Love and Other Paradoxes

From Silvey (Meet Me in Another Life) comes a strained time-travel romance that asks if destiny is mutable. In 2005, struggling Cambridge University student Joe Greeney dreams of writing great poetry like Lord Byron, but the words won’t come. Then he has a meet-cute with Esi Campbell at a coffee shop, and she reveals that she’s a time-traveler with a group of superfans who have journeyed to the past to see him. In Esi’s time, 2044, Joe is famed for his love poems to his muse, actor Diana Dartnell. Eager to jump-start his destiny, Joe asks Esi for her help setting him up with Diana, a fellow Cambridge student whom Joe has yet to meet. Esi, meanwhile, has ulterior motives for visiting the past: she hopes to alter the timeline to prevent the death of her late mother. As Joe and Diana struggle to connect on any level, he and Esi discover unexpected chemistry. Though the premise has potential, Silvey doesn’t make suspension of disbelief easy, especially in asking readers to connect Joe with the literary titan (“as renowned as Shakespeare”) he apparently becomes. Readers will need to leave their skepticism at the door to enjoy this one. (Mar.)