Guest post The Seven Year Slip author Ashley Poston
Ashley Poston is the New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of The Dead Romantics. After graduating from the University of South Carolina with a bachelor’s in English, she spent the last decade working in the publishing industry before deciding to pursue writing full-time. When not writing, she likes trying various arts and crafts (she’s currently addicted to building miniature rooms) and taking long walks as an excuse to listen to Dungeons & Dragons podcasts. She bides her time between South Carolina and New York, and all the bookstores between. The Seven Year Slip is out now.
It’s no surprise that an author who wrote a time-travel love story loves time travel love stories—but I don’t just love them, per se. I devour them. If there’s a chance that there’s a little wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey going on? I’m going to be there with a cup of coffee, a blanket, and at an afternoon free.
The Seven Year Slip is my exploration of the question: is love a matter of time, or a matter of timing? It’s also about how love evolves over the course of years, and how relationships aren’t meant to be stagnant. They are meant to grow and change like we do.
So, in honor of The Seven Year Slip, here are a few of my favorite time-travel stories in books, film, tv shows—and music.
- The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (film) – When high school student Makoto Konno realizes that she can literally turn back time, she uses it to fix her life—to varying degrees of success.
- Your Name (film) – If you haven’t been spoiled for this one yet, I’m not going to tell you anything, either. Go into it not knowing anything. I promise, it’ll be worth it.
- Howl’s Moving Castle (film) – Is there a time-travel element in the book? Absolutely not, but Miyazaki puts his delightful twist on this Diana Wynne Jones novel, creating one of the best circular narratives in recent memory.
- New Adult by Timothy Janovsky – What do you do when you, a twenty-something, wake up seven years in the future at the top of your career… and the very bottom of your love life? You use your comedy to cope and you try to fix it, that’s what.
- One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston – Girl meets girl. Girl falls in love with girl. Girl just happens to be trapped in a time-loop in a New York City subway car.
- A Well-Timed Enchantment by Vivian Vande Velde – A middle grade novel, and one of my first introductions to time travel, this book has a very special place in my heart. When Deanna accidentally drops her Mickey Mouse watch into a well, she’s sent back in time to the 13th century with her cat-turned-human to get it back before it seriously borks up the future.
- Opposite of Always by Justin A. Reynolds – When Jack meets Kate, he falls for her—hard. And then she dies, and he’s sent back to the moment they first met. What will Jack do to save the person he loves? And what is he willing to give up?
- This Is How You Lose a Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone – Look, Bigolas Dickolas said it better than I ever could. Just read it.
- Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi – A mysterious café tucked into a side street in Tokyo. A chance to go back in time to meet someone you once knew. But there are rules—and those rules are never meant to be broken.
- My Only Love Song (tv series) – When Soo-jung, a famous (and famously difficult) actress gets flung back into the 6th century through a magical time-traveling van, she must find a way to return home… if she can return home.
- Kamisama Kiss by Julietta Suzuki – When Nanami, suddenly homeless, is given a place to stay, she doesn’t expect it to be a dilapidated shrine—and she didn’t expect to suddenly be the land god of said shrine. And she certainly didn’t expect to be tied to a cunning fox demon. This is a love story hundreds of years in the making, and if you aren’t crying by the last chapter, I don’t know you.
- Doctor Who – The greatest love story of our time is Rose Tyler and the 10th I don’t make the rules, I just enforce them.
- Timelines by Motion City Soundtrack – The 4th song on their 5th album Go, this song is equal parts nostalgic and bittersweet, posing the question: do you ever wonder how you got to here? The melody is constantly driving forward, bright and anxious, and somehow melancholy. It’s one of my favorite songs in the entire world.
Happy time-traveling!
