SISTERS IN TIME

Author: Ginger Simpson ISBN:159088745X (PB) also in E format 1/2004 PARANORMAL Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.
Time Period: Time Travel/Modern Day, 1872

Mariah Cassidy, a pioneer woman in the 1872 and Taylor Morgan, a spunky, twenty-first century attorney live in different worlds and eras apart. The only things they have in common are doting husbands and unfortunate accidents. For unexplained reasons, fate alters their lives by switching one soul for another. Each finds herself dumped into a time far removed from her own, mending from injuries in a body that doesn’t belong to her, and trying to convince the other’s husband she is not who she appears to be. Taylor has to learn to live without all the modern conveniences upon which she depends, while Mariah is both frightened and fascinated by a future she would have otherwise never known. Will providence send them back to the lives they knew and the husbands they love, or are they forever destined to remain lost in time.. Visit Ginger's website at http://www.gingersimpson.com

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

I always like to try out new authors. It's sort of like venturing into the unknown, because you never know what mysterious gift you might unwrap. It's a little like Forrest Gump with his box of chocolates... and in this case, I unwrapped a lovely little box of melt-in-your-mouth caramels.

SISTERS IN TIME is promoted as a time travel with a different twist. So rather than give that twist totally away, let me simply describe it as a story that revolves around two women switched in time under mysterious circumstances. Both are married and must deal with husbands who aren't really husbands, families that are, yet aren't their own, unknown gadgets, and simply living every day in a society and existence that is totally alien to them. It is a story about relationships and learning what's important. Of the value of those around us and how much we take them for granted, especially in the cases of our "significant others".

What I admire most about this little book is how the two main characters, Mariah, who is the time-traveler from the 1800s, and Taylor, a spitfire modern day career woman, both stay true to their characters throughout the entire story. Both retain their personalities from their original time, and both react as you would think someone from their time would react, confronted with the situations that these two ladies face. It was a totally believable and original story that kept me focused and entertained right up to the end.

While I'm not sure I would classify this as a romance, both women are married and must try to adapt and forge new relationships with the husbands they now must live with, and Ms. Simpson manages to carry off not one, but two main couples as leads quite impressively. That's not an easy thing to do. Yes, there is interaction between the he's and the she's, but I felt the story was more about how these women cope with the situation they're in, whether they can accept it, and how they deal with the here and now in whatever "time" they happen to be in. The writing is solid and flowed without missing a beat, and the story was easy to follow. The dialogue, one of the things that matter most to me, was very well written. Again, the talk fit the characters all the way 'round to a tee.

If you're looking for a quick and different sort of time-travel read, or as Ms. Simpson puts it, "a time-travel with a twist", then SISTERS IN TIME is an excellent story that fits that bill quite nicely. Very well done, indeed.

Nancy Davis