Someone in Time: Tales of Time-Crossed Romance

 

Someone in Time: Tales of Time-Crossed Romance

Edited by Jonathan Strahan

Reviewed by Kristin

With stories by Alix E. Harrow, Zen Cho, Seanan McGuire, Sarah Gailey, Jeffrey Ford, Nina Allan, Elizabeth Hand, Lavanya Lakshminarayan, Catherynne M. Valente, Sam J. Miller, Rowan Coleman, Margo Lanagan, Sameem Siddiqui, Theodora Goss, Carrie Vaughn, Ellen Klages

Reviewed by Kristin

For the past couple of years I have been drawn to time travel tales. Even when I don’t realize a book may contain some really funky timeline shenanigans, I still find them, check them out, read them, and usually enjoy them.

When I saw Someone in Time: Tales of Time-Crossed Romance, I had previously read several books by Sarah Gailey and just one by Zen Cho (Black Water Sister). Since I had recently finished the Cho book and loved it, I checked this out through Tennessee READS where both the ebook and audiobook are available. (Thanks, Tennessee READS!)

The stories are varied, with time travel being accomplished by different characters in many different ways. I enjoyed some of the stories much more than others, but didn’t dislike any of them.

One of my favorites was set in a used bookstore, where a gap in the shelves serves as a connection between a young woman in modern times and a young man in 1914, on the verge of World War I.

Another included another young woman sent back in time to recover a missing scientific paper from a female scientist in the mid-1950s, with surprising and deliciously pleasing consequences.

The collection title is a play on words on the 1975 novel Somewhere in Time (aka Bid Time Return) by Richard Matheson, which was also made into a movie in 1980 starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour.

The characters are diverse and I found the time travel aspects more weighted than the romance, although both are there. This has definitely opened me up to a few new authors.