On December 5, 1925, Nora Lansing was on the final leg of a trip home from a long trip abroad when the subway train she was on crashed just before the platform at Grand Central Station. Several years to the day later, rail worker Joe Reynolds found Nora trying to find someone to walk her home from the station. When he obliges, they get no more than a couple blocks before she disappears into thin air. But something about Nora has captivated Joe, and when he finds her again the next December 5, the two strike up an unlikely romance.
Billed as a readalike to The Time Traveler's Wife, Time After Time is a complicated romance that spans years and strange complexities that can't be explained elsewhere. But unlike Niffenegger's groundbreaking novel, this book is limited by place, with almost everything taking place within a block or so of Grand Central and thus limits the protagonists' experiences (though the intrusion of World War II into their lives certainly livens things up). Perhaps because of that, or maybe because of the book's reliance on the quirky (but real) Manhattanhenge phenomenon, I wasn't quite as taken with this book. Certainly, I loved all the info about Grand Central during the war, and the inner workings of the terminal, but I just wasn't totally able to warm up to Nora and Joe like I did with Time Traveler's Wife's Henry and Claire. That said, for those that aren't quite as smitten with Time Traveler's Wife as I am (it's one of my all-time faves) and don't mind getting Cyndi Lauper earworms, this is a good read.
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