author: Wendy Markham
genre: Romantic time travel
grade: C/C-
I love the WWII time period. This probably comes from my parents love of old black and white films or maybe it is just the elegance of the era. Regardless, that time stamp on a book will always cause me to give it a chance. I've found some real gems that way.
This time didn't turn out quite as well. The story begins with Clara McCullum, an actress with a starring role in a biopic about a group of servicemen from a small town on the East Coast who all died while storming the beach at Normandy. Clara is to play the love interest of a young man, Jed Landry, who in the movie will return to her while in reality he was dating no one and died. Let that be a lesson to never trust Hollywood history ;-)
But as she prepares for her scenes, Clara finds herself completely distracted. Before she has even reached 30 she has been diagnosed with breast cancer. It will probably not be the death sentence it had been for her grandmother but she is gripped by a very real concern for her own future. I totally understood Clara's panic. No doctor can guarantee that things won't go badly and it can not be easy to be the recipient of such news. What I didn't understand was the way she cut herself off from what soundeded like a loving family so she could deal with the issue on her own. That just struck me as a bit odd and we weren't given what I felt was sufficient reason. Still, I thought her plan to continue to film while thinking through her options was very sound.
Meanwhile, in 1941, the real life Jed Landry is facing struggles of his own. He had to leave Harvard Law to come home and help the family when his dad died of lung cancer. He is counting the days till he can leave the family five and dime in his brothers hands and finally leave this small town. Till then he has to face Christmas crowds while dealing with incompetent help, a mother deep in depression, and sisters who depend on him to keep the family running.
Their worlds collide when Clara is shooting a scene preparing to meet the fictional Jed at a train station. The train accelerates but oddly Clara flies forward, not backward, smacking her head hard. Then strangers suddenly appear on the train with her, including a skinny conductor who she would have sworn was portly moments ago. And when she gets off the train? There is no set. No actors. No cameras. Just a real small town that looks quite different than what she is used to. And a Jed Landry who looks nothing like Clara's poster boy leading man and everything like all she has ever wanted.
Distracted as she is by Jed she is still focused enough to realize that she is probably dreaming or hallucinating. And who could blame her after the week she has had? Not sure what to do she focuses on the one course of action she believes will wake her back up -- heading back to NY on a train will hopefully cause her conscious mind to head back as well. It is as good a theory as any and Clara races from Jed's 5 and Dime with only minutes to spare to catch the next train, leaving behind a suitcase full of period clothes and an I-Pod.
Both can't help but think about their encounter, however brief. As Jed snoops through Clara's things to get more information about her, Clara does research from her end to find out all about him and the possibility of actual time travel. Was Jed real? Or was he a figment of her stressed out mind?
This story didn't work for me as a time travel romance for a number of reasons. The main one was simply that the characters rely on the love at first sight trope far too much. They spend about half the book apart and what time they spend together is not conducive, imo, to being in love. Jed has suspicions about who Clara is based upon the Ipod. I think they are valid given the time period he is in. There is also a moment where Jed stoops to the level of voyeur which I found disturbing. It is one thing for a lover to watch you dress, from anyone else it just feels creepy.
The relationship seemed rush and really baseless, I couldn't figure out what it was about each other that made them "the one". To me, that is the hallmark of any good romance. Anybody can hook up with "The one who is there right now" or "Mr. Good as I am going to get" but shouldn't a romance novel be a bit more sweepingly romantic?
Another reason is that while I love classics like "The Ivory Key" (Rita Clay Estrada) or "Knight in Shining Armor" (Jude Deveraux)I did not love the combination of time travel and reincarnation when it was used here. Maybe because in those books the characters simply go with the idea that they have time traveled for a purpose. No long drawn out explanations of time travel itself needs to occur. In this book, it did. Clara did quite a lot of work to figure out if what she experienced was real or not. Certainly understandable in reality or if someone were doing a sci-fi novel but less so in a story that is supposed to be about a love affair. In this case more time was spent with the characters apart, with Clara researching what occurred, than with them together, falling in love.
Another hot spot for me is the fear of science in these novels. If I found myself traveling through time I would want it stopped. I would not want a power like that unless I could control it. Just my .02 but in the second novel I was a bit bugged with Clara for always looking at it as a gift.
In the end, the books were certainly interesting reading but I didn't love them.
Tea: This book revolved around a soda fountain so my recommend is actually not a tea but a Cherry Coke, the original soda fountain drink now available in any soda aisle.
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