Book Details:
THE WEB OF TIME
by Flavia Brunetti
Category: YA Fiction (Ages 13-17), 298 pages
Genre: Grounded Fantasy
Publisher: Blue House Literary
Release date: May 2025
Content Rating: G + M: While this is fully G, it does touch on matters including physical abuse and trauma. This is done in a very gentle way, but perhaps worth noting.
Book Description:
Far beneath the ground, a web quietly spins. The threads are keeping time, marking history. What’s done is done. Until now.
Protected by the gods and powering the three Great Portals of Art, Language, and Kindness, The Web of Time rearranges itself as humans change their minds, fall in love, or cause empires to rise and fall. When the Great Portals close from the world, time begins erasing itself, histories start to disappear, Earth falls into chaos, and the gods don’t know how to stop it—until Jack meets Anna.
Anna is a passionate and solitary writer who is protected by her companion, Nafusa of Libya, the cat god. When Jack, a young painter harboring a traumatic past, falls through the Great Portal of Art in Tunis, he stumbles into Anna, and his fate.
Helped and hindered by a rotating cast of deities, the two embark on a journey that connects three ancient cities in different times: Rome, Tunis, and Tripoli. They realize that it is Anna’s gift for healing words and Jack’s natural talent for drawing places as they were that can reinstate the Great Portals and restore the world’s balance, but some of the darker gods who thrive on chaos will stop at nothing to derail their quest. As time tears faster than they can heal it, Anna and Jack must come together in time to save history, and the possibility of a future.
- Do you have another profession besides writing?
I do. I’m also a humanitarian aid worker. Part of why I’ve traveled and lived in different countries over the years is because of that job, and those experiences are absorbed into my writing, sometimes not on purpose!
- How do you balance your time as an author with your other work?
Balance is something that I often struggle with, not only dividing my time as an author and with a job, but also ensuring I make time to do other things that nourish me, like reading, or spending time with my friends, or taking a long walk along the Aurelian Walls here in Rome.
What works for me is making lists, because that helps me to get everything out of my head and onto a piece of paper, so I don’t feel I have to keep everything at the forefront of my mind. That list also includes things like, take a break, watch a show, finish reading that chapter, have a lovely dinner. And then I have a new rule about not giving myself a hard time when I can’t get through everything! If there are things I have to get through but that I’ll tend to drag my feet about, like editing, I use the advice I got from a friend some time ago: I just start, promising myself that I’ll do it for ten minutes to start with and that’ll be a win. Most of the time, getting started really is the hardest part, as trite as that sounds, and much more often than not once I’m in the swing of things I’ll keep working through it.
- Writers often use a computer or laptop. Have you ever written parts of your book on paper?
I always have a notebook with me and I grew up scribbling, but these days, if I’m honest, I’ll often jot things down in my notes app on my phone because it’s so much faster. Then, I’ll move it to my laptop to expand on the idea. I’ll always read my last version out loud to myself because I think hearing things helps process differently. In all of this, I miss the paper element, and I think paper itself is the most powerful thing, but I have to admit I often fall into the “it’s so much faster to type” category. I do always keep a notebook still with me and my agenda is a physical one I write in, but I’ve even noticed recently my writing hand gets tired much faster these days because I’m less used to physical writing. So I have a commitment to change this back to writing, at least shorter pieces, more on paper!
- What is your next project?
When WOT is out, you’ll find me hard at work on the sequel. The book can stand alone, because as a reader, I tend to love series that intertwine but also wrap up their individual storylines, but the world we’re meeting in this first book isn’t done with me yet, and I hope the readers will feel the same!
I’ll be sharing as I start to work on research for the second book (which, right now, is set to take place in Egypt, in a place we already see in this first book, but that’s all I can say!) You can find me on Substack and Instagram to talk WOT, places and how we define ourselves by them, cultural cross-pollination, and the occasional is-curly-hair-better-than-straight-hair convo.
- Do you snack while writing? Favorite snack?
I snack all the time! I’m a big proponent of “a little treat”. I love sweets but have some blood sugar issues so I try to always pair protein with it, so my go-to snack is often a piece of parmigiano and some cookies to much on.
Meet Author Flavia Brunetti:
Born just outside of Rome, Flavia grew up bouncing back and forth between Italy and California and has lived between a myriad other countries, so her writing often revolves around place and identity and is usually written on a plane where she inevitably apologizes to the person sitting next to her for bumping their elbow. She is the author of the novel All the Way to Italy. Her second novel, The Web of Time, a YA grounded fantasy adventure set in Rome, Tunis, and Tripoli, will be published by Blue House Literary in May 2025.
Today, Flavia continues learning about the world while working for a humanitarian organization and getting lost in her Eternal City, writing flash fiction and non-fiction stories, and connecting with other readers, writers, and adventurers (also the armchair travel variety).
connect with the author: website ~ X ~ facebook ~ instagram ~ goodreads
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