It Is Our Pleasure To Introduce You To The Catholic Authors Of Time Travel Adventures - Therese And Rose Marsh

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Looking For Some Great Young Adult Time Travel Books? Look No Further Than The Marsh Sisters' New Novel Charity Versus Tyranny

As with all young adult time travel books, the story takes place in two places at two very different periods of history. The first place is our own country in 2021. The characters are suddenly transported to Rome in 64 A.D., a time and place notable for Nero's great fire and the martyrdom of St. Peter. The bulk of the story takes place in this second time with Adam and Ann, Ronald and Louis, and John experiencing it as slaves, patricians, and plebeians, respectively. Each is given a dose of what he needs by the good God who, of course, ordered everything to be the way it is. 

This book is a historic adventure that shows how God, although maybe not as dramatically as He does in this story, only gives us what we need—not to punish us, but to bring us closer to Him so that we can, as the catechism tells us, save our souls and be happy with Him in heaven. 

But this isn't told forcefully and in-your-face in this novel, but subtly, as all good stories do. The story also brings to readers' attention the brutal reality of what Christians under the reign of Nero faced, in fact what all of his subjects faced under this man's cruel tyranny during this opening phase of the fall of the Roman Empire.

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"We Found That We're Better Together!" - Rose Marsh

MARY: Hello ladies and gentlemen this is Mary Bowen. I am the creative director at Industrious Family Films.

FAUSTINA: And this is Fausitna Bowen the production director. We are a sister team dedicated to bringing you wholesome entertainment.

MARY: Today we have the pleasure to interview two other sisters who have many similarities to Faustina and myself. It is an honor to have with us today the Catholic time travel authors Therese and Rose Marsh.

FAUSTINA: Can you two briefly introduce yourselves to our audience?

ROSE: Therese is the older sister and she's more of an introvert and I'm the younger sister and I'm more the extrovert. What we have done for years is would talk out stories. We had a lot of fun talking about crazy things that we would put together just to have fun. Back like a few years ago Therese said she should write this down and make this a book and I'm like yeah you know but then she you  says okay well I'll just do it on my own then and so she does start doing that and then I eventually get on board and then we just start doing it together. We found that we're better together like where we would not be as good if we did the books separately so we definitely found that working together has made us more stronger and much better authors than we would be if we were just on our own.

MARY: To help give our audience a little more of a taste of what this story is like can you share just a few works that inspired this book?

THERESE AND ROSE: The book Ben-Hur and also the book The Robe were very definitely helpful. We really liked those books, especially The Robe and that really helped give us ideas. Also the movie Ben-Hur, Paul Apostle of Christ -- We had read a bunch of books but those were probably the main ones and just in general Rome, ancient Rome type movies and books have intrigued us.

FAUSTINA: What made you choose this time period out of all the time periods you could have chosen in Roman history?

THERESE: It was one of our many stories that we were making up and it happened to be during Lent that we started it. During Lent we often see movies like Paul Apostle of Christ and Ben-Hur and stuff like that so we were kind of in that mood. Then we wanted to make up a story about time travel because we made up other stories about time travel but we wanted to do a really good one. And so we're like which time and then we thought since we were in sort of a Lenten mood we chose that time.

MARY: Yes, okay I can see the connection there that would make I guess that would make sense if you're kind of feeling penitent you know

FAUSTINA: it's funny because I think we read it during Lent

ROSE: Yeah I think we that's so interesting okay yeah and I mean it's like I sort of our time where we always watch certain religious movies like Ben-Hur for example and so yeah so there's like you know that that's a big connection there and also another thing was we just sort of went with what sounded cool and fun because we weren't planning on it being a book at the time like it was just hey what do you feel like doing a story about oh how about this oh that sounds cool you know like that kind of thing.

MARY: So knowing that it's interesting to know that you guys shaped the story really well. With that knowledge, you saying this just kind of little bits of story I'm surprised you guys were able to wrap it so well into such a beautiful story. It comes together really well. It's surprising that it actually came out of your work of making a story on the impulse. It's interesting.

Now I believe you guys are making another novel. You don't need to tell us any more details but based on that fact, you guys are writing again and I was wondering if you were going to stay in the genre of time travel or do you have other genres you want to explore. Is this story going to be something you've never done before or are we going to get more Catholic time travel novels from you guys?

THERESE: Oh, yes, definitely more time travel right now. Yes, we want it to be a big series.

FAUSTINA: Will they all be time travel then?

ROSE: Yes, for the moment, but we want to move into some other areas. In the not too  distant future we would like to move into comedy with pulling some crazy stories like we've been putting in our newsletters. These crazy stories in would be presented in segments of  ancient Romans and what they'd do with modern technology and just some sort of a comedy fun thing and we're thinking that once we've produced enough of those stories to combine them into one story and publish it as a sort of a comedy thing. But yeah our main thing right now is going to be time travel for sure.

Read Industriousfamily.com's Full Review of Charity Versus Tyranny

Susan Peek’s Exciting Adventure Novels About The Lives Of Little Known Saints Are The Best Catholic Books To Read!

FAUSTINA: I'm so glad you brought up the newsletter because I want to tell our audience that they need to subscribe to your newsletter. I read it aloud to the whole family every time we've gotten one and we just love even those little stories. I think you did a little bit of your family history in the first one, and the technology one I really enjoyed because it was pretty funny watching the ancient characters experiment with the technology and the personalities of the characters coming out as they experimented with technology. One example was when you used Facebook for one of the Roman ladies, and it's just interesting because you're also drawing the parallel that's kind of where our society is going. It's the same problems of the day except for ancient times versus the nowadays sort of thing.

But, I think that it's very fair to say that Mary and I can understand the joys and the struggles of working together as sisters on a project. What do you feel like is the best advice that you can give people who also aspire to work together to get something like what you are trying to accomplish done?

ROSE: Well I would say - and we both agree totally - we talked about this between the two of us. You have to appreciate - really appreciate - what the other person can do that you can't do.

For example in our story Adam Herde, the actor, he's someone who's a very serious, deep person in everything. Not me! Not my personality at all. I can write that personality but I can't write as well as my sister because she is an introvert, she is a more a deeper person. So pretty much all of Adam's deep thought scenes are all Teresa.

And then on the flip side of that Ronald Cooper who's like the old guy but who's the multi-millionaire rich guy is much more of a sanguine/coleric - much more like me. And I wrote about him and brought out his character more.

THERESE: Oh, you really did! You also brought a lot of comedy.

ROSE: Right. I also added different comedy parts to the story. So Theresa was like "Oh, that's so great that you're able to bring that comedy."

And then I'm like, "well and it's so great that she's able to bring that depth that I would not have been able to bring to the story."

I think that's a big thing: You have to appreciate what the other person can do and acknowledge that that you're better together. If I was just writing the book it wouldn't be as deep and that depth and that real character development especially that you see in Adam Herde would not be there and then if Therese had just written it would have been much darker.

THERESE: It would have been depressing. 

ROSE: It's already somewhat dark because of the fire burning down Rome and the persecution, but it would have been way darker if we hadn't been writing together.

MARY: You guys discovered that you actually balance each other out really well.

ROSE: Oh yes!

MARY: That's amazing, really cool. I feel like the four of us have a lot in common and many similar things, experiences and stories even, and I kind of feel like it's due to our upbringing and our education. I even think in our conversations in the past it's come out that we may even be alumni from the same correspondent school. But my question is how do you feel that your Catholic formation and your education have influenced your work?

THERESE: Oh, tremendously.

ROSE: As for religion, we learned it in school and then just from what you can say knee high to a grasshopper, from Mommy and Daddy and from the priests. It has been really, really important because one of the things we really want to do in the book is lead people to God and help people. We want to entertain them, but we also want to provide something that's going to be cool and exciting and fun but at the same time is going to be something to help you think about higher things as well.

FAUSTINA: Of course Therese and Rose Marsh are the names on the cover of the book but I'm sure there are many people who helped you behind-the-scenes so to speak. Who would you say helped you the most with editing and working through the kinks in your writing process?

THERESE: Our mom, absolutely. She was our right hand you know. She did a whole lot of editing. She mainly looked for grammatical errors and even plot flaws. She wanted it to be our work but she also looked for any like mistakes. Or she'd say, "I'm confused about this part. I'm not sure what happened here. Can you make this more clear?"

So, yeah, she was a great help. Also she was a teacher for 10 years, and then she taught us for 10 years and so she's very good at critiquing someone else's work.

ROSE: She knows our personal weaknesses as well in terms of like, "Oh no! She left out the so-and-so again!" 

FAUSTINA: Yeah, for when I used to write things it was always prepositions. It was hard to figure out which preposition I was supposed to use. So yeah, I see what you're saying where even just knowing the person well enough to be kind of wary of what they'll probably make a mistake with.

ROSE: Another person that really helped was Mrs. Susan Peek who we know you're familiar with. She wrote saint novels and many children's books. She's authored like 10, 11 books - something of that nature. It's a lot.

So she'd been around the block and so we knew that she was going to be somebody that could really help, and she lives in our area - she lives in our town. And she was an old friend of our mom as well so we got her involved and she was - oh! we couldn't have done it without her: setting up the website, getting the book published, just the whole nine yards! She was wonderful! So those are just two, but there are other people.

THERESE: Mrs. Peek also told us what the advantages and disadvantages of self-publishing versus going with a regular publisher were. It was because it was she gave us the information  and because of what she told us that we did decide to self-publish, and I'm glad we did. I'm glad she told us the advantages and disadvantages of both so that then we could make a well-informed decision.

MARY: Yes, see the pros and the cons and decide one but be aware of the not so good things about it. Well, we are pretty much out of questions but I was going to let you have a minute or two if you have anything you'd like to share or say to our audience - kind of open mic on your end if there's any final comments you would like to make.

ROSE: Keep watching the Marsh authors. Keep looking at our website because we're going to keep updating and we're going to keep working on new stories and new books. Hopefully this will be something that can really help people to have clean, good entertainment that's going to help bring them to God. At the same time they're really having a lot of fun with it.

And the book covers a very wide range. It's not just for teenagers. It's for teenagers through on up to old age and everybody in between. It's not really for children just because some of the material is more adult material, not in a bad way but just in the sense that it's gonna go over certain kids' heads. Some parts are a little violent so depending on the age also you might want to use some discretion with kids. But it's a book that we made just so that it would not just appeal to the teens but to the older people and the middle-aged people. Everybody, it's for everybody

THERESE: I also want to thank our cover artist, Thomas Hughes. He's a great artist and he's been a friend my mom knew in college. It's funny he's an actor, but he's known more in our area because he works at a theater. It's been great working with him because he not only did the cover art and he's going to do the next one but he also really helps critique it as well because he's a well-educated personso he's very good at what he does there.

FAUSTINA: So you have a collaborator that not only does your cover art but is also helping with story structure.

THERESE: Right, for sure.

FAUSTINA: Well I think we are running out of time so we're going to go ahead and sign off. We are talking to the Marsh sisters. Thank you Therese and Rose both for joining us today.

MARY They are the authors of Charity Versus Tyranny and their book and future books are available on their website where you can purchase their books and you can also sign up for their awesome newsletter. www.marshauthors.com 

FAUSTINA: Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the Marsh authors. Thank you for watching and we'll catch you next time.

Read Industriousfamily.com's Full Review of Charity Versus Tyranny