Time of My Life

Originally published as The Accidental Time Traveller

Life on Mars meets It's a Wonderful Life in this inventive romantic comedy that looks at what we can learn from the past….

Journalist Rosie Hartford is having an odd day. Or one hell of a hangover…

Having had a blazing row with her boyfriend – fellow journalist Will – she reluctantly sets off for her latest assignment: an interview with one of the residents of The Meadows, a grotty local estate about to become the set for a major reality TV show, The 1950s House.

But stepping through the front door, Rosie finds herself in a different house – and transported back in time. Everything is grey and drab – the food, the clothes, the TV. It's like the world is in permanent black and white.

It's not long before Rosie realises what's going on. She's obviously a contestant on the 1950s show! She's pretty miffed she's not been given warning, but she might as well give it a go – after all, the cameras are always watching and the first rule of reality TV is always keep smiling…

But what really sends Rosie into a spin is the fact that Will is there too – but here he is known as Billy and has been married since he was 16 to Rosie's best friend. In the 1950s, Will/Billy is a family man and devoted father, a side to him that Rosie finds hard to imagine. He grows vegetables, repairs shoes and even has a shed. He is, in fact, a grown up.

The truth slowly dawns on Rosie that this is reality, not reality TV. After she gets over the shock, she begins to embrace daily life 1950s-style. Gone are the excessive consumerism, drifting relationships and cheap thrills of the Noughties. In its place is make do and mend, commitment, duty and honour.

Together Rosie and Billy make a great team, covering dramatic local stories, and inevitably growing closer until Rosie falls in love with Will/Billy all over again. But now he has a wife and kids and is out of bounds…

Unless she can get back to 2008…

Reviews

‘This charming novel is a great summer read.’ Closer

‘This gem is sure to make you laugh.’ OK

About the author

Born and brought up in Wales, Sharon had a free-range 1950s childhood. After grammar school, she read English at the University of Bristol, then worked for the BBC and later for ITV. On a press trip on a goods train between Ipswich and Glasgow, where she was the only woman on board with forty men, Sharon met her husband and moved north and into newspapers. Among other journalism she now writes five newspaper columns a week.
Writing is all Sharon has ever wanted to do – even when she was rushed to hospital with a suspected brain haemorrhage, she was busy composing an article inside the ambulance.