Highlight + Guest Post: Dream of Time by Nancy Price

About the book

Each night, when Robin drifts off to sleep, she finds herself dreaming about the life of a woman in the Victorian age. She soon realizes it’s not a dream at all, but she is truly slipping into San Francisco’s past.

While living two lives — one as a mom in the modern day, the other as a proper young lady at the turn of the century — she discovers *how* she’s being sent back to a bygone era is only the first mystery. A much more important question is *why* she’s there.

With the help of a rookie police officer, Robin takes off on a spellbinding adventure, sifting through a century’s worth of clues to untangle the past — and to put love to the test. History, though, proves itself a worthy opponent, and she comes to experience firsthand how destiny can be kind and cruel in the same stroke.

Nancy J Price started self-publishing music fanzines at age 14, graduating to interviewing major-label rock bands at 16. Not quite a decade later, she earned bylines in Parents and the San Francisco Chronicle, among other publications. 

Together with her best friend, Nancy co-founded SheKnows.com, and helped turn it into a top lifestyle website for women, reaching more than 30 million readers per month. Nancy also helped launch five national newsstand magazines, including ePregnancy and Cooking Smart.

A fourth-generation San Francisco Bay Area native, Nancy now lives in Arizona with her four kids, husband and their menagerie. Because of her youngest son, she works to advance autism awareness and understanding.

In books -- just as in movies, television, and every other form of media -- it’s a universal truth: Sex sells.

But I’m not sold.

When I finally started to write my first novel, I had a thousand different choices to make. Some concepts required days of consideration: characters, setting, plots, pacing. Others were easier, but still took effort. A precious few options were clear from the outset. The name of the character in the past? Named her for my great-grandmother. The lifestyle of my modern-day heroine? Taking a page from my own life story, she’s a mom and works from home.

And that decision went hand-in-hand with one other that was easy to make -- even though I know that it will most likely greatly diminish my book’s success: There are are no sex scenes.

Although there's love and romance -- and the main character would hardly be considered prim and proper -- Dream of Time has no graphic physical descriptions and no "real" swear words. While its themes are realistic and geared toward adults, the book is generally PG-rated.

Some people have asked why I didn't make it "edgier" -- and, in particular, decided not to venture into the (clearly lucrative) Fifty Shades market.

It’s a good question -- but one that's easy to answer, and goes right back to being a mom.

From the beginning, I knew I wanted to write a book my kids could read without being mortified -- and might even be proud enough to share with their friends and teachers, rather than feeling the need to mumble something about not being related to the author.

Same goes for my parents. I can't imagine either of them recommending the literary equivalent of, "Hey, my kid was Playmate of the Month!" (Now, that said, I have no problem at all with authors who have made different choices. But writing hot, graphic love scenes is just not my thing... and believe me, the world is better for it.) To me, it only makes sense that my greatest legacy -- my kids -- are comfortable with my more public legacy -- my books.

Overall, my writing methodology is really simple: Do what feels right.

Each time I had a choice to make in Dream of Time about Robin and her adventures, I went with the flow -- surrendered to the pull of the story, allowing it to take me wherever it needed to go. That means for better or for worse, in joy as well as in sorrow... and definitely for richer or for poorer.

A tale rich with details of the Victorian age, a love that transcends the decades, and a long-ago mystery solved with the help of the modern era -- that’s what my book is about.

So while it’s true that sex may sell, there’s no doubt that a good story fires the imagination... and from there, you can take it anywhere your heart desires.

Book website: http://DreamOfTime.com

Goodreads page: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17883058-dream-of-time

Amazon page:

Book site: http://DreamOfTime.com