Book Title: CASSANDRA IN REVERSE
Character Name: Cassandra Penelope Dankworth
A list! Yay! I love lists.
How would you describe your family or your childhood?
Dead, predominantly. Or gone. It’s pretty much just me now. As for my childhood… I don’t like to talk about it. I was an… unusual child. That’s all you need to know.
What is your greatest talent?
Probably my ability to travel backwards through time, just by closing my eyes. It’s quite a new talent, and I’m still trying to work out what to do with it. I can’t travel very far, unfortunately. The universe appears to have limited my abilities so I can’t do too much damage: like putting stabilizer wheels on my bike.
Oh, and I have an epic collection of vintage clothes, including a set of Day of the Week, color-coordinated jumpsuits. Which time travel is, frankly, playing absolute havoc with.
Significant other?
Will Baker, my ex-boyfriend and hopefully my future one too. He dumped me very recently, so I’m using my time travel abilities to go back and work out what went wrong in our relationship, and make sure it doesn’t happen again. It’s nowhere near as simple as I thought it would be.
Biggest challenge in relationships?
Connection. I struggle with it. Sometimes I feel like a broken piece of Lego, unable to connect to any other bits of Lego: one that’s possibly been stepped on at some point in the past. I’m hoping time travel will give me the time I need to work out how to do it better, or maybe fix myself.
Oh, and opening up. I never know how much to share, and I tend to share either way too much or way too little. I’m working on it, though. Repeatedly.
Where do you live?
In a tiny box room in Brixton, South London. I share a flat with a couple - Derek and Sal - and we don’t have the best relationship. I can tell, because they keep asking me to leave and leaving their laptops open with adverts for other flat shares left on the screen.
Do you have any enemies?
Not enemies, exactly, but… adversaries. My boss doesn’t seem to like me much. My highest paying client finds me “unlikeable and grating”, and I’m about to get fired for it (I know this, thanks to time travel). My flatmates aren’t keen, and a number of my colleagues call me names when I’m in the kitchen and they think I can’t hear them. And then there’s… Well. I’ve said enough. You don’t need to know any more at this point.
Honestly, I’m starting to wonder if my biggest enemy isn’t myself.
How do you feel about the place where you are now? Is there something you are particularly attached to, or particularly repelled by, in this place?
I like the fact that my room is clean, and square, and that the sunlight hits the bed first thing in the morning. I like that it is quiet and filled with plants and bright clothes and my collections of Greek Mythological artefacts. I’m not so keen on the fact that my flatmate, Derek, keeps inviting himself in when he’s drunk and starting weird conversations, he insists are totally normal and appropriate, but which make zero sense to me.
Do you have children, pets, both, or neither?
Nope, and I don’t want them. Too loud, too messy, too full of body fluids that end up on everything they touch.
What do you do for a living?
I am the world’s most mediocre Public Relations Account Manager. I’m not very good at ‘relating’ to anyone - especially not to the public - so it was an enormous mistake, in terms of a career choice. I spend most of my time avoiding journalists, crying in the toilets, and making fake phone calls every time my boss walks past. On second thoughts, that might be why he doesn’t like me very much.
Greatest disappointment?
That I’ve ended up totally alone at the age of 31, with no friends, no boyfriend, no family, and a career I hate, living in a flat full of people who keep asking me to leave. I had a plan for my life, laminated and stuck to my wall, and I can say with some certainty that this was not it.
Greatest source of joy?
Greek mythology. It gives me constant joy and allows the world to make sense for me. I also love colors, and carry a paint-chip card around with me at all times.
What do you do to entertain yourself or have fun?
I go to the British Museum every single Saturday. That’s fun, right?
What is your greatest personal failing, in your view?
My inability to maintain a romantic relationship beyond four months. Or any relationship, actually. Four months appears to be my personal cut-off point.
What keeps you awake at night?
Something that happened a very long time ago. Ten years, in fact. I don’t want to talk about it. And I really wish certain people would stop asking me to by letter.
What is the most pressing problem you have at the moment?
Time travel is a lot harder than I thought it would be. I figured that I could just tweak a little, here and there, and my life would end up heading in a much better direction, but time is like a knitted jumper: unpick one thread and the entire thing starts to fall apart. It should come with a manual, or a Step By Step To Time Travel guide. Maybe I should write one.
Is there something that you need or want that you don’t have? For yourself or for someone important to you?
Love.
Why don’t you have it? What is in the way?
I’ve just read through these answers, and I have to be honest: I think the thing getting in the way might be… me.
A Novel
If you had the power to change the past…would you?
Cassandra Penelope Dankworth is a creature of habit. She likes what she likes (museums, jumpsuits, her boyfriend, Will) and strongly dislikes what she doesn't (mess, change, her boss drinking out of her mug). Her life runs in a pleasing, predictable order…until now.
- She's just been dumped.
- She's just been fired.
- Her local café has run out of banana muffins.
Then, something truly unexpected happens: Cassie discovers she can go back and change the past.
Now, Cassie should be able to find a way to fix the life she accidentally obliterated. And with time on her side, how hard can it be?
Science Fiction Alternate History [Mira Books, On Sale: May 9, 2023, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9780778334538 / ]
Holly Smale is the author of Geek Girl, Model Misfit, Picture Perfect and All That Glitters. She was unexpectedly spotted by a top London modelling agency at the age of fifteen and spent the following two years falling over on catwalks, going bright red and breaking things she couldn’t afford to replace. By the time Holly had graduated from Bristol University with a BA in English Literature and an MA in Shakespeare she had given up modelling and set herself on the path to becoming a writer.
Geek Girl was the no. 1 bestselling young adult fiction title in the UK in 2013. It was shortlisted for several major awards including the Roald Dahl Funny Prize and the Branford Boase award, nominated for the Queen of Teen award and won the teen and young adult category of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and the 11-14 category of the Leeds Book Award.
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