Speakeasy by Elyse Douglas: Kickoff, Guest Post

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3 years ago

Speakeasy: A Time Travel Novel by Elyse Douglas

Publisher: Broadback (April 5, 2022)
Category: Time Travel, Historical Fiction Romance
Tour Dates May 3-June 30
ISBN: Coming Soon
Available in Print and ebook, 375 pages

Description Speakeasy by Elyse Douglas

In 2019, A West Village Nightclub Singer, Roxie Raines, stumbles through a basement doorway into the past and finds herself in Roaring Twenties New York, with all its dangers, secrets, excitement, and romance.

Roxie Raines lurches through a secret basement doorway in 2019, and time-slips back to New York’s raucous Roaring Twenties. While she dazzles the speakeasy crowds with her “modern sound,” she gets trapped in the dangerous web of Frankie Shay, an evil club owner. She struggles to escape his control and return to the basement doorway that sent her to 1925.

When she meets the handsome detective, Jake Kane, it’s love at first sight, but Jake has a secret past, and her own time travel secret makes him suspicious.

Roaring Twenties New York comes alive with flappers, gangsters, romance and speakeasies and Roxie’s stunning rise to stardom could come with the price of losing both the man she loves and her own life.

Praise Time With Norma Jeane: Time Travel Novel by Elyse Douglas

“A delightful and enthralling read! Elyse Douglas captured magic and put it on the page.”—Ambling Bookworm Reviews

“This is just an astonishing read that will have you hooked on page one and won’t let go till the last. I read it all in one sitting and could not put it down.”• —Donadee’s Corner Reviews

Praise Christmas Eve Series by Elyse Douglas

“The Christmas Eve Letter is a beautiful, poignant story. It is well written and will have you turning the pages eagerly.
All of the characters are well thought out, and believably written, together with the well-constructed scenery, that has you feeling as if you yourself have just stepped into the past.
The story is unique and moving. It will hold you long after you turn the last page. A perfect Christmas tale of love and hope.”-Whispering Stories

“This book is the perfect vehicle for a movie, and I can only hope that there will be more in the series. This novel is truly as close to perfection as the reader could imagine! 5 Stars!”–My Devotional Thoughts Blog and Reviews

“I enjoyed the new characters, an update on characters from the first book, and the possibility for more books. If you enjoy time travel-themed novels you will love these books!”–StoreyBook Reviews

“I am most impressed that this book did so well as a stand-alone novel. Kudos to the author! If you are looking for a good Christmas book with time travel, give this a go!”–Carole’s Bookshelves

“I love this whole story, and I especially love Patrick and Eve’s romance and all of the adventures that they go on together. Eve is exactly my kind of character. I still can’t stop thinking about the feeling that it gave me and the arc that the characters went on. Everyone really developed a lot in this story and it was so rewarding as a long-time reader to watch that happen. It feels like every new book in this series just keeps getting better and better and I love these characters more and more. Every time a new one comes out I feel like a kid on Christmas morning.
The Christmas Eve Secret is my favorite in the series so far, but if you have not read the first two books I would recommend doing that as soon as possible! If you enjoy romance, time travel, mystery and great writing, I promise that you won’t regret dipping a toe into this series.”–Cuzinlogic

Guest Post by Elyse Douglas

How To Write Time Travel In An “Almost” Believable Way.

“Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.”—John Lennon

Once upon a time, there was a story. Once upon a time, there was a world with a rule set, called physics. Some of the rules of physics include gravity, matter, and motion. Humans experience these as reality. What is reality? A common colloquial usage would have reality mean “perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes toward reality, “as in “My reality is not your reality.”

Albert Einstein famously said: “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

In H.G. Wells’ 1895 novel, The Time Machine, a radical scientist, weary from his travels to the future and back, warns his colleagues that his story will be difficult to believe. “I don’t mind telling you the story,” he says to his friends, “but I can’t argue… Most of it will sound like lying. So be it!”

When H.G. Wells writes, “Most of it will sound like lying. So be it!” he dares the reader to believe that the time travel story he’s just told them is “real,” based on fact—for surely, such a respected, sane, and educated scientist wouldn’t lie to them.

There are two basic approaches to time travel stories. One is science-driven or Science Fiction. Its time travel device is based on science. The protagonist time travels to the past or the future by means of a time machine or spaceship, or perhaps by using a time portal.

The second approach to time travel is more romantically driven. It uses an object such as a magic ring, or a mysterious doorway, or a lantern, or some historical location, such as Scotland, to allow the protagonist to step back into time.

In our latest time travel novel, SPEAKEASY, the protagonist, Roxie Raines, stumbles through a nightclub basement doorway and time travels back to the Roaring Twenties in New York City.

For any time travel story to be believable, the story must be anchored in “reality”, that is, the reality that we all agree on as reality. It’s our everyday reality, where time is linear, where Starbucks is on nearly every other corner, and where Netflix has millions of subscribers. For the most part, it’s a reality that does NOT believe that time travel is possible.

But… what if it were possible? What if one could go back and change the past and make it better? What if one could stop a tragedy from happening? What if one could go back in time and meet a famous historical or romantic character and even fall in love with that character?

A new reality is born. Imagination! But that imaginative world must seem real and solid. The characters must also be “real,” with fleshed-out wants and needs, families, relationships, and regrets. The characters must breathe on the page and the characters must live on that page.

When the writer throws the time travel switch and launches the protagonist out of the “jack-in-the-box” real world into a time travel adventure, we must feel their thudding, frightened hearts. We must feel the shock of cold water-in-the-face, when the protagonist discovers that they have time traveled to the past or to the future.

Finally, if the earth of both worlds—the “real” world and the time travel world—is solid under the readers’ feet, and if the characters are alive on the page, then the time travel story will be a fact. It will be real—or as real as any reality can be “real.”

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”—Albert Einstein

Elyse Douglas 2022

About Elyse Douglas

Elyse Douglas is the pen name for the married writing team Elyse Parmentier and Douglas Pennington.

She and her husband, Douglas Pennington, have completed many novels, including The Other Side of Summer, The Summer Letters, The Christmas Eve Series, Time Visitor, Time Change, The Summer Diary, and The Christmas Diary Series.

Website: www.elysedouglas.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/douglaselyse
Facebook: www.facebook.com/elyse.authorsdouglas

Buy Speakeasy by Elyse Douglas

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Giveaway Speakeasy by Elyse Douglas

This giveaway is for 3 copies with the winners choice of print or ebook. Print is open to Canada and the U.S. only and ebook is open worldwide. This giveaway ends on July 1, 2022 midnight, pacific time. Entries accepted via Rafflecopter only.

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