100 books like Trapped in Time

I took a bit of a side trip away from romance in selecting, One Italian Summer, though love threads through this story.

The bond between mother and daughter can never be truly severed. From that premise, One Italian Summer throws open the door for a reader to experience a time slip where it's possible to reconnect with someone who has passed.

The author adds a magical twist and manipulates time to where the character, Katy, meets her deceased mom, then a younger woman in Italy. The author gifts the reader with a beautifully told, heartfelt story. 

A dream-activated time travel story. Now that's one I couldn't resist and fortunately, I didn't.

The reader follows the character, Quinn, on a journey as her dreams bring a man that stirs her like no other. Problem? Nick enters her real world, too. They have a history. Complications? Oh, he's dreaming about her, too.

Can they figure out a way to stay connected and understand what's happening? Let’s hope.

Warning: it's a series, but after reading the first book, you'll be glad there's more from this talented author. 

My Heart Will Find You is truly a time travel adventure romance with heart.

The characters come to life on the page as we're transported back to Kansas, where buckboards get you where you want to go, and grit is served up each day. A dream sets the story in motion and acts as the transporter of Etta to the man she loves from a past life.

Hang on. There are more twists you won't expect. Oh, and do keep the tissues next to you for the ending. 

Author Kate Ryder describes Into a Cornish Wind as a romance with a "twist of otherworldliness."

That phrase set the hook for me to snag this book. Toss in character, Kat’s uncommon gift of when her paintbrush connects with a canvas, she’s capable of visioning her subject’s past, and you’ve got a story that delivers intrigue, historical interest, and a hero to love.

I enjoyed this fresh take in a time-travel love story and hope you do. 

To Say Nothing of the Dog is a fairly brilliant time-travel novel about a temporal historian named Ned Henry. Whether you like it will probably come down to taste. It made me laugh out loud more than once. I loved Cyril the dog. I loved Baines the butler. I may have developed a bit of a crush on Verity. (That has never happened to me with a character in a book before.) This book, which has been described as a symphony of a novel, radiates intelligence and good humour and belongs on your reading list, at the very top, if not slightly higher. 

I love a book that makes me laugh. But if I immediately feel guilty or disturbed for laughing, if the story makes me re-examine my values page after page, that is a home run.

This – the first of the Dancers at the End of Time series of books and short stories – had me pondering the boundaries of scientific reality as well as right versus wrong while also being galactically entertained.

The (objectively awful) main characters are time- and space-hopping immortals. Virtually all-powerful, they can change their own appearance and environment at will. When one of them decides to experiment with the concept of Love…everything, and nothing, starts to change.

A vicious, delicious satire of unchecked indulgence that tests the bounds of good taste.

Highgate Cemetery is a place I have always wanted to visit, and through this book you get to see it in its newly built Victorian splendour, and its wild and overgrown beauty of today, making this a must-read novel for me.

This standalone novel combines a Victorian mystery with a modern-day murder mystery and a real-life incident that occurred at Highgate in 1970 which was reported in both newspapers and on television at the time – The Highgate Vampire. All of the reports the author uses in the book can be found in contemporary newspapers of the time. There are even Facebook groups devoted to discussing the event. Having read about The Highgate Vampire from the reports of those involved I was intrigued to see how Morris would incorporate this event into her time slip.

 It is very unusual for an author to use an event that occurred within living… show more.

Listed as a ‘gas lamp’ fantasy, and me being a pre-Victorian/Victorian era London fan, I had to grab this one. It had a fresh twist on the mad scientist’s experiment went wrong, creating a superhero and a supervillain. I found that exciting. I loved how the main character (the hero) struggled to learn his abilities and limitations, all the while not knowing who the villain was or what he was up to. I enjoyed this master class on how to put your main character through the wringer. And the twist ending surprised me. Great stuff. 

Things in Jars is positioned at the meeting point of three Victorian obsessions: anatomy, entertainment, and spectacle.

It features Bridie Devine, a female detective tasked with finding a kidnapped child. But the child is not like other children. And Bridie, ‘the finest female detective of her age’ is not like other detectives. Not only is this an outstanding detective novel, at its heart lies a beautifully observed, genuinely moving, if somewhat unconventional love story.

I’m kicking off with a novel that isn’t a conventional crime story, in that there’s no detective, but there are several heinous crimes, all of which are resolved by the end.

It’s not an exaggeration to say I envy anyone who hasn’t yet read Fingersmith. Unashamedly drawing on the sensation fiction of Wilkie Collins, it has a twist that saw me actually yelping out loud in surprise. But the book is so much more than that.

Starting in London, 1862, we are introduced to Sue Trinder, a young woman entrenched in the criminal underworld. When she agrees to join forces with the sinister Gentleman to hoodwink a young heiress, Sue has no idea exactly what she’s involving herself in.

This book has it all. It’s beautifully written, with phenomenal pace and intrigue, but also with a wonderful love story at its core. If you haven’t read it, what on… show more.