Tag Archives: Time Travel

Stepping Back by Sara Mackenzie

Book Review, , , ,
Overview
Image result for the mammoth book of time travel romance book cover

Title: Stepping Back
Author: Sara Mackenzie
In: The Mammoth Book of Time Travel Romance (Trisha Telep)
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Australian authors, Romance, Time travel
Dates read: 28th April 2019
Pace: Slow
Format: Short story
Publisher: Robinson
Year: 2009
5th sentence, 74th page: He was gone, the valley was gone, and when she turned back to the homestead, it was nothing more than a derelict ruin.

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Synopsis

Helen wants to run away from a bad husband. Claire just wants to remember her past. Two women, one hundred years apart, and their lives are about to intersect.

Thoughts

The telling of parallel storylines is something that has been growing on me more and more as I’ve expanded my reading knowledge and obsessions. So finding one that involved time travel, the Australian landscape and a woman willing to find herself a new life worked brilliantly for my latest literary fascination.

This almost read like a murder mystery. The woman in the present is desperately trying to figure out the history of the past. The woman in the past is trying to escape a grasping, evil man. Yet, the villain isn’t quite who you think he is. And neither are the women. They are both similar, yet different in so many ways. And neither are able to rest until the truth is finally revealed.

 <- Lost and Found ReviewSexual Healing Review ->
Image source: Goodreads

Lost and Found by Maureen McGowan

Book Review, , , ,
Overview
Image result for the mammoth book of time travel romance book cover

Title: Lost and Found
Author: Maureen McGowan
In: The Mammoth Book of Time Travel Romance (Trisha Telep)
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Contemporary romance, Romance, Time travel
Dates read: 26th April 2019
Pace: Medium
Format: Short story
Publisher: Robinson
Year: 2009
5th sentence, 74th page: Well, here it is.

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Synopsis

Jake has woken up on the same day in a different year since he turned 32. But, when he suddenly wakes up and finds a familiar face from the past, he begins to hope that his curse is over.

Thoughts

I kind of liked this version of time travel. Rather than being two people from entirely different periods in history, it’s two that are born just far enough apart to make their relationship impossible. And it features the damage that time travel could do to a person. The ways in which being thrust from your time and place, everyone you know and love can destroy some of the hope and happiness in a person.

Age gaps in relationships generally bother me. Even when it’s vampires. (What twenty-year-old wants to date an 800-year-old? It just seems wrong.) Yet this age gap wasn’t too bad, alright they did meet for the first time when she was fourteen and he was thirty-two. But the fact that his time jumping doesn’t slow down until they are actually at the same age and it’s less… icky was kind of nice.

Most of the time travel stories I’ve read focus on jumping through a large gap in time. Something a little more permanent. Yet, this is the repetition of a day again and again. Just in a different year each and every time. There is no really forwards and backwards movement, but a stagnation of time for the poor sap.

 <- MacDuff’s Secret ReviewStepping Back Review ->
Image source: Goodreads

MacDuff’s Secret by Sandy Blair

Book Review, , , ,
Overview
Image result for the mammoth book of time travel romance book cover

Title: MacDuff’s Secret
Author: Sandy Blair
Series: MacKinnon #0.5
In: The Mammoth Book of Time Travel Romance (Trisha Telep)
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Contemporary romance, Scottish romance, Time travel
Dates read: 26th April 2019
Pace: Slow
Format: Short story
Publisher: Robinson
Year: 2009
5th sentence, 74th page: And sad that only I get to enjoy this place.

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Synopsis

Sarah is the teacher of a group of spoilt, rambunctious boys. When a bomb goes off, they finds themselves thrust back in time to the home of MacDuff. Love, understanding and a new future might be about to open up to them.

Thoughts

I really loved the little adventure that this story took you on. It’s a cute, easy read that takes you from modern times to a more ancient way of life. The fact that it’s a teacher who travels back in time with her students just makes it a little more fun. Especially since the inclusion of young children stopped this from being a clear cut and opaque story line.

This story follows a pretty typical trope – man meets woman, they fall in love, they want to live happily ever after. The fact that it’s the woman who travels back in time also kind of works – we don’t want to read about submissive women after all. So is the fact that they become attached to an orphan and decide to take him home with them. It still works beautifully. And the fact that it is entirely see through doesn’t mean that it isn’t an incredibly sweet and enjoyable storyline.

 <- The Key to Happiness ReviewLost and Found Review ->
Image source: Goodreads

The Key to Happiness by Gwyn Cready

Book Review, , ,
Overview
Image result for the mammoth book of time travel romance book cover

Title: The Key to Happiness
Author: Gwyn Cready
In: The Mammoth Book of Time Travel Romance (Trisha Telep)
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Contemporary, Romance, Time travel
Dates read: 11th April 2019
Pace: Slow
Format: Short story
Publisher: Robinson
Year: 2009
5th sentence, 74th page: Kate nodded and shook P.J.’s hand.

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Synopsis

Kate thinks she’s met the man of her dreams, but then a visitor from the future comes and asks her to make the ultimate sacrifice. Could he be the key to her true happily ever after?

Thoughts

This didn’t quite go the way I had expected. I was expecting Patrick to be Kate’s lover and to try to stop her from being attacked or something horrible on the night that he returns to visit her. Maybe I’ve just been watching far too many crime shows. So it was kind of nice to find that that wasn’t the tale of this at all. That it was a far sweeter, simpler and more beautiful story than I had ever expected.

For the first story in a collection of time travel romances, this was a great way to start off the collection. Not only is the setting of a wedding a fantastic way to set a romance vibe, but it was also a soft and gentle version of time travel. Rather than travelling back or forwards hundreds and thousands of years, but a mere thirty-odd. The softness and relativity of this travel is a great way to ease you into time travelling, something that I honestly haven’t had much to do with yet, and not a genre that I would even claim to know much about. But now I can’t wait to find out more.

 <- The Mammoth Book of Time Travel Romance ReviewMacDuff’s Secret Review ->
Image source: Goodreads

Next Time by Donna Kauffman

Book Review, , , ,
Overview
Image result for the mammoth book of scottish romance book cover

Title: Next Time
Author: Donna Kauffman
In: The Mammoth Book of Scottish Romance (Trisha Telep)
Rating Out of 5: 4.5 (Amazing, but not quite perfect)
My Bookshelves: Science fiction, Scottish romance, Time travel
Dates read: 17th February 2019
Pace: Medium
Format: Short story
Publisher: Robinson
Year: 2011
5th sentence, 74th page: “I dinnae rightly know,” he said, which should have deflated her hopes entirely.

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Synopsis

Abby knows that she’s facing a very short life-span, so when she sees a ghost in the Scottish Highlands, she decides to find out more about him. What follows is an adventure that she couldn’t fathom experiencing.

Thoughts

This short story took a very different take on the idea of Scottish Romance. Especially when compared to the other stories in this collection. There was a very sci-fi, time travelling feel to it that focused more on the future and ideas of mortality. Most of the other stories in this collection focus on love and lust. And as a general, trend towards historical romance as their theme. This went the exact opposite direction.

I love a good time travel romance (I’ve probably only ever read two), but I do sometimes find that they can be a little hard to follow. Which meant that having a short story that focused on this idea was kind of perfect. It wasn’t hard to follow since it was a straight forward and cute short story. but it also had enough going on and enough complexity that I didn’t get bored. The perfect balance for someone with my tastes. And someone who is constantly studying and filling her head with other nonsense.

 <- After the Gloaming ReviewKidnapping the Laird Review ->
Image source: Hachette Australia