Time and Tide
Queer romance and time travel blend together in J. M. Frey’s novel Time and Tide.
After a painful breakup with her girlfriend just before a planned trip to Spain, Sam boards the flight alone. The plane crashes. When Sam wakes in the middle of the ocean, she is rescued by a ship’s crew, only to discover that she has traveled back in time to England in 1805.
Stranded in an unfamiliar era, Sam navigates her new surroundings without revealing too much about the future. As she adapts to life in the nineteenth century, she meets Daisy, whose yet-to-be-published manuscript will become one of the most revered queer books in history. While Sam and Daisy get closer, Sam considers the potential consequences their relationship could have on history itself.
Interweaving historical, romance, and science fiction elements, the story is immersive and surprising. Sam’s modern sensibilities create tension, often clashing with the norms of her new era and resulting in laughable moments. Her contemporary expressions, including “cross my heart and hope to die” and “shake a leg,” baffle her nineteenth-century companions until she settles into easier conversations with them, her language evolving to complement the two-hundred-year age gap.
Engaging a spectrum of emotions, the novel transitions between steamy scenes as Sam searches for a suitable partner in marriage and tough conversations, as when one suitor takes advantage of her through physical abuse and manipulation. It maintains suspense by leaving the impact of Sam and Daisy’s relationship on future events unresolved until the final pages; it holds attention through its entirety.
Time and Tide is an exciting queer romance novel about the the effects of choices made over the course of time.
Reviewed by
Allison Janicki
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
