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I sat down with author, Ashley Poston, to discuss her newest novel, The Seven Year Slip.
What is The Seven Year Slip and what inspired you to write it?
When an overworked book publicist inherits her late aunt’s Upper East Side apartment, she finds herself falling for her unexpected roommate—a man who lives, quite literally, seven years in the past.
I’ve always wanted to try my hand at a time-travel story—as a fan of Doctor Who, I fell in love at an early age with the magical whimsy of a love story stretched across time. I also knew I wanted to write a story about the different forms love takes, and how it grows and changes just as much as you do, and what better vehicle than a story where time is a little bendy?
Clementine is faced with the loss of her aunt, which was sudden, and the grief of this loss is carried throughout the book. How do our relationships and surroundings help us process and live with grief?
Grief is a really tricky emotion to write—and to understand in oneself, too. There is a lovely saying that “Time heals all wounds,” but I don’t really think that’s true at all. The wound will always be there as long as the love you have for the person you lost is there. The wound just changes a little, the way you change over the years, and you find ways to live with the loss, and carry it with you, and you find people—romantic partners and friends alike—who will help you carry it, too.
The apartment that Clementine inherited had a magical quality to it where it takes the occupant either forward or backward in time by 7 years. However, the apartment’s occupant never knows when this time traveling will occur, and they can’t choose if they move forward or backward in time. If you could choose, would you rather go back or ahead seven years in your life?
So much has happened in the last seven years for me, so I think I would go back and give my past self a little wisdom, though I’m not sure if she’d take it.
Iwan, who is our love interest, is an aspiring chef and claims that food is a universal language. Do you agree with him, and if so, what message is being relayed through the food and culinary techniques described in this book?
I do think food is a universal language as well, mostly because in so many households across the world, food is a sign of welcome of home. The culinary techniques in the book are meant to reflect Iwan’s relationship with his career.
Do you agree that love isn’t a matter of time, but a matter of timing?
Absolutely. It’s the right time, the right place, the right person. That’s what makes the famed meet cute so special, you know?
