The Memory Collectors

Coming May 20, 2025

One of Goodreads Most Anticipated Books of 2025!

Four strangers time travel to the past and find themselves stuck on the day all their lives were changed in this stunning speculative mystery, perfect for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold, Wrong Place Wrong Time and The Paradox Hotel.

What would you do if you could spend an hour in your past? Four strangers in the beach town of Ventura, California are about to find out.

Elizabeth aches for one more precious hour with her son who died in a senseless accident. Andy is desperate to find his first love who vanished after a whirlwind romance. Logan craves the rush of surfing and mountain climbing, yearning to reclaim the freedom he lost after a misstep landed him in a wheelchair. Brooke is looking for an hour of relief from the guilt of an unforgivable mistake.

Enter Aeon Expeditions, the groundbreaking time travel invention of Mark Saunders—which allows some lucky clients the chance to spend an hour in their past. Even though Aeon’s technology ensures time travel can’t alter the future, all four clients, including Mark’s ex-wife Elizabeth, yearn to revisit the hour that changed their lives forever.

But when their “hour” extends beyond sixty minutes, they find themselves stranded in the past. As their paths intertwine unexpectedly, they unearth shocking secrets hidden in the shadows of their shared history: All their lives were shattered the same night on a secluded highway by the beach. As they delve into the hidden truths of that pivotal hour, a startling revelation emerges. They were not alone. Someone else was present, harboring deadly intentions.

The Memory Collectors is a heart-wrenching, genre-bending novel brimming with hope, grief and second chances.

One of Goodreads Most Anticipated Books of 2025!

Praise for The Memory Collectors

One of Screen Rant’s 10 Exceptional Sci-Fi Books Coming in 2025
“You’ll want to spend as much time as possible with this time twisting thriller!”
—Al Roker, NBC News Today Show
The Memory Collectors is extraordinary, both readable and wise, fast-paced but also delicately laced with insights about the fallibility of our human ways. I adored this wise, compassionate book.”
—Barbara O’Neal, USA Today bestselling author of When We Believed in Mermaids

“Dete Meserve’s The Memory Collectors is my favorite type of a book—a brilliant premise straight out of The Twilight Zone combined with incredible heart and believable, relatable characters you can’t help but love. I couldn’t put it down!”
—Meg Shaffer, national bestselling author of The Lost Story

“Beautifully crafted and wonderfully original, The Memory Collectors is a captivating story about second chances and redemption. What if you could go back in time and live a single moment over? It’s such a compelling question, and one Dete Meserve does a masterful job unraveling. Suspenseful, thought-provoking, and heartrending, it’s a story I won’t soon forget.”
—Suzanne Redfearn, #1 Amazon bestselling author of In an Instant
The Memory Collectors is an exceptionally written story full of suspense, introspection, what-ifs, and heart. When four strangers are brought together to revisit a night that haunts them all, they must work together to figure out why, putting aside resentments and learning to forgive. A must-read that will have readers of many genres staying up late to finish, Meserve’s latest is a masterpiece.”
—Camille Di Maio, bestselling author of Come Fly With Me
“Don’t miss this extraordinary novel! The Memory Collectors is the book I will recommend to anyone looking for a deeply-moving story with a unique premise. Engaging and suspenseful, this story will pull you in and keep you turning pages long after your bedtime.”
—Karen McQuestion, bestselling author of The Moonlight Child
“Dete Meserve has pulled off a bit of a miracle with her compelling new novel, The Memory Collectors. She has written a time-travel mystery that celebrates compassion and inspires hope. I couldn’t put it down.”
—Matt Williams, author of Glimpses and the creator of Roseanne and Home Improvement
“A masterful tapestry of mystery and longing, weaving gripping tension with profound emotional depth. This unforgettable novel will leave you reflecting on your own life’s pivotal moments and treasuring the fleeting wonder of now.”
—Kira Peikoff, author of Baby X

A Note from Dete

I’m someone who vividly remembers my dreams. I write them down, reflect on them, and share them with my husband and kids. One night, I had a dream so real that I rushed to write it down the moment I woke up. In this dream, I turned to see my son, Jake, as he was twenty years ago—four years old, with strawberry blonde hair, a little boy haircut, and big brown eyes. His cheeks were flushed from the sun, and I leaned in to kiss his hair, inhaling that familiar little-boy scent. In that moment, I was convinced I’d traveled twenty years into the past.

The dream lingered with me for days, blurring the lines between reality and imagination, making me wonder: what if we could truly revisit our past? How would we be changed by our experience?

My passion for science, which has led me to produce hundreds of science-focused TV episodes, naturally pushed me to dive into research on time travel. Most theories suggested that traveling to the past would alter the future, creating ripples with unpredictable consequences.

Then I discovered the work of renowned physicist Dr. Fabio Costa at the University of Queensland. His research on closed time-like curves (CTCs) proposed that time travel could occur without paradoxes. According to his theory, if someone tried to change the past, the timeline would adjust to prevent any lasting impact on the future.

This revelation sparked another question: What if we could spend an hour in our past, fully knowing it couldn’t affect the future? I shared the idea on social media, and the overwhelming response convinced me there were countless stories waiting to be told. It took years to develop this novel—partly because I was balancing raising kids with producing television series and a feature film—but also because the story itself needed time to fully take shape.

Enjoy the read! Thank you to my readers who take the time to reach out. I cherish your comments on Facebook, your emails, and your messages. I truly believe I have the most amazing and generous readers in the world!