There was a very tempting target at Rysa Walker’s prom. Do you know who it was? I do! See inside!

There was a very tempting target at Rysa Walker’s prom. Do you know who it was? I do! See inside!
Rysa Walker
Rysa Walker

What was it like to be a teenage Rysa Walker? Oh … I know. Check it out below and you’ll know, too!

My other car was a ________________
My first car was a very used bottle green Mercury Grand Marquis that my parents retired my junior year. It was a gas-guzzler and went through about a quart of oil a day by the time I got it. Something was also wrong with the timing and the car, which I named Herman for reasons I can’t remember, was constantly revving up at stoplights. One of my friends said it was a bit like riding on the back of a dog that was…ahem… let’s just say, “in the throes of passion.” She dubbed the car “Horny Herman” and it stuck — much to my embarrassment.

If that doesn’t get you interested in this author, check her out at all these other places:

Nerd? Geek? Jock? Snob?
Nerd. Drama geek. Terminal case of smart-ass.

I was the very epitome of *not* jock — generally the last picked for anything athletic, and the first picked for “can I copy your homework?”

If I could do it all again, I would …
If I could do it all again, I would remind myself every single day that high school is not the very best time of a girl’s life, no matter what my mom kept telling me. If you’re really lucky, those four years will not totally suck. I remember thinking that if high school was really going to be the best time of my life, I should just end it all. I’m very glad I listened to that tiny voice that said things would definitely get better.

__________ kisses like a ____________
Paul kisses like a cow.

Okay, first, you need to understand that he was really cute. Not *the* hottest guy in the small town where I grew up, but pretty close. Reasonably bright, as well, and that *so* was not the norm. And I was actually at the movies with him. Major coup for the home team. The movie was kind of lame and Paul did the classic yawn-and-stretch to put his arm around me in the first half-hour. He smelled wonderful and was wearing a soft sweater that felt just right against my cheek. I was virtually floating in a happy, content bubble.

Then he kissed me. I still have no idea how he managed to keep that huge appendage in what appeared to be normal-sized mouth. Suddenly, all I could think about were these calves that I’d been bottle-feeding on the farm, with their huge, slobbery mouths and big, thick tongues. The image stayed in my mind the entire evening, every time he kissed me. And he really, really liked to kiss.

Definitely no second date.

Now, before we get to the last question, let’s look at AUTHOR’s book …

Time's Twisted Arrow
Time’s Twisted Arrow
They weren’t panic attacks. Of that, seventeen year old Kate is certain, no matter what the shrink told her parents. But it’s even harder to accept the explanation offered by her terminally ill grandmother – that Kate has inherited designer DNA from the time-traveling historians of CHRONOS, who were stranded in the past by a saboteur. Kate knows that her grandmother’s story could easily be the brain tumor talking, but that doesn’t explain the odd medallion or the two young men – one of them hauntingly familiar — who simply vanish before her eyes on the subway. It doesn’t explain Trey, the handsome stranger who now occupies Kate’s assigned seat in trig class. And it definitely doesn’t explain why Kate is now in an alternate timeline, where leaders of a previously unknown cult hold great power and are planning a rather drastic form of environmental defense.

In this new reality, Kate’s grandmother was murdered at age twenty-two on a research trip to the past, which means that Kate’s mother was never born, her father doesn’t know her and, for all intents and purposes, she doesn’t exist. The only thing keeping her from disappearing entirely is the strange blue medallion around her neck, and the only thing keeping her sane is her burgeoning relationship with Trey. To restore the time line, Kate must travel back to 1893 and keep herself and her grandmother clear of H.H. Holmes, the serial killer who is stalking young women at the Chicago World’s Fair. But that choice comes at a price – she’ll remember the past few months with Trey, but when he looks at her, he’ll see a total stranger.

Favorite one-line review about the book

Blend H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine with BBC’s Dr. Who, add a side of Jon D. MacDonald’s The Girl, The Gold Watch and Everything, season generously with Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next novels, and you have a taste for Rysa Walker’s first-in-a-series work Time’s Twisted Arrow: Book One of the CHRONOS Files.

Favorite 6 sentences from the book

“I felt a bit awkward when I walked back into the bedroom, even though far more of my body was exposed by the shorts and tank-tops I usually wore than by the yards of white silk and lace in which I was now enveloped.

He raised an appreciative eyebrow and smiled, as he took me by the shoulders and turned me around to begin pulling the laces together. He didn’t cinch it as tightly as Katherine had, but I thought it was tight enough that the dress would fit. When he was done with the laces, he lifted my hair and pushed it over one shoulder, pressing his lips against the nape of my neck and adding several more very gentle kisses down my back until he reached the lace edge of the camisole. His breath was warm against my skin and I locked my knees to keep from melting into a gooey puddle on the floor.

“”Promise me,”” Trey said, very softly, as he turned me around to face him, “”that one day, I will have the pleasure of unlacing this contraption.”””

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But before you go, one last question …

There is no better class than _____________
Driver’s ed.

Reason #1: The teacher was the football coach and most of the guys in the class were on his team. So instead of those awful mangled up videos of car accidents that most people saw in driver’s ed, he showed videos of the last football game or videos he’d gotten of the next team we were facing, etc. The jocks were glued to screen, and the rest of us napped.

Reason #2: A driver’s license at the end. For someone who lived ten miles away from even the teeny tiny town where I went to school, that license was a …

Bonus! Okay … one last one …
What really happened on prom night …
At the post-prom beach house party, my ex-boyfriend and the skanky little witch he took up with decided to go into one of the bedrooms to make out. The stereo was also in that room, and we’d been listening to the same tunes for nearly an hour. No one was willing to interrupt them. My best friend (and new prom date) tried to talk me out of it, but the two margaritas I’d consumed were insisting it was a very good, absolutely wonderful idea. The margaritas were talking louder than the best friend at that point, so I grabbed an ice-pick and used it to jimmy open the locked bedroom door.

I really think the ex believed that ice pick was intended for him when the door opened. (To be honest, he was a very tempting target.) Instead, I walked over to the stereo to change the music — and told them on the way out that they might want to finish their little rendezvous pretty quickly, because I’d be back if the songs started repeating.

Congratulations, Rysa! Good luck with Time’s Twisted Arrow: Book One of the CHRONOS Files!

Have more questions for this author? Ask in the comments!