Looking for a time-travelling romance set in Halifax during the ‘90s?
Mexico-based author Rocío Castillo has you covered.
Castillo’s latest book, Forward Rewind, follows a woman named Elaine Connors in the year 2021. After renting an office in Halifax, she discovers a secret door allowing her to travel to the past—1991, to be specific—where she meets the love of her life: a soon-to-be rockstar named Roland Caldwell.
As of May 12, an English translation became free for the public via Amazon.
Independently published by Castillo, she spoke of the choice of setting in an email to The Coast.
“Ten years ago I had become interested in stories of time travel and parallel dimensions, but although I tried to write a novel on the subject, my first drafts didn’t convince me, so I ended up abandoning it,” said Castillo, using translation software.
“Years later, during the pandemic era, one night while listening to English rock music, I wished I could go back in time to relive that era. I imagined finding a time portal, arriving at a bar and meeting a singer playing with his band.”
As she began writing, Castillo asked herself what the setting of her story might be. After speaking to a friend who had moved to Nova Scotia, she learned about the Halifax Explosion of 1917.
“This event gave me the perfect setting I was looking for to place my story,” said Castillo, explaining the explosion would open the time tunnel the protagonist travels through.
Although Castillo has never stepped foot in the province, she made sure to include many references to the setting in her writing, she says.
“In several scenes, the characters walk along the coast and the pier; even the protagonist’s songs have metaphors about the sky, the sea and the lighthouse.”
Seeking information on social media
If Castillo had never visited Halifax, how would she be able to accurately portray the city and its people in her writing?
Well, the internet is a good place to start.
Having little knowledge of the city and its history, Castillo reached out to the community via the Halifax subreddit (r/halifax) to source information.
In one post from two years ago, she asked about the Halifax Explosion and how the affected areas are today so she could utilize the setting to full effect.
Some users linked her to articles on the blast. Others gave her a sense of how the city had since recovered.
One particular user helped Castillo find the setting for the bar Connors would discover Caldwell—a club on Gottingen Street that existed in the 1980s.
Others provided their family’s story as inspiration for the writer.
“My great grandfather was working in dry dock,” wrote one user. “The blast travelled over his head because he was below the water line. He was Uninjured. He ran to his house, which was on fire by this point. He dug through the wreckage looking for his family, and burned both his arms past his elbows… Later my grandfather tried to sign up to fight in (WWII). When they did his physical they realized his heart was shifted over several inches, almost certainly by the explosion. His whole life, into his late 70s, occasionally he would dig a little piece of glass out of his skin somewhere, just the size of a grain of sand, that had moved to the surface.”
Castillo would go on to use the story she read two years prior as a reference for a chapter in her novel.
“The information I found on the internet was not enough,” Castillo explained. “I had to know what the city was like from the perspective of its native inhabitants. For that reason, I asked on the Reddit forum about many topics: its history, its weather, its music, its streets, its iconic places, among other things. The users not only showed interest in my novel, but they were also very kind and answered all my questions, and shared anecdotes, maps, and newspaper clippings.
“I am really grateful to them as they were an important part of giving credibility to this story.”
In one post, she said her previous novels had all been set in Mexico, but she wanted to try something different for Forward, Rewind, choosing Halifax partly due to its proximity to the ocean.
For Castillo, learning about the city and its people was akin to vacationing in another country. When asked if she would do it again, Castillo replied affirmatively.
“I think so. This story was a challenge for me and I quite enjoyed writing it, as if I had gone on a trip. So it’s likely that in future novels I will decide to set them in other countries.”
When announcing her novel’s release on Reddit, she gave thanks to all those who directed her to the information she needed.
The Kindle version of Forward Rewind can be picked up for free on Amazon.
This article appears in May 1-31, 2024.