Cretaceous Dawn - by Lisa M Graziano & Michael S a Graziano (Paperback)

About the Book

Enter the world of predatory dinosaurs . . . if you dare!

Book Synopsis

"...An adventure-filled journey... In spite of its references to hard academic science, Cretaceous Dawn is a first-class adventure story, an effortless read as engaging as vintage Jules Verne. The descriptive prose is both evocative and illuminating, and the plot has enough twists and cliffhangers to keep readers traveling on to the inevitable conclusion."--Natural History

"The Grazianos, sibling scientists, combine speculation and science in a compulsively page-turning time-travel adventure. A physics experiment gone awry sends four people and a dog 65 million years into the past. Day-to-day survival among creatures like giant croc Deinosuchus and T. rex becomes a priority, even as the group of stranded scientists realizes that getting home involves a 1,000 mile trek across the amazing landscape of Hell Creek. Details about plants, animals and insects in the distant past set the stage for a tight, scientifically plausible plot with a wholly unexpected twist that will keep readers guessing."--Publishers Weekly

A long-extinct beetle appears in a physics lab. Four-and-a-half people and a dog are hurled 65 million years through time, to the Age of the Dinosaurs, and paleontologist Julian Whitney and his companions have only one chance for rescue. Meanwhile in the lab, police chief Sharon Earles must solve the mystery of why half a body remains where five people had just been. Physicists try to determine what went wrong but can they fix the vault in time to retrieve the missing people--and do they want to?

"A rip-snorting good yarn. . . . Cretaceous Dawn's strength is its ability to transport the reader back in time to truly experience the Cretaceous."--Dinosaur News

"Rendered with a clarity and vividness that gives the novel its richness, Cretaceous Dawn is plain fun, and educational at that. Short of time travel, this is as close as you'll ever get to the grim, predatory world of the Cretaceous."--Falmouth Enterprise

"From the Inland Sea to the infant Rocky Mountains, we see the entirety of a long-gone ecosystem. The authors' scientific knowledge gives the story, and the giant creatures it is centered around, a realism that is immensely entertaining."--Prehistoric Times

"[The era is] described so vividly the reader forgets that no human overlapped with a dinosaur in the sands of time."--The Cape Cod Chronicle

Lisa M. Graziano, PhD, is a freelance editor and writer living on Cape Cod, Mass. She spent ten years as a professor of oceanography in Woods Hole, Mass. before turning to a full-time writing career. Michael S. A. Graziano, PhD, is a neuroscientist at Princeton University. He is the author of both fiction and nonfiction.

Review Quotes

"Scientific knowledge that is immensely entertaining."-Prehistoric Times "A rip-snorting good yarnHell Creek's strength is its ability to transport the reader back in time."-Dinosaur News "Hell Creek is plain fun, and educationalShort of time travel, this is as close as you'll ever get to the grim, predatory world of the Cretaceous."-Falmouth Enterprise "Portrayed so vividly the reader forgets that no human overlapped with a dinosaur in the sands of time."-Cape Cod Chronicle

About the Author

Lisa M. Graziano, PhD, is a freelance editor and writer living on Cape Cod, Mass. She spent ten years as a professor of oceanography in Woods Hole, Mass. before turning to a full-time writing career. Michael S. A. Graziano, professor of neuroscience at Princeton University, is the author of the novella Hiding Places (New England Review, 1997), the novel The Love Song of Monkey (Leapfrog Press, 2008), The Seclusion Zone (finalist in the Faulkner-Wisdom Novella Category, 2007), and The Intelligent Movement Machine (Oxford University Press, 2008).