Leanne Olson

Someone in Time edited by Jonathan Strahan
Releasing May 10, 2022 from Solaris Books

Time travel romance short stories?  Oh yes, I am here for this.

The stories in Someone in Time are wonderfully diverse, covering a variety of romances (many of the stories are queer), writing styles, and subjects.  Some are delightfully fluffy with an HEA, some bittersweet, and some darker, taking on topics such as homophobia and misogyny.  

Strahan has done a wonderful job putting this anthology together.  It’s unlike any group of stories I’ve read recently and I think there’s something here for everyone.

My personal favourites were:

Roadside Attraction by Alix E. Harrow – This is such a lovely story about a teen boy from Kansas who thinks he needs time travel to find his destiny after being dumped.  I’ve been meaning to read one of Harrow’s novels for a while now and her warm voice in this story just pushed her to the top of my TBR.

The Lichens by Nina Allan – Gorgeously written, poetic story of brave, intelligent women from two different times.  I’ve read some of Allan’s horror shorts before and it was so cool reading such a different story from her, I didn’t realize how versatile she is.

Unbashed, or: Jackson, Whose Cowardice Tore a Hole in the Chronoverse by Sam J. Miller – Short, brutal, beautiful.  This made me think of Rachel Swirsky’s If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love. The saddest story in the collection for me.

Romance: Historical by Rowan Coleman – Very sweet story about a woman working in a bookshelf who meets someone from a hundred years before.  This story stood out to me as one where I could feel the couple falling in love.  It was beautiful.

A Letter to Merlin by Theodora Goss – A fun story about a time traveller in the body of Guenivere from the King Arthur story, that also presents time travel very differently than how I’ve seen it before. 

Dead Poets by Carrie Vaughn – A professor of poetry tries to travel back in time to meet Sappho; she ends up somewhere else.  Vaughn is a personal favourite of mine (love her Kitty Norville series!) and I really enjoyed what she had to say about writing, poetry, and love.

Time Gypsy by Ellen Klages – The perfect story to end on, this is about a female scientist who travels back in time to meet her heroine, and falls in love with her.  Some hard depiction of homophobia in the 1950s in this one, but it ends on a really lovely note.

Thank you to NetGalley and Solaris for providing me with this review copy.