Blind Speed Dating #32 (YA)

Title: THE MEMORYWALKER

Genre: YA Mystery/Light Sci-fi

Word Count: 65,000

Query:


With the boyfriend of her dreams and a rich best friend to host the perfect party, Alexis Ortega can't wait for her senior prom. It might even be magical, if her boyfriend says the "L" word. That is, until her plans are wrecked by a voice in her head claiming to be herself from two years in the future.

Using a device Alex's father created to time-travel via memories, the voice wants Alex to prevent something horrible from happening. To protect them both, she won't say what exactly. But when strong emotions leak from her future self to Alex, followed by visions, several pieces of her future are revealed.

Alex now wishes she didn't know that her future holds a broken heart and an estranged BFF. Worse still is what will happen to her father if she doesn't help her future self. They have a chance to save his life, but if they fail, he isn't the only one who will die.

Sure, books have explored time-travel through numerous mediums, like genetic disorders in TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE, quantum technology in TIMELINE, and parrallel worlds in THROUGH TO YOU. I take a fresh approach with the idea of time-travel using one's own memories. How would it feel to be a puppet with your past self pulling all the strings? Find out in THE MEMORYWALKER.

First 250:

I’ll remember you.

I couldn’t turn my head in any direction without seeing those three words. They were taped to the outside of my locker as I elbowed it shut and littered the ground as I stepped over them. They even hung on a shiny vinyl banner across the hall.

The letters were bold white against a midnight blue sky, sprinkled with sugary stars. The silhouette of an embracing couple completed the promise that every senior would remember this year’s prom for the rest of his or her life.

At least that’s what I assumed. Maybe I was reading too much into those three words, but I had my reasons for being the teensiest bit excited about this prom, for wanting it to be the most perfect day of my life.

I skirted past a fellow senior who had crumpled up some of the prom fliers from the ground and was chucking them down the hall like snowballs. Before I reached the end of the hall, I felt the unmistakable smack of a snowball hitting the back of my head. Nice.

I bent over and picked up the crumpled paper. Scrunching it tighter in my hands, I turned to glare at Spence Tilby. Rumor had it he wasn’t going to graduate with our class, and his normally immature behavior had lately migrated to just plain ridiculous. Last week he somehow turned on the sprinklers in the middle of lunch, ruining my PB & J, along with my favorite pair of ballet flats.