Monday, 7 September 2015

Travelers - Meradeth Houston - Guest Post





Travelers Blurb:

Sienna Crenshaw knows the rules: 1) no time traveling beyond your natural lifetime, 2) no screwing with death, and 3) no changing the past. Ever. Sienna doesn’t love being stuck in the present, but she’s not the type to break the rules. That is, she wasn’t the type until her best friend broke every one of those rules to keep Henry, her twin brother and Sienna’s ex-boyfriend, alive.

Suddenly, Sienna is caught in an unfamiliar reality. The upside? Henry is still alive. The downside? Sienna’s old life, including the people in it, has been erased. Now, Sienna and Henry must untangle the giant knot in time, or her parents and all the rest of the Travelers, will be lost forever. One problem: the only way to be successful is for Henry to die.

Release Date: August 4th, 2015



Goodreads Link:  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25815070-travelers?from_search=true&search_version=service_impr



Guest Post - Visiting the Distant Past


Hi! It’s a pleasure to be here today, and thanks a million for hosting me! I thought I’d talk a little bit about some of the more random ways my day job intersects with my writing today, because it definitely came in handy while writing a time-travel book J. My day job is studying dead people’s DNA, which means that I work closely with archaeologists to analyze the remains they unearth from all over the world. I started off in straight archaeology, and have been on quite a few digs both as a student and as a professional archaeologist (then I realized that I’d spend my whole life in a dirt hole if I kept that up and decided I liked showering too much, so I opted for the lab—true story!).

Anyhow, archaeologists are probably the first people who would jump at the chance to travel in time (anyone ever read Timeline?). The study of past human populations tends to attract people who are fascinated by the past, and I’m no exception. And when I ended up with characters who could travel into the past, well it only seemed logical that they end up a little farther back than they gambled for. Which let me have a little fun with what I know, and have been on digs to investigate, about the past populations in Northern Utah. I set Sienna and Henry for a brief sojourn with the Fremont population, which I won’t get into a ton of detail about here, but if you want to know more, ask in the comments!

Having a little knowledge of the past, and what happens to things over time, also helped out with the setting in a few other ways. It definitely helped me research what Boston would have looked like in the 1870’s, and how dilapidated a house could get in three years. Sometimes it is funny little things like that that peek out from my day job and help in my writing. Other times, well, it’s nice to get to make a few things up, which is obviously frowned upon by work J.

Have you ever been on a dig? Ever wanted to? Or does your day job creep into your writing too?


Author Bio:

I’ve never been a big fan of talking about myself, but if you really want to know, here are some random tidbits about me:

  • I'm a California girl. This generally means I talk too fast and use "like" a lot. Since I now live in Montana, sometimes this is a problem.
  • I have my doctorate in molecular anthropology. Translation: I sequence dead people's DNA and spend a whole lot of time in a lab, which I love.
  • I've been writing since I was 11 years old. It's my hobby, my passion, and I'm so happy to get to share my work!
  • My other passion is teaching. There's nothing more fun than getting a classroom of college kids fired up about anthropology! This is probably a good thing, since my day job requires me to teach at the local university.
  • If I could have a super-power, it would totally be flying. Which is a little strange, because I'm terrified of heights.


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