read an excerpt:

Boris Blackburg was observing Alex carefully, judging her emotional state and her ability to comprehend what he was telling her. She seemed very confused. He wasn’t surprised. This was the strangest assignment he had ever accepted. At first, he thought it was some silly notion of a well-to-do old woman. But as the years passed, he got to know Nadezhda well, and he liked the old woman, eccentricities and all. And as he got to know the Orlov family as well–vicariously, of course—the assignment grew more and more strange and intriguing.

Boris was also well compensated for his work. He was going to ensure Nadezhda’s wishes were followed. Alex Orlov would inherit her great-aunt’s estate and all the accompanying strangeness that came with it. He would make certain of it.

“Where did you get these?” Alex asked.

“Nadezhda, your Aunt Nana, gave these to me about eighteen years ago, shortly after you and Sasha were born.”

“I… I…” Alex seemed to want to say something, but couldn’t get it out. Boris was prepared to give her time, as long as her parents didn’t interfere with his mission by arriving too soon. At least the girl was now of age and the complications of guardianship had gone away–but he needed to complete his assignment before her parents arrived and complicated matters.

“Who’s the woman in this photo?” Alex pointed to a small black and white print of a man and a woman walking on the street. The image was very small, and it was difficult to identify the people, both of whom were wearing hats.

“Who do you think it is?” Boris asked. He knew, of course–Nadezhda had identified most of the photos for him, and there was information written on the back of most.

“I don’t know. But… it looks like… me?” Alex’s voice was small, barely audible.

Boris nodded.

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Read the first few chapters here.

Crafting your fictional world

Strange thing happens when you start writing a work of fiction. You begin to dream and see the world where your characters live. You get cravings for the food your characters enjoy. You listen to certain songs over and over and over again because somehow they give you just the right feel for that fictional place. The more you get immersed into your story, the more vivid that world becomes. It’s very similar to reading really. When I read a book that pulls me in body and soul into its narrative, I see the story play out before my eyes as I read it. I think this is why it is so often disappointing when we watch a movie based on a book we really love. We had formed all those images and sounds and even smells of the story and then the movie just doesn’t match out imagination and it’s a let down. Writing a story is similar…just takes a lot longer!

For most of my stories (all of my novels), I’ve created Pinterest mood pages that help reinforce the visual sense of those stories in my mind’s eye. I always encourage my readers to take a look. Because even if they imagine the world I create differently, they might get a kick out seeing what I was thinking about when I wrote my stories. Here’s a link to “Twin Time” visual mood board: https://www.pinterest.com/OlgaWerby/scifi-book-twin-time/

For this story, I’ve also created a little book trailer, using the illustrations from the book (yes, “Twin Time” is a fully illustrated novel because why not?): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHCxRU64hyU

Olga Werby, Ed.D., has a Doctorate from U.C. Berkeley with a focus on designing online learning experiences. She has a Master's degree from U.C. Berkeley in Education of Math, Science, and Technology. She has been creating computer-based projects since 1981 with organizations such as NASA (where she worked on the Pioneer Venus project), Addison-Wesley, and the Princeton Review. Olga has a B.A. degree in Mathematics and Astrophysics from Columbia University. She became an accidental science fiction indie writer about a decade ago, with her first book, "Suddenly Paris," which was based on then fairly novel idea of virtual universes. Her next story, "The FATOFF Conspiracy," was a horror story about fat, government bureaucracy, and body image. She writes about characters that rarely get represented in science fiction stories -- homeless kids, refugees, handicapped, autistic individuals -- the social underdogs of our world. Her stories are based in real science, which is admittedly stretched to the very limit of possible. She has published almost a dozen fiction books to date and has won many awards for her writings. Her short fiction has been featured in several issues of "Alien Dimensions Magazine," "600 second saga," "Graveyard Girls," "Kyanite Press' Fables and Fairy Tales," "The Carmen Online Theater Group's Chronicles of Terror," with many more stories freely available on her blog, Interfaces.com.


Links:

http://www.interfaces.com/blog/

amazon.com/author/olgawerby

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4056895.Olga_Werby

https://www.facebook.com/OlgaWerby/

https://twitter.com/OlgaWerby

http://Pipsqueak.com

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDE3BNceupMYgvoaoAps2mg

https://www.linkedin.com/in/olgawerby/

Olga Werby & Christopher Werby will be awarding two signed books to a randomly drawn winner (US only) via rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway