Guest post written by Dete Meserve, author of The Memory Collectors
Dete Meserve is a best-selling author of five novels and an award-winning creator and producer of films and television series. She wrote the screenplay adaptation of her debut novel, Good Sam, and produced it as a feature film for Netflix.
The Memory Collectors is one of Goodreads and Screen Rant’s Most Anticipated Books of 2025. “Those who love time travel stories will enjoy the way Meserve’s novel dives deeply into the human factors behind grief, guilt, loss, and starting over.”—Library Journal
Meserve is the Executive Producer/Showrunner of the upcoming series Weather Hunters, in collaboration with NBC News Today Show’s Al Roker. The series is coming to PBS Kids July 7, 2025. She is also the Executive Producer of an animated series (to be announced) based on a bestselling book for Apple TV+ premiering in June 2025.
When she’s not writing or producing, you can often find Dete exploring nature or browsing the shelves of her local bookstores and libraries. A Chicago native, Meserve has lived most of her life in Los Angeles, where she and her husband have raised three children—and two very pampered cats.
About The Memory Collectors (out May 20th 2025): Four strangers time travel to the past and find themselves stuck on the day all their lives were changed in this stunning speculative mystery from award-winning film and television producer Dete Meserve, perfect for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold, Wrong Place Wrong Time and The Paradox Hotel.
It’s the question that has captivated humanity forever. Is time travel possible?
The allure of time travel speaks to our deepest regrets and desires—the chance to whisper “I love you” one more time to someone now gone, to undo our mistakes, or to relive our most precious memories that fade with each passing year.
Time travel also represents our profound longing to escape the constraints of now—to revisit cherished memories in their full, vivid intensity. It embodies our resistance against time’s relentless forward march. This dream of time travel has captivated the human imagination forever.
At Aeon Expeditions, this dream is now reality. The groundbreaking technology created by founder Mark Saunders in collaboration with Nobel laureates worldwide, allows you to travel within your own timeline. For one hour.
Aeon Expeditions is authentic time travel—not a simulation or virtual reality experience. Your present consciousness is transported back to inhabit your body for an hour in your past. You’ll relive every physical sensation, emotion, and detail, while retaining your current awareness and memories.
Learn more at the Aeon Expeditions website: www.aeonexpeditions.com
Won’t I Change the Future?
The time travel technology at Aeon Expeditions is based on current quantum theory about closed time loops: whatever you do in that hour, you can’t alter the future. You might change what you say or do, but when you return to the present, nothing has changed.
According to Dr. Fabio Costa of the University of Queensland’s research on “closed time-like curves,” travel to the past has no effect on the future.
Working with student Germain Tobar, Costa demonstrated that events would automatically “adjust themselves to avoid any inconsistency” when confronted with potential paradoxes.
Their mathematical model shows that despite the presence of closed timelike curves—paths where someone could return to the same spacetime point—time travelers can maintain freedom of choice without creating paradoxes. Essentially, the universe naturally prevents contradictions from occurring.
Another theory, the Novikov Self-Consistency Principle, also supports the idea of time travel without paradoxes. Proposed by Russian physicist Igor Novikov in the 1980s, it says that if something could “cause a paradox or any ‘change’ to the past, then the probability of that event is zero.”
The bottom line? While you will fully experience your hour—including making new choices or decisions—these actions do not alter the timeline. When you return to the present, everything remains exactly as it was before you left.
Is this real?
Not too long ago, space tourism, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, video calling, self-driving cars, and 3D printing were merely ideas in science fiction novels and films. Today, these technologies have transitioned from imagination to innovation, reshaping how we live, work, and view the future of human potential.
So, is it all that far-fetched to believe that time travel will someday be a reality?
Unfortunately, while Dr. Costa’s and Novikov’s theories are real, time travel is not here. Yet. But in my novel, The Memory Collectors, we imagine that time travel is possible and Aeon Expeditions really exists.
Now, let’s say you could really do this. Travel to an hour in your past. Why would you go? And what should you expect?
Experience Your Past, Transform Your Future
“With Aeon Expeditions, you don’t change time—time changes you,” explains founder Mark Saunders. You cannot alter the past during your hour-long Jump, but experiencing it with all the benefit of your experience and hindsight changes how you understand your own story.
Your Aeon Expeditions Jump allows you to Reconnect. Relive. Rediscover.
Reconnect with those who shaped your life. Experience their presence not through memories alone, but through a complete journey back to moments you shared together. Every gesture, every word, every touch becomes real again.
“The random things in life that I once took for granted take on new meaning. The first time I’d lived this life, I’d rushed through it, ignoring the details around me. Now I see the extraordinary in all of it.” —Elizabeth S. (one of the Memory Collectors)
Relive a pivotal moment with the clarity of present awareness. Step back into your own experience, feeling every emotion and sensation exactly as it happened, while maintaining your current memories and understanding.
“The first time around, we don’t always know what to do with a moment. We’re distracted or we waste it, not seeing its full value. Thinking there’ll be more. The second time around, we’ve gained perspective, we understand the significance of a moment, a gesture, or a word said. We know what’s at stake. What’s ahead that we may lose. We notice things we didn’t see before.” —Andy S. (one of the Memory Collectors)
Rediscover yourself through the lens of time. This isn’t about changing the past—it’s about understanding how it shaped you—and transforming how you move forward.
“For me, I could see that I spent too much time thinking that all I am is what other people see. I’d limited myself to only what’s on the surface.” —Logan S. (one of the Memory Collectors)
What will you discover when you look back with fresh eyes?
That’s the question The Memory Collectors asks. So while the underpinning of the story is the speculative idea that time travel exists, the story is really about the experiences of four “Memory Collectors” who experience an Aeon Expeditions Jump. Meet the four:
Logan Sandoval craves the rush of surfing and mountain climbing, yearning to reclaim the freedom he lost after an accident landed him in a wheelchair.
Elizabeth Saunders aches for one more precious hour with her son who died in a senseless accident.
Andy Schapiro is desperate to find his first love who vanished after a whirlwind romance.
Brooke Dalton yearns for an hour of relief from the guilt of an unforgivable mistake.
Then something goes terribly wrong.
The sixty minutes stretches inexplicably into hours. Then days. Stranded in their pasts, they begin running into each other, uncovering shocking connections between their lives.
Soon they discover that their lives were irrevocably shaped by what happened one summer night on a desolate highway. Now they all must relive the worst day of their lives, only to discover that someone else is there, with a plan darker than they ever knew. Can they rewrite their fate?
The truths unearthed during their Aeon Expeditions Jump shatter everything they thought they knew. Together, they unravel buried secrets, face unimaginable danger, and confront not only the past, but the choices that will define their futures.
The most important part of their journey happens after they return.
How would you spend an hour in your past?
If you could travel back in time for just one hour, where would you go? You might first leap to milestone moments—graduations, weddings, births—but consider also the quieter moments that truly shaped who you are. Perhaps it’s that ordinary afternoon with a grandparent who’s no longer here, when they shared wisdom you weren’t ready to fully appreciate. Or maybe it’s a seemingly ordinary conversation that altered the trajectory of your life. What about that moment with someone you loved deeply, where something went unsaid that you’ve carried with you ever since? Would you revisit a crossroads decision, not to change it, but to better understand the person you were then and the intuition that guided you?
The most transformative hour might not be the most obvious one—it might be a moment that seemed insignificant at the time but has echoed through your life in ways you’re only now beginning to recognize.
What will you discover with fresh eyes?
Your moment in time awaits. www.aeonexpeditions.com
