📚 A Bookish Chat with 'The Rescue' Author Sher J. Stultz | Author Interview | #AuthorInterview #BlogTour #Interview
Sher Stultz lives with her family in the Puyallup river valley. The Timestream Travelers Chronicles is her debut series. Her inspiration for this series came from teaching middle school science and her deep curiosity with genetics and time travel. As a science teacher for seventeen years, she is always delighted to bump into former students and learn about the new adventures in their lives. In her spare time, she kayaks, dances, practices yoga, and goes camping or hiking. In the summertime Sher grows pollinator gardens for bees and hummingbirds, attends outdoor concerts, and reads in her hammock. An ardent conversationalist, Sher enjoys many genres of books and music and will happily converse with anyone on a variety of topics! Her first novel, The Rescue has been warmly received, garnering an indie B.R.A.G. Medallion, a Bookfest gold medal, and was cited as Pacific Book Awards Finalist. Book two in the Timestream series is slated for release in early 2023.
Website: https://www.timestreamtravelerchronicles.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/timestreamtraveler/
Who is your publisher and how did you find them or did you self-publish?
When I decided to self-publish using Amazon, I selected a team of freelancers to complete the editing, formatting, and cover design for The Rescue. I was nervous at first, but a friend who also self-publishes through Amazon explained to me that freelancers are specialists who depend on word-of-mouth, positive reviews and repeat business. He was right! There are many highly skilled folks working as freelancers, and I was able to choose talented, competent individuals.
Do you believe a book cover plays an important role in the selling process?
The cover is the first taste a reader gets of story, and I wanted a powerful likeness of my heroine, Cassie, to be front and center and eye-catching. Working closely with the illustrator, we embedded clues from story on the back cover and highlighted iconic images of the Seattle area on the front. The final product was Cassie emerging from the timestream backed by the Seattle skyline and Mount Rainier and Aeneas and his dog, Sput on the back where savvy readers will find three details from The Rescue.
How hard was it to write a book like this and do you have any tips that you could pass on which would make the journey easier for other writers?
The Rescue is book one in a series that will likely be five books. Time travel is such an exciting genre, but it takes enormous tracking to ensure continuation of plots lines from one book to the next, or one generation of time travelers to the next. Before releasing The Rescue, I decided a draft of the second book would need to be written. If you are an author working on a series, I recommend completing the first two books so after the initial is published, your second book can follow within twelve months. Once readers get hooked into a series, they’re ready for the next installment.
What other books are you working on and when will they be published?
Book two in the Timestream Traveler series is slated for publication around February 2023. It picks up where book one leaves off and introduces several new characters that keep the plot twists coming.
What’s one fact about your book that would surprise people?
I started writing this book for my 6th graders at Illahee Middle School in the fall of 2015. The school is in Federal Way, Washington, a community in south King County known as melting pot of cultures. I developed biracial characters like Aeneas, C.J., and Sheila because many of my students were from families consisting of one or more cultures or races. Biracial people are not always reflected in literature, and I wanted to showcase them in the story for students to see people like themselves.
Finally, what message are you trying to get across with your book?
My heroine, Cassie is a twenty-four-year-old headstrong time traveler who is tasked with rescuing her father. She’s constantly challenged with tough choices, must rely on her gut to make decisions, and isn’t always sure of herself, but has keep to moving, despite any setbacks because she’s the only one who can access the timestream and find her missing father. Being stubborn isn’t considered a positive trait, but persistence is often the hallmark of successful people. So, I say take your headstrong nature and make it work for you. Cassie does!
Title: The Rescue: The Timestream Travelers Chronicles (Book One)
Author: Sher J. Stultz
Publisher: Independent
Pages: 290
Genre: YA Scifi/Adventure/Mystery
Blurb:
It all starts when the sheets go slack, and Aeneas vanishes! He and his two best friends, C.J. and Tabitha are spellbound as they watch the video feed of his disappearance and witness him climbing through his bedroom window an hour later, wearing different socks. Aeneas Entwistle, a slightly above average eighth grader is about to discover that the mystery of waking up with different socks is much more than just a prank.
Adding to that dilemma, Aeneas is struggling with new feelings for Tabitha and loses his cool during her birthday party. Meanwhile, Aeneas’s twenty-something daughter, Cassie has traveled thirty-eight years from the future hoping to find any small detail that might help locate her missing father. Enlisting Harold, the Entwistle’s quirky housekeeper, Cassie works to rescue a middle-aged Aeneas, who vanishes into the timestream when a 7.2 earthquake strikes northwest Washington in May of 2053. But Cassie’s presence in the past might have unforeseen consequences for everyone in her circle. As she struggles to find her father, a carefully guarded family secret is revealed, and Cassie must choose between altering the past or violating the shamanic rules of time travel!
“Author
Sher J. Stultz weaves an intricate plot filled with unexpected twists
and turns that hooks you in from the first page and refuses to let go
until the end. Moving at a blistering pace, the narrative is full of
intrigue, mystery, and a sense of wonder that you find in well-written
adventure tales. The characters are colorful and full of life. Their
distinct quirks and idiosyncrasies only make them more appealing to the
reader. I adored the friendship between Aeneas, Tabitha, and C.J. I also
found myself enjoying the dynamic between Cassie and Harold.
Recommended to young adult sci-fi/fantasy lovers.” – Reviewed By Pikasho Deka for Readers’ Favorite
Book Information
Release Date: January 2022
Publisher: Independent
Soft Cover: ISBN:979-8455440540; 290 pages; $14.99; eBook $3.99
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