UNDOING TIME Timegathering Series By Rachel Dacus
The science and whimsy of time travel (can be) infinite, complex, and lovely, but I love time travel stories because the quest of traversing Time can explore how possibilities and probabilities shape the person we are in the Present, the person we become in the Future. Fate is more fluid than it would like us to believe. Kristian Macaron
In her TIME GATHERING SERIES, Rachel Dacus fully utilizes and enhances what Macaron has described above. In UNDOING TIME, Dacus takes readers on adventures that traverse time, while also creating a present story line that binds the reader to her characters: Olivia Pomeroy, a San Francisco native, who after a romantic breakup, has traveled to Florence, Italy to spend time with her cousin, May Gold.
THE SET-UP
But when Olivia and May reconnect, the cousins realize they both have been gifted with the ability to time travel—though in their varied experience, there is some discussion about what term to use. Surrounded by May’s friends, who also possess the gift, they discuss this issue, finding their goals are worthy, similar.
“Well yeah! I mean, I have this secret talent, and then I find out other people do this thing,”
“What do you call your time hops?” May asked.
“I call it undoing time. Just an hour or a day ahead. To be sure things go well, and then if not, I can change the plan. It’s practical.” (Liv said.)
(As readers, we can certainly see the benefit of being able to look into the future, make some changes that might improve our future possibilities. That’s why this is fiction! But interesting and fun fiction.)
“Undoing time. I like that,” May responds. And then Liv asks, “Why do you timegather? What’s rescuing history?”
“We jump back to make sure events go the way they’re supposed to…”
Thus through this ongoing conversation, the novel sets up character goals, that both the reader and the MC Liv must be asking: “Why does history need your help?”
The answer to this question allows Dacus to imbue her characters with worthy goals that flow throughout the novel: “There are people who want to change history and humanity. But if they succeed, we’ll be in a different world.”
ESCAPE, BUT WITH A MESSAGE…
Reading this novel, one travels to different worlds, Dacus finding and developing a fantastic insight in this fiction she is creating: write novels that provide the reader with well-researched history (in this one we jump from the California Gold Rush to the San Francisco earthquake to meeting the naturalist John Muir–only to name a few) but also include romantic tension and the fear that a time-traveler has when finding herself in a life or death situation.
Dacus knows her history, challenges her characters with experiencing traumas, yet allows them to use their “undoing” powers to change things, save lives. Because the novel presents problems that must be solved, here are a few paragraphs to highlight the writer’s skills, make you want to read more.
They landed on Nob Hill, near where the Flood Mansion still stood. All the mansions surrounding it were in small pieces. Liv looked west, where Pacific Heights would one day sprout new mansions and the Pomeroy home would be located. She saw the city all around them burning, smoke rising from many areas, valley and hills, alight, fires still not out. …”Just imagine how it will look in our time,” Tom said. “New buildings will rise from these ashes. San Francisco will rebuild. It’s what we do. Who we are. And that’s why we’re here.”
MORE ABOUT RACHEL
Thanks for reading…Rachel Dacus is the author of four novels and four poetry collections. Her topics are love, relationships, history and art. Her stories often contain a twist on the supernatural. Other books by Rachel in this series: The Renaissance Club, Time Gatherer and she is currently writing: Jane Austen, Time Traveler, due out this year.
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