An enchanting story. The characters were wonderfully drawn and believable. A great summer read. I received a free e-copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

The fact that this book's setting is New York City's Grand Central Terminal certainly piqued my interest! Add in such wonderful historical facts dispersed throughout the story and it will appeal to any historical fiction fan. I was, however, unprepared to be so swept up in Joe and Nora's story! This was a book that I did not want to put down, nor did I want it to come to an end. Well done!

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House, and Lisa Grunwald for the opportunity to read an advance reader copy of this novel. I'm looking forward to purchasing a hard cover copy for my personal library upon publication day.

I simply loved this book.

It started off slowly, but as it unfurled and gained momentum, I fell deeper and deeper into its many chasms...an epic supernatural time-travel tale, a complicated and heart wrenching love story, an absorbingly interesting historical spanning from the mid 1920s-1947 and a true celestial/geographical phenomenon that seems more like science fiction...this book covers a lot of territory. And it all takes place in the iconic Grand Central Terminal.

From its moments of lighthearted charm to its often heartbreaking dilemmas, this one (and its Nora and Joe) will stay with me for awhile.

A big thank you to #NetGalley and #RandomHouse for providing the ARC. The opinions are strictly my own.

Do ghosts exist? Is that what you would call someone who can return to life on the anniversary of her death? Sometimes she can stay for only seconds, but can seconds be enough to fall in love? What is it like for the one who is alive and falls in love with someone who comes and goes like that? Do you feel like you are losing your mind when no one believes that such a thing can happen and has happened to you?

I enjoyed the premise while also finding the book a bit long. Skimming the last third of the book was enough to keep my interest and the extra details were not important enough to me to read it all as I was starting to lose interest. A different story-line like this is always interesting and I did get to wonder what it would be like to be in this situation.

Thank you NetGalley for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Time After Time is a charming, bittersweet fairy tale, a love story involving the supernatural. It tells of two people who couldn’t be more different yet they fall in love nonetheless. Nora and Joe’s love is the glue that holds this tale together.

It seems that Nora’s existence is tied to being in or near Grand Central Station where Joe works as a leverman. As they experiment on Nora’s physical boundaries (how far she can travel from Grand Central without “blinking out”) they also learn why her life depends on staying within those boundaries. Their love is challenged in various ways. Still, they always seem to work things out . . . until they come up against something seemingly insurmountable.

Part One of the story felt disjointed to me. It wasn’t until I got to Part Two that this tale developed a natural rhythm and it was a fast read from that point onward. I think that the last chapter was somewhat superfluous. I realize it’s meant to show that all’s well that ends well, but I think that the chapters immediately preceding it let us (the reader) know all we need to know.

As an aside, I learned a lot of very interesting historical and scientific facts in this story. For example, I had never before heard of Manhattanhenge (think sunrise and Stonehenge) which I looked up online and found it quite fascinating. There is also plenty of information provided about Grand Central Station, the Depression, and WWII.

In a final note, I enjoyed reading “A Q&A with Lisa Grunwald” that talks of how she came up with the ideas for this novel, some of it based on her own personal experiences.

I received a free ARC of this novel from NetGalley and Random House in exchange for an honest review.

Time After Time starts with the unique premise that its heroine, Nora Lansing, ostensibly killed in an accident in the tunnels under Grand Central Station, has survived in a kind of half-living, state, where she is brought to life by the light of Manhattanhenge (Google it!). Joe Reynolds, a worker in Grand Central, meets her on one of her returns, and falls in love. Over the years of their relationship, Joe ages, and is a part of the larger world, but Nora doesn’t age, and can’t leave Grand Central. This tension is the motor of the story, and the author, Lisa Grunwald manages it adroitly. Along with interesting characters, the slice of history in a very particular place is fascinating and well written.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This was a largely delightful story. It's hard to define as time travel since it is more of a ghost tale with some twists. A young lady returns from the dead on the date and time of her death which took place after a rail accident at Grand Central Station. There are interesting attempts by her and our hero to discover the whys and hows. Absolute best recommendation for this book is that after reading it, I bought and read a history of Grand Central station!

My primary complaint is about the ending. I feel the author should have ended it with the separation of our lovelorn couple. The "x years later" episode felt added on and didn't make as much sense as the rest of the story. Otherwise a good tale. 3.5

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to review.

** spoiler alert ** Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a Kindle ARC of Time After Time.

I'm giving this 3.5 stars. I love historical fiction, and I love time travel novels. I also love happy endings and this didn't quite give me that.

Meet Joe and Nora. Joe works as a leverman in Grand Central.Station. Nora is from the 20s, a flapper girl that came home from France, and died in a train accident. This story did have a lot of history in it, and made me really want to go Grand Central in New York. I loved how the author tied in a lot of the big events in history, and how it affected Nora, Joe and his family.

This is a book about an impossible love--or is it?

Joe Reynolds who works as a leverman at Grand Central Terminal, sees a young woman standing at the station's iconic gold clock, and is immediately smitten. It's very early on a cold December morning, and the woman has no coat or suitcase, and is wearing an out or date dress--it's 1937 and she looks like someone from the '20s. The two chat, are very taken with each other, and then she vanishes. Joe, a working class guy from Queens, does not know what to make of this, but he can't forget her. He waits for her, searches, and finally, she reappears.

Joe and Nora will face many obstacles besides being from different time periods, not just that she will not age but he will, that she wants to live the fullest life she can, while she can, as an artist, a woman, and a human, while his close knit family has taught him women's only desire is to be wives and mothers.

There is a great deal of charm in the story as Nora and Joe test time and an astrophysical phenomenon to be together. Lisa Grunwald does a wonderful job describing the like of Grand Central, the people, the personalities, the incredible amenities, the feeling of belonging. It's a magical place in an magical time, with magical things occurring within its walls with a phenomenon of light as a backdrop.

"Time After Time" is a lovely read, charming and moving, and a tribute to that impossible love.

Time After Time is a beautiful, bittersweet love story between Joe Reynolds and Nora Lansing. It's set in Grand Central Station over the period of mid-1920s to the end of WWII. It portrays the character of the times with themes of family loyalty, and duty, as well as a hopefulness of things to come, but the love between the two improbable lovers is the glue. Have your tissues ready! This one will stay with me for a while.

The is a magical story inspired by the legend of a woman from Grand Central Terminal sweeps readers from the 1920’s to World War II and beyond.
I loved this beautiful charming hopeful tale of true love against all odds.its story of how Joe Reynolds meets a young woman who seems mysterious out of place. Nora Lansing is a Manhattan socialite whose flapper clothing and talk of Roaring Twenties don’t seem to match the bleak mood of Depression- era New York. Joe is captivated by Nora from her first electric touch. Joe despairs when he tries to walk her home and she disappears. Finding her again and again-will become the focus of his love and his life.
A beautiful supernatural romance about lovers brought together across time.
I throughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it!

Time After Time has an interesting premise. Time travel against the background of the Depression and then World War 2. However, the implementation of this idea fell flat for me. The characters did not feel well developed, and I had a hard time caring about them and their story lines. I particularly was not a fan of the ending. I think this was just not the book for me. I received this book to read and review.

I was drawn to this book because of it's beautiful cover and the time in which it took place. I was disappointed and found it to be all over the place. Disappointed 😞
I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley. Thank you,Netgalley.
All opinions are my own.

Loved the time period, loved the locale, the writing is descriptive and vivid, but the plot left me flat. Honestly, by the end, I was skimming pages trying to finish.

Nora, a beautiful, young woman, returning home to New York after living briefly in Paris, is killed in a horrible train derailment in Grand Central Station. By some freakish happenstance, she's caught between life and death and time after time, returns to the place of the accident on the same day of the year, sometimes materializing, sometimes not. On more than one occasion, she meets Joe, a Grand Central employee who begins to realize her dilemma and who is determined to find the cause of her recurring appearance and how to prevent her from fading away each time.

At this point is where I grew weary of her "groundhog day" like demise. I didn't see this as a great love story, but rather a story where the characters are trapped, doomed to repeat their fate without a hope for a happy ending.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this title.

#TimeAfterTime #NetGalley

This review also posted on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/2067728-jan?shelf=read

I received this book free from Netgalley in return for an unbiased review.

There was a lot for me to like in this book.

In the first place, it is a historical novel, set during the last years of the Great War. Almost all of the action takes place inside Grand Central Terminal and the author does a wonderful job of painting the details of that location for us - the busyness of the place, the characters, the sounds and the general atmosphere.

It is the terminal on a clear cold morning in 1937 that Joe Reynolds, a lever-man responsible for ensuring the trains arrive at the massive station on the correct tracks, meets Nora Lansing. She looks slightly out of place, and Nora immediately captures Joe's attention. Significantly it is the morning of 'Manhattenhenge' when the sun rises in perfect alignment with the skyscrapers and buildings of New York city.

Within a short time of the meeting, Nora disappears leaving Joe wondering about her. Fast forward two years, and Joe again meets Nora at the same place and time on the morning of Manhattenhenge.

This leads me to the second thing I really enjoyed in this book - the concept of time and how it affects the characters in this book. Joe and Nora meet and part several times over several years, and together they work to understand Nora's connection to the Terminal, to Manhattenhenge and why she appears trapped in between time at the terminal. They live together for a time at the terminal, using the place as a city with its restaurants, lounges and facilities. They discover the limitations and boundaries placed on Nora, and how she came to be there.

The path of true love doesn't always run straight in this novel, and the arrival of the second world war changes Joe and Nora's relationship dramatically. We get to understand what you must do if you really love someone.

I also loved the way science was used to try and explain what was going on.

I found the book very enjoyable - I didn't want to put it down and felt invested in the characters. A great read.

What a beautiful, emotional, heart-wrenching read. I loved every sentence of this book and anything I write will not fully express how much I loved this one. It will undoubtedly be compared to The Time Traveler’s Wife, but they’re only similar in very basic ways. I enjoyed this one much more. Nora and Joe meet in Grand Central Station by accident and fall in love. Joe realizes almost immediately that there is something very different about Nora. I don’t want to spoil any of the plot so I won’t say more. But the way the author weaves in so many fascinating historical details, the obvious tremendous amount of research that went into this one, and the almost jaunty at time writing tone impressed me immensely. This will make my top five list for the year I’m sure, and may even make my top ten list of all time. Go ahead and preorder this one, I expect everyone will be discussing it. Would be a PERFECT book club read!

Thank you so much Netgalley for giving me a free digital copy. I will also be buying a physical copy for myself.

One of the best novels I have ever read! Part Time Traveler's Wife, part Same Time Next Year against the backdrop of the Great Depression and WWII in the glamour of the Grand Central Station of the past. I could not have loved this novel more and never wanted it to end.

Joe and Nora are beautifully written star crossed lovers who can't be without each other in a world where they really can't be with each other. I will never look at the magic of Manhattan Henge in the same way. Such a magical and haunting book. I finished it this afternoon and just can't stop thinking about the characters and the choices they needed to make.

I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I was captivated by this quick read. I enjoyed Nora and Joe's stories, and was rooting for them and their unusual relationship. I also enjoyed the details of Grand Central Terminal. Even though I have visited there before, as I was reading, I wanted to go back and experience it again.

The description of the book says it is a "time travel" book, but it was not what I was expecting. With a mix of mystery and ghosts, we see the characters live through several decades, but they don't jump from time to different time. It was an intriguing premise and fun to figure out along with the characters.

In the end, this is a love story wrapped in great historical details. The characters are not real people, but the inspiration came from real life. I recommend this book to others who enjoy historical fiction, and I will look for other books by Lisa Grunwald.

'What Nora had never shaken was the memory of fighting to come out of the ether.'

Nora Lansing knows where she wants to go, just not how to get there. She is young, ‘out of place’ and railroad worker (leverman) Joe Reynolds is captivated watching the confusion flit across her face in Grand Central Terminal. “She made him think of the cats in the tunnels far beneath the concourse: coiled up and waiting, all energy, no telling what they were going to do.” A funny word that, ‘energy’. For what else can drive her? This ‘old fashioned woman’, so charming in dark times is all brightness, but something doesn’t fit. He doesn’t yet know that she is not just as graceful but as mysterious as a feline too. Her clothes really are out of date, though they do tell of wealth, maybe it’s a costume? What does he know of fashion anyway? It is 1937, it is their first encounter but will not be the last.

Joe’s desire to see Stonehenge makes the beauty of Manhattanhenge (or the Manhattan Solstice) nearly as awe inspiring. For Nora, it could well be the source of the strange turn her life has taken. What could the alignment of sunrise and sunset over Manhattan’s street grid have to do with her being trapped in time and place? Is she a ghost? No, she can’t have this much life in her and be dead. Ghosts can’t share a meal with a man in a coffee shop, exactly a year after meeting him. It’s not her beloved Paris where she had her first taste of freedom, but the grilled cheese and the company is delightful! Joe may well be the first man to really see Nora, to wonder at her very existence. With her laughter dancing through his ears, he is falling in love. Just when he plays protector, she disappears on him. Then, a phone call he makes to Nora turns his life upside down.

People have seen her, he’s one of many, the first week of December always, the same place where he first set eyes upon her. She never stays. The reason is unfathomable, impossible!

1924 Nora is happy to be on her own in Paris, where being lost is a pleasure. An artist whose lucky day leads her to work as an assistant to the owner of a small art gallery, finding undiscovered talent, Paris is full of promise. There is no better place to be than Paris to hone her skills, where the light is best, where everywhere the eye settles it is like a painting, beauty abounds. It doesn’t hurt that she is a socialite, and has the means for such adventures but it isn’t to last, for home is calling to her and she must return to her beloved father. As soon as she arrives upon the ocean liner, she rushes to her father in hospital. Seeing him solidifies her need to be home.

Forced to take the subway after, when cabs are nowhere in sight, there is an accident, the train isn’t the only thing that derails. The delay takes years. When Nora opens her eyes, she immediately wants to contact her mother, but is met with the dreadful reality that there is no place for her in the world anymore, and time has moved on without her. This is a love story, certainly, but for me it related a horror, what is worse than being locked out of time, than having to prove who you are? Waiting for salvation that may never come? What would be more heartbreaking to a mother? Seriously, I had a lump in my throat when Nora is trying to contact her mom. If Nora gives Joe’s life meaning, he is the sole spot of joy she can look forward to upon every return, after so much hope seemed lost.

Nora’s unbelievable story opens before Joe’s eyes. With the World Fair being hosted in New York, focused on the future “the world of tomorrow” it’s strange to be stuck in the yesterday and wrapped up in Nora. Once happy to wait for life to unfold, Nora has changed everything. The waiting is torture, time crawls when he waits for her to come back. No one has answers, not even an old Jewish woman who plays at being a gypsy. Of course they find each other again, and they steal as much time as they can. The fear is always there, what if she disappears again? They figure out a way to keep Nora anchored, living in the Biltmore hotel but life can’t be confined within a set distance for any of us. Naturally the best laid plans go awry when you take into account the rest of the world, Joe’s family, the fate of the city, war. Nothing remains stationary! Would that we could protect our love, whether we’re haunted or not. Can Joe and Nora truly live like this and what happens if she never ages? What are the choices we have to make, the things we must give up in order to embrace our fate?

A haunting of the heart.

Publication Date: June 11, 2019

Random House

Not every author can write a time-travel book that leaves you wondering "how did she do that?" Lisa Grunwald just did. In the aftermath of a train wreck at Grand Central Station, Nora Lansing finds herself stuck in time - unable to die from her injuries, unable to live more than a few minutes after she resurfaces, fully alive, seen by railroad worker Joe Reynolds one day before she vanishes from the platform. The mystery of this beautiful flapper-clad woman in Depression-era New York haunts him, and he resolves to find her.

How he does, how they develop a life together that is dependent on place and circumstance, and the true phenomenon of Manhattanhenge, combine in this shimmering romance. Historical and cultural details about Grand Central Station add to the wonder and beauty. Highly recommended.

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to review this book as an ARC.