Hemmingway’s Notebook

Every so often I find myself reflecting on “what if someone from another time could experience our future? How would that affect my own sense of the time that I live in?” This series of books by Jackie North explores this idea. So many of the things we now take for granted were not always so. This is a read that is quite full of romance and what if. As time travel stories go, this one successfully navigates the genre’s challenges.

This is part of Ms North’s Love Across Time series, of which there are six books.

* * * * *

Soulmates across time. Two souls connected by destiny.

In present day, Jake, lonely and cut off from his parents, travels to the Chamberlin Inn in Cody, Wyoming to work on extra credit for his college seminar.

In 1932, Sebby labors at the Chamberlin Inn for pennies a day, wishing with all his heart for a better life.

While taking photographs in the room where Ernest Hemingway once stayed, Jake is flung back in time to the year 1932. There he meets Sebby who is living on the edge, half starving, a victim of the Great Depression. He’s been dodging rent collectors, getting behind on doctor’s bills, trying to care for his ailing Pop.

Sebby falls hard for Jake with his movie star smile, but knows something is different about him. Jake wears strange clothes, talks too fast, and doesn’t look like he’s gone hungry a day in his whole life. He’s also the handsomest boy Sebby has ever seen.

Jake is drawn to Sebby’s dark eyes, shy smile, and gentle heart. Sebby is like nobody Jake has ever met. And though the year 1932 scares him to his very core, he needs to decide. Go home? Or stay and weather the Depression with Sebby, whom he has grown to love.

A male/male time travel romance, complete with hurt/comfort, true confessions, a shared bed, first time romance, the angst of separation, and true love across time.

The Purple Fantastic Steam Rating gives this a 3 or 4 out of 5. It has steamy moments, but this is more about characters and plot than steam. You can read more about the Steam Ratings on the About Page.