Love and Other Paradoxes
A Novel
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
One of the greatest love stories in history gets derailed when a struggling poet at Cambridge runs into a time-traveler who agrees to help him find his muse—a thoughtful and uplifting time travel romance for fans of About Time and The Midnight Library.
Cambridge University, 2005: Student Joe Greene scribbles verses in the margins of his notebook, dreaming of a future where his words will echo through the ages, all while doubting it could ever happen.
Then, the future quite literally finds him—in the form of Esi. She’s part of a time-traveling tour, a trip for people in the future to witness history’s greatest moments firsthand. The star of this tour? Joe Greene. In Esi’s era, Joe is as renowned as Shakespeare. And he’s about to meet Diana, a fellow student and aspiring actress, who will become his muse and the subject of his famous love poems.
But Esi is harboring a secret. She’s not here because she idolizes Joe—actually, she thinks his poetry is overrated. Something will happen at Cambridge this year that will wreck Esi’s life, and she’s hell-bent on changing it. When Esi goes rogue from her tour, she bumps into Joe and sends his destiny into a tailspin. To save both their futures, Esi becomes Joe’s dating coach, creating a hilarious forced proximity situation as she helps him win over Diana. But when Joe’s romantic endeavors go off-script—and worse, he starts falling for Esi instead—they both face a crucial question: Is the future set in stone, or can we pen our own fates?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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.
