The Once and Future Fling

Time travel is widely available but heavily regulated in Heasley’s inventive debut romance. After an affair with married senator Sam St. Laurent ends in disaster, Ada Blum believes she’s looking for Mr. Right in all the wrong places—and perhaps the wrong time. She turns to Kairos, a time travel company, and heads to Regency England hoping to recreate a romance novel—only for that adventure to similarly disappoint. Her next stop is 1920s New York City, where she meets Henry Levison, a handsome and talented violinist who seems a promising prospect. But there’s a catch: Henry works for the mob. Coincidentally also in 1920s N.Y.C. is time-traveling Sam, landing Ada at the center of a complicated, time-bending love triangle that encompasses multiple paradoxes, death, and threats from an agent of the Bureau of Temporal Anomalies who’s hot on Sam’s trail. There’s also plenty of humor as time periods clash—as when Ada brings Henry back to her present and must teach him about both television and feminism. Though not as polished as it could be, Heasley’s worldbuilding is lively, the stakes are high, and her quirky characters charm. This author’s off to a promising start. (Nov.)