I know, I know, book 1 in my new series just released. But in this industry, we’re always working years ahead of what you see to guarantee more fun reads in the future. =) And I’m so excited to announce that I’ve just signed a contract for a stand-alone that will come after my Secrets of the Isles series is complete, before a new series begins!
If you’ve read The Codebreakers, you may have been a bit curious about one of the other cryptographers I mention in the series–Remington Culbreth, who gets progressively more serious and somber as the books go on. Well, I planted him there on purpose, mwa ha ha ha, because I already had a story in mind for him. 😉 Let me tell you a little about it.
Way back in 2004, I’d just graduated college. It was summer, and for the first time in four years, I didn’t have a job. My husband was working in Baltimore and commuting from Annapolis, which meant he was out early in the morning and got home just in time for dinner. Our goal had always been that he would work and I’d write and raise the kids, so that summer was kind of our practice run.
One night I woke up with a story idea. Now, I have never in my life gotten out of bed to go write, but I did lie there awake for an hour or two as this story idea crashed over me. I got up when David did, grabbed my laptop, and started writing. It was a contemporary story about a young man from the DC area, whose family was wealthy and important, and a young woman of mixed race born and raised in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, whose grandmother was a cleaning woman and whose mother owned an inn. Louisa had big dreams but gave them up to help her family. She and Rem fell in love one summer, but then life happened and took them apart, and when he reenters the scene years later, nothing’s simple anymore. He wants to give Louisa back some of her dreams when he sees what a bad decision of his had cost her, but she’s afraid the dream itself is too costly now.
Sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean on Ocracoke Island, Outer Banks, North Carolina
In the course of three days, I wrote 150 pages of this book. It consumed me. A few years later, when I’d learned SO much about writing and publishing, I did a complete overhaul of the story, and yet again it consumed me. I rewrote the entire book in two weeks. I showed it to my agent, who loved it. I pitched to a few editors at a conference and it went to committee but didn’t get a contract.
Then I got contracts for historicals, and this contemporary got pushed into my file of finished stories that may or may not ever see the light of day.
But every single year, when my family goes to the Outer Banks on vacation, those characters come back to me. I imagine Louisa standing on the porch beside me. I see Rem jogging toward the waves. I couldn’t let them go.
Springer’s Point Beach on Ocracoke
Well, a couple years ago, my best friend Stephanie said, “Oo, oo! I know what you need to do! Set your OBX story in the 1920s!”
Cue Roseanna gasping in that “Why didn’t I think of that???” way. So over the last couple years, I’ve spent my vacations toying with how best to reset Louisa and Rem into the world of 100 years ago. In the contemporary version, Rem had been an analyst for the CIA…so naturally, in the historical version, he would have been a cryptographer. I mentioned to my editor at Bethany House that I had this idea for a stand-alone at the time when I pitched The Codebreakers, and he wisely said, “Sounds like a great story, but we wouldn’t want it to feel like a tagalong to this series, so let’s put some other books between them.” But I put Rem in Room 40, so he was already in the world. And I kept thinking. And thinking.
Last September as we were strolling the empty beaches, I was thinking how unfair it was that all the really interesting things in the Outer Banks happened not during the First World War, but rather during the Second. And I had this flash of inspiration. A timeslip! Louisa and Rem set during WW1, and then a second line with another character I’d already thought up, in WW2! YES!!!!!!
After I turned in the manuscript for my second Secrets of the Isles book in January of 2021, I sat down and hammered out how this would work. Yet again, the idea COMPLETELY consumed me. And it all came together more perfectly than I’d ever imagined it could. I was so excited. So. Very. Excited. My usual way to pitch a project to Bethany House is to write a synopsis, but instead I found myself planning out each scene and how the two timelines would interact. I ended up with a detailed 20-page outline of the book, plus a manageable synopsis for the team to review, LOL.
I fell in love with the gorgeous, sprawling live oaks in the maritime evergreen forests on the island.
To my utter delight, the pub board at BHP was excited about the idea too! So, 19 years after I came up with the idea, Yesterday’s Tides will be published! The title may change (though I LOVE this title, and it fits it perfectly, so hopefully not), and the story has so many new elements, but I’m more in love than ever. Because not only do we get Louisa and Rem and Ocracoke…we get Room 40. We get themes of how the First World War shook the world in ways that triggered the Second World War a generation later. I get to explore how Yesterday’s Tides really do affect today’s currents. All the things, y’all! ALL THE THINGS.
So last week, my family took a semi-spontaneous trip to Ocracoke for research. There’s a memorial service each year to commemmorate the sinking of a British ship off the coast during the early years of WW2, which will be where my book begins, so we wanted to catch it. And while we were there we did a lot of exploring and research, both general and specific.
I still have book 3 of the Secrets of the Isles to finish writing, which is fun and I’m enjoying it–but then I’ll get to dive into this one! I can’t wait! You can expect it to release around Jan-Feb of 2023.
Are you a fan of timeslip stories with dual timelines?
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.
I love reading dual time books! I’m really excited about “The Impostors”! Can’t wait for the book!
Love, love, love timeslip stories and dual timelines! And since I loved the Codebreakers so much (and all of your other books), I am really looking forward to this new/old book too! Isn’t it wonderful when we can bring something to life that’s been just waiting for the right time? So excited!
I’m on pins and needles!!! OMG! I knew there was more to Rem. His story will be worth the wait.
This book sounds incredible! I can’t wait to find out more about it. 🙂
OH MY GOSH! ALL THE YESSES! I’ve been obsessed with time slip books of late so I am so STOKED for this release!!!
I grew up in North Carolina with yearly trips to the OBX so I am so excited to see a piece of home in one of your stories and to read it there after it’s released!
This book sounds great! I like to read both historical and contemporary novels so the time-slip books are perfect for me.
FINALLY!!!!!! I have been sooooo excited for Rem’s story ever since you first mentioned setting it in the 20s (actually, ever since I first met him in The Number of Love)! I CAN’T WAIT!!! And your first time-slip? EEEE!!!!!!
I love learning all of the “backstory” behind the development of a novel. Authors are incredibly patient to wait so long to share their stories with readers … and to rewrite some novels numerous times! Thank you!
Definitely a fan of timeslip stories, and I’ve thought several times that you would be AWESOME at writing one. So excited!
Ooooo!!!! I’m so excited!!
Oh my goodness! This sounds fantastic! Now how am I supposed to wait until 2023 to read it?!!!
This sounds wonderful. I can’t wait to read it. I love the dual time slips and how the stories are intertwined.
I love time slip with dual time stories. I’ve most read them with a historical and contemporary time periods. Which for a while was the only way to get me to read a contemporary romance was to make it part of a dual time novel. But yours with two historical time periods has me adding it to my TBR.
Oh my gosh! I’m so excited about this. You have no idea! I love, love, love time slip novels. I’m glad you never gave up on this story and that you’re writing it!!!
Oh I’m so excited for his story! We were so sad when Codebreakers 3 was announced and it was not his story! Yay!
I am beyond excited for this!! I love time slip stories and this has two of my favorite time periods. This is going to be amazing!!
Sounds like you put your heart into this story and it’s taken so long for it to be published. I would love to read it.
Have you read this book by Homer Hickham (whom you might know from October Sky)? More background for you: http://homerhickam.com/project/the-keepers-son/
Oh! Yesterday’s Tides sounds sooooooo good!!!! It’s going to be a long wait. That seems so far away to wait for a book. I’m ready to preorder it already! lol I love the sound of the plot and can’t wait!
Oh my goodness! This sounds fantastic! I love time slip novels. I always feel like they give such a full, well rounded, developed story. I’m really looking forward to this!!
I’m a huge fan of the Outer Banks! We have visited Ocracoke several times when visiting family who live on Pamlico Sound. Time slip stories are also great to me because we see the consequences of actions from one time period into another.
I am absolutely a fan of time slip. This sounds just yummy! I can hardly wait to read this book!
This sounds wonderful! Definitely a fan of dual timeline stories. Everything comes together in God’s timing. So glad this story you have kept close to your heart will finally make an appearance.
It’s hard to believe how far ahead you have to work. Working on one book release in the present. Finishing up edits on another and writing a third.
How exciting!! Definitely adding it to my list 🙂
Yes I love these entwined stories, and I loved the Codebreakers so I can’t wait to read this!!
Waiting with bated breath.💝