I’m so excited to join the Author’s Lounge!  Let me start by introducing myself, JB Yanni.  That’s my penname.  I’m a dog lover, beach addict and generally the instigator of trouble and fun.  I began writing while still a teen, but it was a different kind of writing, then just for newspapers, yearbooks and short stories to share with friends.  Life inspired me to take this up as a career later, and the struggle to find material for my children motivated me to write the Time Benders series of books.  I love the fantasy books, vampire books and magician books, but what I was always looking for was something that would spark some other interest, drive the purchase of the next book, or maybe even light the fire of a career choice, with real people.  Don’t get me wrong here, there is a book for every person.  That book that you love your whole life through. The one you read and re-read on a regular basis.  I really hope for some teen boy or girl, my books become that.  As you may have guessed, young adults are my target audience, however, I think adults will enjoy this story for its nostalgia. 

The Time Benders series takes four siblings, Ken, Deb, Joe and Kim, who are suddenly orphaned and placed in a boarding school into adventures in time travel.  They find an unfinished formula and when they work with a befriended caretaker, they determine they have unlocked the secrets of time travel.  The three books released to date have these teens traveling to pivotal points in US history to try to first undo the accident that caused their parent’s deaths, and then navigate them through their grief, their life and spiritual questions.  Along the way they face truths about physics, their faith and underlying messages of family loyalty, integrity and trust, while dealing with everyday teen issues.  Each book sees the teens grow, try out new time travel ideas and face all that life in the 1970’s gives them.  They go to Dallas in 1963, Las Vegas in 1957, forward to New York City, and in the latest book, back to pre-Civil War Philadelphia. 

What I hope readers get out of these stories is a sense of family bonds, faith and perhaps a look at their own beliefs about the powers of the universe and how we all fit together.  I also like the idea that I can give my readers a little life, a little history and a little science while telling a story about very relatable characters.  We all know, or were, the athlete, the library geek, the math geek and the friends these characters make along the way.  And of course, we all have moments when we wish we could travel back in time to correct some wrong we learn about or maybe that we feel we committed.  As the characters move through time, they too ask these questions and face those pesky paradox scenarios we’ve read about, like the butterfly affect, and the grandfather paradox.

As the last great scientific mystery, time travel has captured the attention of people across the globe and for many centuries.  Did you know the first reference to time travel was found on a papyrus and oral tradition dating back to 4oo B.C? I find that amazing!  Where would you go? Who would you want to meet?  What would you change?  These are interesting questions that traveling through time allow you to ask.  Just for a minute, sit and wonder.  Would you meet someone famous, like King Arthur?  Would you try to stop Lincoln’s assassination?  Or would you just like to go and meet a grandparent that died before you were born?  The possibilities are endless really.  Unfortunately, they also come with a few complicated questions.  What if you change the course of history?  What if you eliminate some terrible event from history only to find something worse happened in its place?  Perhaps it all comes down to the biggest question, just because you can, does it follow that you should?  Check out Time Benders the Machine, Time Benders and the Two Promises, and Time Benders and the Long Road Home to see how I sorted it all out.  Also, a little hint, there will a fourth in the series out in 2022.  This new book will feature a villain that forces the teens on a chase through time.

You can learn more about the Time Benders books, some hints about book 4, time travel and me, JB Yanni, on my website, www.jbyanni.com, or my blog site, www.covertocover.net.  You can purchase any of the three Time Benders books on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=jb+yanni&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss.