Hi and welcome to my stop on the Ultimate Blog Tour for A Different Time! The hugest of thanks to Dave for organising another huge tour and to the author for the eBook.
A while ago I had a very serious talk with myself about blog tours (for the umpteenth time I might add), and for a while there it actually worked: I refrained from saying “yes please” to too many tours. And then came Dave. I approached with caution. Until he waved Noly’s outstanding and super enthusiastic review at me, and I almost bit off his hand, because hell yaaaaassss I wanted to read this book!
First of all: here’s the trailer (I do love a good book trailer!):
All right, so, if you’ve watched the trailer you now know what A Different Time is all about: there’s a girl in 1989, Lindsey, and a guy in 2019, Keith, and they fall truly madly deeply in love with each other. Please note that the trailer makes it sound a lot more sci-fi than it actually is. There is of course a fantastical / sci-fi element to it, but I would classify this more as a romance story. If there are any fans of Sandra Bullock and/or Keanu Reeves in the audience today: this is like The Lake House but with videotapes instead of notes. Lindsey makes tapes like a sort of visual diary, Keith happens to find one, and they notice they can hear each other and talk to each other.
A Different Time focusses on Keith and Lindsey’s relationship, as much as they can have one, you know with the being in separate states and separate centuries. Which brings me to a little gripe I had, this is a personal hang-up and most readers won’t care even a little bit, but there is so much instalove. I understand that they both have their issues and find in each other what they have been missing forever. Lindsey is a real sweetheart, she’s in a far from ideal situation at home, she doesn’t have many friends, she’s unsure about what to do with the rest of her life, and as a result she decides to make videos, basically talking to herself like one would write in a diary. And Keith, well, he’s a great guy, in a bit of dead-end job, no family and few friends. So imagine their surprise when Keith plays one of Lindsey’s tapes, and finds that when he talks to her, she hears him. They have one conversation and they hit it off and BOOM, they are both convinced that they’re each other’s true love. I understand that the medium that they use is very limited, one tape does not go on forever, so it had to go very quickly, but I had some trouble with them falling in love so deeply and so instantly.
Still, it’s a lovely love story they have going on, so I put aside my little instalove gripe and focussed on the star-crossed lovers and their impossible romance instead. Keith is willing to go to whatever lengths necessary to find the girl of his dreams in 2019, but obviously she won’t be the fresh-faced girl that she was in 1989 anymore. I was dying to know how this tale would end! Would he find her and would they have an actual relationship? I mean, I’m all for true love and everything, but the age difference, bit weird no? Still I was rooting for Keith in 2019, and Lindsey in 1989 (although I had an inkling about how her future would pan out that turned out to be correct in the end).
With very short chapters and the need to know the ending, I flew through A Different Time in little time. An enjoyable, at times emotional read that I’d recommend to romance lovers who don’t mind a fantastical element.
Check out the other stops on the tour this week:
Great review, Kelly! I’m glad you liked the book. I did share your concerns about insta-love, but although their relationship could have been slightly more developed, the way it was written made me not mind so much. ?
Thanks Stephen ? I agree, they are both so loveable and their story is so suspenseful that it wasn’t that hard for me to get over my issues with the instalove ?
Fab review!
Thank you ? Are you on the tour too?
No is it a big one again?
Yes it’s huge which is why I didn’t check all the names, there were far too many ?
??
Fab review! I admit I’m intrigued even though I’m not sure how I would react to the romance and the instalove… The cover is absolutely stunning though.
Thank you ? Yes the cover is gorgeous isn’t it! Perhaps I should have mentioned it, the MC has a special bond with sequoia trees, she goes to the woods to draw and to dream and she makes one of her tapes there too, so the trees are kind of important in the story. It really is a beautiful story despite the instalove ?