Ah. Do-overs. Let’s all take a minute and think of something that, if we could go back in time, we would do over.
-Red Sox 1st baseman Bill Buckner wouldn’t have let a ground ball dribble between his legs to lose the 1986 World Series
-The Sox wouldn’t have sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees (bringing on the curse that would lead to Mr. Buckner’s tragic error in the previous lines)
-Europe and the U.S. wouldn’t have meddled in the petty arguments that led to WWI
-Parents wouldn’t have invested their children’s college funds in Beanie Babies

You’ve thought of something by now, right? So did Danele Rotharmel in ‘Time Tsunami.’ But instead of time travel to avoid a bad blind date, Gil Montgomery’s assignment is to stop the events that would lead to the creation of a serial killer. Instead of a wardrobe to Narnia or a DeLorean to 1955, Gil travels through a television portal to 24 years in the past. She accomplishes her task with such ease, you just know the other shoe is going to drop. Right on Gil’s head. It does, and things start to get really exciting from there.

Ms. Rotharmel creates a complex world with a charming heroine, honorable heroes and a really, really nasty villain. She writes with humor and warmth. There is a love story but the romance doesn’t fully develop till the end, and by ‘fully develop’ I mean we have semi-passionate kisses. No procreation scenes are described or even hinted at. Bless you Danele.

There is blood, though! While not intensely graphic, the author doesn’t spare us from seeing how evil deeds play out. It is a sobering reminder that one act can unleash the hordes of wickedness, but love and selflessness can cover (and prevent) a multitude of sins.

‘Time Tsunami’ by Danele Rotharmel is a meaty, intense and intricately-plotted story with memorable characters and twists nobody (I guarantee) will see coming.

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I had to ask Danele how she created the world of time travel. PhD. in physics, maybe? She graciously shared the fascinating process.

“Basically, “Time Tsunami” is the product of years of daydreaming. I have a clear picture of the TEMCO lab in my mind, and I had fun creating the rules and procedures that govern time travel. I tried to make TEMCO as realistic as possible–that meant giving
the program a history and also a future. I enjoyed showing my reader that
new inventions were being made and new policies were being implemented. The
TEMCO of today isn’t the TEMCO that existed five years ago, and it won’t be
the TEMCO that’s going to exist forty-five years into the future. One of the
things that always fascinated me about JR Tolkien was the fact that he KNEW
his world so well. He had backstories for everything. That’s what I tried to
do when I created my world. I know how the games were designed, the funny
story behind the archives, and why certain rules and regulations were
created. I basically LIVED within my world while I was in quarantine, and it
became my own.

As far as the nuts and bolts–I don’t have a background in physics, but I do
have a big imagination. I managed to get around some of the tricky
time-travel details by having Gil neglect to read the manuals. Her ignorance
covered some of my own. When I was writing my book, Crystal was my biggest
challenge. She was so intelligent that I had to make her words seem
believable–and that meant research. Wikipedia became my best friend. I’d
research little bits and pieces–enough to make the mechanics of time travel
seem plausible. I had such a blast polishing up the details.

One of the fun things about my books is that I wrote all six of them while I
was in quarantine. Because I wrote all six before getting any of them
published, I was able to connect them with little details. For instance, in
book 3, a time portal is opened leading back to events in book 2. Since none
of my books had been published, I was able to go back into book 2 and write
about a mysterious flash of light–a flash that suddenly takes on big
significance when you read book 3. During quarantine, I was constantly
writing and rewriting parts of my books to make the Time Counselor
Chronicles flow effortlessly from one book to the other. I hope that the fun
little details I’ve added will make my books enjoyable to read and reread.

I had so much fun living in my created world. I’m so glad that the world of
TEMCO became real to you as well!

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Please come back tomorrow to learn more about Danele. Her real-life story reads almost like a nail-biter suspense book.