Step Back in Time
Ali McNamara. Little Brown/Sphere (Trafalgar Sq., dist.), $12.95 trade paper (384p) ISBN 978-0-7515-5023-8
McNamara (From Notting Hill with Love... Actually) opens this saccharine time travel yarn with a minor collision between pedestrian Jo-Jo McKenzie and a white sports car in London. The overachieving accountant is knocked out, and she wakes up in the same spot 50 years earlier. It’s November 1963 and Jo-Jo is thrust into the height of British Beatlemania, red pencil skirt and all. But no sooner does she solve some workplace problems with her 21st-century business savvy then there’s another speeding sports car encounter in the same intersection and Jo-Jo awakens in 1977, decked in perfect period garb. The decade-hopping continues with appropriate wardrobe changes and brief encounters with best friend Ellie and love interest Harry. A record shop owner acts as Jo-Jo’s spiritual travel guru, but even his wisdom can’t save this messy and derivative self-discovery treacle. (July)
Details
Reviewed on: 05/05/2014
Genre: Fiction
Open Ebook - 448 pages - 978-1-4055-1799-7