JB Yanni
JB is the second child of four raised in Wheaton Illinois. She has two sisters and one brother. Always a voracious reader, she became fascinated with writing in high school, and started several as yet unfinished stories, but began writing in earnest after a long career in the financial services industry. JB has two published works, a series of Science Fiction Young Adult fiction books, the Time Benders series. The First book, Time Benders and the Machine, was published in 2018 and the second, Time Benders and the Two Promises, is set for release February 18, 2020. JB is very excited to reach out and be a part of the amazing writing communities she has been welcomed by over the past year. When she’s not reading or working on the next Time Benders story, she loves to paint, visit libraries and support young and old writers everywhere. JB has three children and one grandchild and currently resides outside of Chicago, Illinois with her husband.
Time Benders and the Machine (Young Adult, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Christian Fiction, Time Travel)
“A breezy, straightforward approach to time travel featuring unforgettable characters.” – Kirkus Reviews
On a sunny day in 1974, the Fitzgerald siblings learn that their parents have died in a tragic accident. Devastated, the children are sent to boarding school at Choate Rosemary Hall.
The four siblings, Ken, Deb, Joe, and Kim find themselves in a new place, dealing with great loss and many spiritual questions. Ken is the eldest Fitzgerald and suddenly burdened with the responsibility of caring for his three younger siblings. Deb, a year younger, prefers books and the library to socializing, drawn to history and archaeology and hoping to find her way in Choate’s structured order. Joe is racked with sorrow over his parent’s deaths and determined to find a way to either get them back or make them proud. Kim, the youngest, is only ten years old and just trying to make new friends and keep close to her sister and brothers.
When Joe finds an elaborate math problem and solves it, with the help of the reclusive caretaker, Mr. Brewster, the Fitzgerald’s discover that they have unlocked the secrets of how to bend time and time travel. Together, they devise a plan to go back in time, change a pivotal moment in US history, and impact their parents’ lives in the hopes of stopping the terrible accident that brought them to boarding school. When their plan fails, Joe embarks on a dangerous plan to do what his siblings won’t; risk it all to save his parents. But does he succeed? Or does he simply fracture the closeness the siblings have achieved in the face of these life changes? Along the way, they face looming spiritual and moral questions, while finding their way toward closeness and a path through their grief.
With shades of C.S. Lewis’s Pevensie siblings and the wonder of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, JB Yanni’s Time Benders and the Machine is a time-traveling adventure full of heart and soul.
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Time Benders and the Two Promises (Young Adult, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Christian Fiction, Time Travel)
Just like Harry, Hermione and the Weasleys in Harry Potter, the Fitzgerald kids continue their adventures in Time Benders and the Two Promises.
In this second book in the series, the full impact of what Joe has done sinks in, angering Deb and Ken, and causing Ken to say no more to the time machine. Later, when Deb learns about Mr. Brewster’s history, she and Joe defy Ken and take the machine to Las Vegas, 1957 to keep Mrs. Brewster from a certain accident.
Bolstered by the success of this trip, Deb decides recklessly to try to undo what Joe had done in his solo trip in the machine, returning to Cambridge to stop Joe. The unknown forces of the universe and energy are working against their efforts to be in the same space and time and she barely makes it back alive!
All of this creates a rift between Deb and her best friend Mary, because of the spiritual questions of whether one should try to change someone’s fate, until she finally understands, when she learns she may face a terrible future and major illness. She convinces the Fitzgerald siblings to use the machine to go forward in time to find out her fate.
Through all of this, the siblings commit to two major promises about the machine, and their parents, and wrestle with their faith, the questions presented by the time travel; the loss of their parents and the fact that their trips continue to wreak havoc on their memories; and their relationships amongst the siblings, with their friends, girlfriends and boyfriend.
This heartwarming story packs a punch of history, faith, and science sprinkled with kindness through these relatable teens.