Winner of Eppie 2007 - Mainstream

A time travel/action adventure/romance.

For adventure reporter, Melanie "Mel" Morton, World War II is part of the past until the day that former B-17 bomber pilot, Jack Hamilton walks out of history and into her kitchen.

What he tells her sends her on her craziest adventure yet—straight into the past to try and save her grandfather’s life.

All she has to do is travel through time, stick to the mission, outmaneuver a couple of armies in the middle of a war, oh, and not fall in love with the hotshot bomber pilot.

No problem…well, maybe a little…

Every author has a book of their heart, the book that comes to mind when someone asks which of their book babies is their favorite. (We try not to play favorites, but stuff happens.) OUT OF TIME is that book for me.

When I first conceived the idea of a time travel romance to World War II, I was so excited. I’m a seat-of-the-pants writer, but even I knew I’d need to do some research before I started writing. At the very least, Mel needed a place to time travel TO in the war. I dug into WWII research and I almost quit then. It was too big, there was just too much to sort through. But I’d made the mistake of mentioning the idea to one of my writing friends. She kept asking (note I didn’t put bugging) me about the book. I’d hedge. There might have been some holding of feet to fire. I’d dabble at the edges of it again.

And then something happened. I can’t even tell you what, but I found the place. I found the time. And the story started to grow and evolve. Even after the AHA moment, it took me several years to finish OUT OF TIME.

Part of it had to do with a commitment to write a different book for a publisher, part of it was Life. And part of it was the made up science part. Because the next challenge was getting Mel back in time. I didn’t want it to be magical. That meant she needed a machine. (I even found some time machine plans for sale online. Never been tested plans, I might add.)

In the end, the pieces of the story slowly came together and evolved into a story that has particular meaning for me, because I mixed in a few family stories and was able to talk to some remarkable men. You might know them as the Greatest Generation. One of them was my dad and another was my late father-in-law (who was a ball turret gunner in a B-17).

My grateful thanks to all of them for helping me with this book of my heart. :-)

For more information about my other books, please visit my website at paulinebjones.com.