Book Presentation

Steven grew up in an uncaring family. When he found the perfect wife, Lily, he began to heal, only for her to vanish without a trace in 2002! Losing everything, he barely survives until she returns 12 years later, not aged a single day, only to die in his arms. Can he use her weird machine to walk in her shoes, save her and regain his happiness? With his first science fiction novel, Martin P. Frenette invites you to a time travel thriller where a desperate man must find and save his wife… And there's no time to waste.

Over 250 pages, follow Steven Clark, who first misses his historian wife ever since she disappeared in 2002, as he tries to keep in life in order. Soon, in 2014 he finishes one Lily's projects and sees his wife appear in a strange machine, only for her to die in his arms. Realizing his wife performed her research using a time machine, he investigates how her machine works over the core of the book to locate his wife. If it's hard to find someone in a city, imagine if that person could be at any time in a future you don't yet understand...

"My main inspiration for the story was The Martian, by Andy Weir"

Interview with the author

Sophron: We classified your book as a time travel triller, you had doubts, can you elaborate?

Martin: There is a mystery: there is Lily, Steven's wife, but I feel like the heart of the book is their relationship. At every step, we get to see the importance his wife had for Steven's growth. As he travels in her shoes, using her time machine, he gets to see her and himself in new ways. He learns how his partner was able to help him heal from his uncaring familly.

Sophron: Speaking of which, where did you get the idea of such an uncaring familly?

Martin: The bulk of the novel was written in 2017, when I was doing a web development contract for company offering database services for women's shelter. Despite every piece of data being firmly encrypted, I could see aggregated data and writing the novel was in a way, my method of coping with daily reminders of how uncaring and cruel humans can be

But you added time travel to it

Martin: I was always fascinated by time travel stories, and how most of them utterly fail, such as in Harry Potter when he uses Time Travel to come back to save his life, which is impossible. I tried a few attempts on my own but soon realized that the time travel aspect took over the whole story. If you have time travel, nothing else matters: you can just undo a mistake. To avoid it, you need a sort of articial limit

Sophron: Like when Steven needs to recharge the machine?

Martin: No, but that's a good point. Why is it so long in the story? It is a limit, but you'll find that this limit, isn't to restrict the use of time travel narratively. At no point is Steven wishing he could time travel and needs to use another method to solve his problems. He is stranded at one point, but that's a downfall of the hero moment, it's like the when door of the habitat explodes in the Martian. Oops, sorry for the spoilers.

Sophron: No worries, but then why does he need to recharge for so long?

Martin: So that he needs to find places to do so that are stable, with electricity available for days. It also forces him in real time. It created encounter for him. He goes back to see his familly, his mother in law, his own place while the time machine is charging. I could almost say, that the time machine often serves as transition, and the book occurs while he is charging

Sophron: There are some highly technical parts of the book, like when he talks about the voltage

Martin: Right, sorry. I'll be honest, they are not needed to understand the book. But I can explain why it's there. I studied in electronics and software development, and I feel like every story which mentions electricity, or hacking, or computer get it so wrong in so many ways. I tried to demonstrate that I have an understanding and I am not throwing huge numbers how of nowhere. We have medical stories written by doctors, and we have police procedurals written by retired detectives. I feel like we should have stories with electronics in them, written by people who have an idea of what that even is. Not that I claim, not to have make any errors (laughs). But at least, I understand Omh's law