Only Time Will Tell: A Charles & Company Romance, book 2 by Amy Matayo

 

For newly published author Eliza Sterling, having her first book launch party at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is a dream come true. Since her book is a modern-day retelling of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and the Met is hosting a display of rarely seen Dickens’ artifacts at the same time, she chalks it up to a case of good timing.

For publicly disgraced, former best-selling author Lew McDonnell, seeing a debut author having her first book launch party at the Met brings up all sorts of resentments. Especially when the book this lady is promoting just happens to be one of his old manuscripts that she’s clearly plagiarized and claimed for herself.

When heated words are exchanged in front of a display case containing an original copy of Great Expectations, both Lew and Eliza are prepared for a fight. But they aren’t prepared for the room to shake, for the display case to shatter, or for the old book to send them both careening toward a new existence entirely.

When Lew wakes up on the floor of the Charles Dickens museum in London to see Eliza working there as a tour guide, he knows something has gone horribly wrong. It’s the same day and time, but suddenly he’s the best-selling author headlining his own book launch again, and Eliza is serving him drinks and working all hours to make ends meet. And the weirdest thing of all?

Lew is the only one who remembers their former lives.

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I had fully intended to post this review on Friday but, well, life.  Something unexpected came up and I just couldn't.  Last week I read two time travel books which was odd for me but luckily they were nothing alike so it was easy to read them without comparison.  (phew!  I was worried about that!)

This book is the second in the series but I think it can stand alone.  You will probably enjoy it more if you read the first book though.  The first book in the series is definitely a time travel book but I would say this one is more of a time shift.  The characters don't travel through time but shift into an alternate reality where things are different for them.

Both Lew and Eliza are great characters.  It was so interesting to see how Eliza was so different in each timeline and how circumstances changed her perspective and her confidence so much.  The author did such a great job with the characters, making them seem vulnerable and relatable.  Lew's growth was so satisfying- at the beginning I pitied him and by the end I admired him.  I felt like I really knew Lew and Eliza both.  Knew them and loved them.  

I think I liked this book better than the first one!  It's a fun series and I can't wait to see what's coming next.

Content:  kissing, talk of substance (alcohol) abuse

- I received a complimentary copy of this book.  All opinions expressed are my own.