Don’t Wait For a Time Machine: 7 Great Reads for Modern Time Travellers

Don’t Wait For a Time Machine: 7 Great Reads for Modern Time Travellers

Who else loves the idea of travelling through time to another era? Where would you go? Would you return?

Why wait for that time machine? We’ve put together a list of seven great reads, to get you travelling through time today.

The Lost Girls by Jennifer Spence

A haunting tale of love and loss that will make you think twice … What would you do if you had the chance to change a pivotal moment from your past? How far would you go to save someone you loved? These are just two of the fateful choices a woman must face in this highly original and hauntingly evocative detective story of love and loss.

At the core of the enigmatic Stella’s story, past and present, is a mystery she is compelled to solve, a beautiful young woman who went missing fifty years ago – and a tragedy much closer to home she must try to prevent. As Stella unravels the dark secrets of her family’s past and her own, it becomes clear that everyone remembers the past differently and the small choices we make every day can change our future irrevocably.  This utterly original, gripping and mind-bending tale will stay with you long after the last page.

The Tiger Catcher by Paullina Simons

The Tiger Catcher is a beautiful exploration of love and grief, with Julian the perfect romantic hero, willing to risk all for love. Impossible to put down, the climax to the tale leaves you wanting more…which is exactly what the reader gets now that book two in the three book series, A Beggar’s Kingdom has been released.

When the handsome and successful Julian encounters a mysterious young actress named Josephine, his world is turned upside down by a love affair that takes him – and everyone else in his life – by storm. But Josephine is not what she seems and carries secrets that threaten to tear them apart –seemingly forever… Read our review here.

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

This extraordinary, magical novel is the story of Clare and Henry who have known each other since Clare was six and Henry was thirty-six, and were married when Clare was twenty-two and Henry thirty. Impossible but true, because Henry is one of the first people diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement Disorder: periodically his genetic clock resets and he finds himself pulled suddenly into his past or future. His disappearances are spontaneous and his experiences are alternately harrowing and amusing.

The Time Traveler’s Wife depicts the effects of time travel on Henry and Clare’s passionate love for each other with grace and humour. Their struggle to lead normal lives in the face of a force they can neither prevent nor control is intensely moving and entirely unforgettable.

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

1946, and Claire Randall goes to the Scottish Highlands with her husband Frank. It’s a second honeymoon, a chance to learn how war has changed them and to re-establish their loving marriage. But one afternoon, Claire walks through a circle of standing stones and vanishes into 1743, where the first person she meets is a British army officer – her husband’s six-times great-grandfather.

Unfortunately, Black Jack Randall is not the man his descendant is, and while trying to escape him, Claire falls into the hands of a gang of Scottish outlaws, and finds herself a Sassenach – an Outlander – in danger from both Jacobites and Redcoats. Marooned amid danger, passion and violence, her only chance of safety lies in Jamie Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior. What begins in compulsion becomes urgent need, and Claire finds herself torn between two very different men, in two irreconcilable lives.The sixth novel in Gabaldon’s #1 “New York Times”-bestselling Outlander saga is a masterpiece of historical fiction that continues the extraordinary story of 18th-century Scotsman Jamie Fraser and his 20th-century wife, Claire.

Each new title in this bestselling series is eagerly anticipated by her legions of fans. Diana Gabaldon’s bestselling Outlander saga is a masterpiece of historical time travel fiction from one of the most popular authors of our time.

The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas 

A time travel murder mystery from a brilliantly original new voice. Perfect for readers of Naomi Alderman’s The Power and Emily St John Mandel’s Station Eleven. 1967 : Four female scientists invent a time travel machine. They are on the cusp of fame: the pioneers who opened the world to new possibilities. But then one of them suffers a breakdown and puts the whole project in peril… 2017 : Ruby knows her beloved Granny Bee was a pioneer, but they never talk about the past.

Though time travel is now big business, Bee has never been part of it. Then they receive a message from the future – a newspaper clipping reporting the mysterious death of an elderly lady… 2018 : When Odette discovered the body she went into shock. Blood everywhere, bullet wounds, that strong reek of sulpher. But when the inquest fails to find any answers, she is frustrated. Who is this dead woman that haunts her dreams? And why is everyone determined to cover up her murder? Read our review here.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle 

Madeleine L’Engle’s ground-breaking science fiction and fantasy is a time travel classic.

When Charles Wallace Murry goes searching through a ‘wrinkle in time’ for his lost father, he finds himself on an evil planet where all life is enslaved by a huge pulsating brain known as ‘It’. How Charles, his sister Meg and friend Calvin find and free his father makes this a very special and exciting mixture of fantasy and science fiction, which all the way through is dominated by the funny and mysterious trio of guardian angels known as Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who and Mrs Which.

What are your favourite time travel novels? Let us know.

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  1. Steve Johnston says:

    The Hazards of Time Travel by Joyce Carol Oates.
    Replay by Ken Grimwood.

  2. Terese says:

    Connie Willis has written several time travel novels, including The Doomsday Book about the medieval plague

  3. Sandra Scully says:

    I loved The Timetraveller’s Wife and Outlander. Also The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August.

  4. Anne says:

    11.22.63 by Stephen King is my favorite time travel novel. We all like to wonder how different the world would be if some things never happened.

  5. Peggy LaMendola says:

    Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy. Utopian and distopian, with a great story.