A love story with a time travel twist set in Grand Central Station. The information about the station was great. The characters were pretty well written and there were some interesting twists and turns. Nice epilogue. ( )

Maybe too woo woo but characters to care about. ( )

Do you believe in fated love? What if the person you are fated to love dies before you meet them? Can a love that is meant to be combined with a special scientific phenomenon overcome the veil between the living and the dead? Lisa Grunwald's novel Time After Time, offers potential answers to these questions.

Joe Reynolds, a leverman for the railroad, is heading to work when he first spies a young woman who looks lost and out of place in Grand Central Station. Nora Lansing is coatless, luggageless, and dressed as a flapper despite it being 1937 and the midst of the Great Depression. A year later, Joe comes across Nora again still dressed inappropriately for the weather and the time. This time he offers to walk her home but along the way she disappears. He cannot get her out of his head. She will reappear again the following year. She is, in fact, a ghost and she reappears on the anniversary of her 1925 death in a subway accident when the phenomenon callled Manhattanhenge occurs. The fact of her death more than a decade before will not keep Joe and Nora from falling for each other. Together they learn the limits of Nora's existence, discovering that she disappears if she goes too far from Grand Central Station. Knowing this, somehow they build a life together within the constraints governing her existence, living and working in the Biltmore Hotel, shopping in the station stores, exploring the various places in the suprisingly vast city below the city. But the life they are living isn't a full one and eventually they'll have to make a decision about their future.

The premise of the novel was incredibly intriguing and Grunwald has done an amazing job bringing the 1930s and 40s in New York City to life. The descriptions of Grand Central Station and the city as it moves from the Depression to WWII and beyond are superb. The heady, starry eyed romance fades as the difficulties of Joe's life and obligations outside of the station and Nora's desire for more independence infringe on the fantastical semi-life he and Nora have built together. In this way the novel is more realistic than a romance, even if one of the main characters is a ghost. The novel's pacing is somewhat uneven, stretching out in the middle to feel overly long but the wrap up of the ending is brief and perfectly calibrated. This is meant to be an epic love story and although it doesn't quite live up to that, it will hit all but the most jaded the reader right in the feels. ( )

Joe Reynolds is a leverman at Grand Central Station and one morning after his shift in early December 1937, he meets Nora who seems just a little out of place in her flapper clothes. When he offers to walk her home, she disappears suddenly with no signs of her left behind. At least until Joe encounters her again in early December the following year, looking exactly the same. And thus begins Joe and Nora's relationship, during which he'll be left waiting over and over again.

This book landed on my radar as a result of a list of time travel titles put together by BookRiot a few years ago, and while I enjoyed the novel, I don't agree with classifying it as a time travel novel. There are fantastical elements to be sure, but time moves in its usual linear fashion. That quibble aside, the novel is a solid piece of historical fiction. Grunwald has done her research and it shines through but not in an obnoxiously obvious way as she provides excellent details about life in the station during the Depression and WWII. Both Nora and Joe are compelling characters and while the plot is relatively predictable, the ride is still an enjoyable one. Recommended for fans of historical fiction set in the 1930s and 1940s, as well as those who enjoy vaguely timey-wimey plots. ( )

A pretty good read but this novel was missing something The story idea is great. A young flapper girl returns to scene of her death from an subway accident. She mysteriously reappears in Grand Central Station. Joe finds her and they fall in love. Through trial and error they figure out how she can stay which is that she stays within 800ft of Grand Central Station. To me the most interesting part of this novel is the station and all the different rooms, areas, stores etc that made up this wonderful building as well as the Biltmore Hotel attached to Grand Central. ( )