Today we're here with Rysa Walker, the winner of the amazon breakout author award for 2013. She is also the author of our featured book of the day Timebound (The Chronos Files)
, which has over 2500 4 and 5 star reviews on Amazon
. Enjoy her interview below. And scroll down further for a chance to win her book and the kindle giveaway.Featured Book (4.99)
When Kate Pierce-Keller’s grandmother gives her a strange blue medallion and speaks of time travel, sixteen-year-old Kate assumes the old woman is delusional. But it all becomes horrifyingly real when a murder in the past destroys the foundation of Kate’s present-day life. Suddenly, that medallion is the only thing protecting Kate from blinking out of existence.
Kate learns that the 1893 killing is part of something much more sinister, and Kate’s genetic ability to time-travel makes her the only one who can stop him. Risking everything, she travels to the Chicago World’s Fair to try to prevent the killing and the chain of events that follows.
Changing the timeline comes with a personal cost, however—if Kate succeeds, the boy she loves will have no memory of her existence. And regardless of her motives, does she have the right to manipulate the fate of the entire world?
Interview
Hello Rysa,
What was your favorite book as a child? Why did it leave such a lasting
impression?
My favorite book was
usually the one that I was holding in my hands at that moment. I was addicted to reading and spent a lot of
time plotting ways to get my hands on more books. If I had to pick a single book, however, it
would probably be The Wizard of Oz. I reread that book many times—I still have
the battered version on my bookshelf.
The story has so many layers that you could return to it again and
again. And I love the way that other
authors have been able to expand and build on that world in recent years. I'm a serial offender where the play "Wicked"
is concerned—I've seen it three times and I'll go again the next time it's in
my area.
What does reading mean to you? Do you read any YA books as an adult?
Why or why not?
I grew up in a rather
isolated setting—our nearest neighbor was three miles away. We didn't have cable and there was just one
TV channel that came in with any degree of clarity. Books were my escape from
boredom and even my friends, in many ways.
That continues today. The best
Christmas gift I ever got was a Kindle.
The idea of being able to access a new book whenever I wanted was something I dreamed about as a kid, so it was
literally a dream come true.
And yes, I most
definitely read YA books as an adult.
Not just because that's what I write, but because I enjoy them. I've read articles by writers who claim that
reading YA as an adult is a sign of a stunted mind and that those who read YA
do so because they can't handle reading "real" literature. I've read pretty much every level and genre
of literature there is, but I return to YA for two reasons. Our teen years are when we first start to
grapple with the big questions in life and that makes the age-group the best
protagonists, at least for my stories.
Second, YA lit is simply
more fun than books aimed at an adult market.
I read fiction for pleasure and for an escape. If I learn something along the way, that's
even better, but I will never be one of those people who reads a book simply
because the literati put it on a must-read list. I figure I proved myself in that regard when
I earned my Ph.D. Now I can read for
enjoyment. ;)
If you could be a hero or heroine from a YA series or stand-alone who
would you be? Why is this character so dynamic to you?
I would be Hermione
Granger. (Except I might follow J.K.
Rowling's advice and marry Harry instead of Ron.) I love Hermione's inquisitive nature, her
intelligence, her love for her friends, and her humanity. She is, in my opinion, the real heart of the
Harry Potter books. Harry and Ron
wouldn't have made it past their second year at Hogwarts without Hermione.
If you could leap into the pages of a book, what book world would you
explore? Why?
You can probably guess
from my previous answer. I'd take up
residence at Hogwarts. The world that
Rowling created is so rich and memorable that rereading those books is always a
new adventure.
What has been your greatest accomplishment as an author?
That's a tough question,
because there are many different kinds of accomplishment. Finishing the last book in my trilogy (which
will debut in October of this year) was probably the most difficult thing I've
tackled, simply because there were so many different timelines to
reconcile. Seeing my books translated
into languages I can't even read is also a major thrill.
In terms of my career,
however, the answer is easy. Winning the
Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award in 2013 jump started my writing career and made
it possible for me to write full time.
It was a tremendous break in an industry that can be very, very
competitive.
Your book Timebound is about time travel. What made you choose that
topic? And what era would you travel to if you could?
I'm a former history professor and I've been a science
fiction fan since I was a kid. Time
travel was a natural for me, since it combines the two. One of my original reasons for writing Timebound was that it could introduce
real history in a way that readers might enjoy.
And that book is a dead giveaway for what era I'd travel to—the same one
that I sent Kate into first. The early
Progressive era has always fascinated me, and I'm a little bit of a geek about
the 1893 World's Fair. You could park
yourself in Chicago for the six month run of the Expo and see pretty much any
historical or literary figure of that era—Mark Twain, L. Frank Baum, Susan B.
Anthony, Frederick Douglas, Scott Joplin, Harry Houdini, and the list goes
on. And you'd get to ride a pretty
awesome Ferris wheel.
Books by Rysa Walker
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