KATE MASCARENHAS

Meet the psychologist behind thrilling new novel The Psychology of Time Travel

Who are your protagonists?

Barbara’s a scientist who helped invent time travel in 1967, but lost her job when she had a breakdown. her granddaughter ruby is a psychologist who tries, years later, to piece together what happened. and Odette’s an aspiring detective, investigating the murder of an unknown woman – possibly Barbara – in 2018. How does time travel work here?

the story assumes there’s only one timeline rather than many worlds. attempts to change the past are unsuccessful. Most of my rules draw from Igor Dmitriyevich Novikov’s work on closed timeline curves. Did your experience as a psychologist help?

I was keen to explore the psychological adjustments time travellers would make. For instance, how would they experience bereavement when they could visit the dead when they liked? How long did it take to write?

two years. My early drafts resembled a collection of case studies rather than a novel. Over time the murder mystery developed as the central story. What are you working on next?

a novel set in Oxford, about the theft of a priceless doll with magical qualities. I used to live in Oxford and I’m a dolls’ house collector, so I feel very much in my element!