Book Review: Somewhere in Time by Richard Matheson

 Somewhere in Time 

By Richard Matheson 

Published Year: 1975

Page Count: 263 pages 

Medium Used: Kindle PW 

Genre : Fantasy, Time Travel, Science Fiction, Romance, 2025-read. 

Rating : 5/5 💝💝💝💝💝

What a beautiful book! I forgot time and kept flipping through the pages until I realized I was at the end. The prose is so beautiful and engrossing. The pacing is fast and world is beautifully set within a hotel in California.The times change between years 1971 and 1896.

 A man, diagnosed with terminal cancer of brain, travels to a hotel in California. There, as by coincidence or through divine intervention, he sees a picture of an actress from the past. He falls desperately in love with her and becomes obsessed with the idea of traveling into the past to meet her. He finds some ledger from the past date of 1896,  in which he sees his initials signed as a guest at this hotel.  Confirming his notion that he did indeed travel to that past date of November 21, 1896 when he knows that Elise McKenna, the actress, performed at this hotel, he resumes his trials to time travel. He goes back and triggers a sequence of events that make them fall madly in love with each other and after a brief period, they part ways. He writes a detailed account of all his experiences .. though his brother and doctors don't believe in his claims of time travel..there are many reasons for the reader to belive. Though this is a work of fiction, I never felt more like reading a journal of someone real!! 

 Elise and Richard. Two lovers who have fallen in love across timelines. Their love is timeless, ageless and for many, proofless. Reading this has evoked powerful emotions in my heart. I wanted them to last longer..but things are sweet when they are short lived and the love resides in heart and soul..carried with them. This relationship transforms them profoundly. They are both not the same,  coming out of it as they were going in!

Richard has traveled into the past, journeying 75 years into the past, but there is always a lingering and lurking fear that he might not get to stay there. He didn't fully know the rules,  and neither did we, under what rules his travel works. He got overly optimistic because he was allowed to stay for a day and half and he surmised that he would stay there forever.. becoming a man of the 1896 shedding skin of 1971. 

They seemed perfect to each other.. encouraging each other and complimenting each other. I knew there would be some hiccup which would draw them apart because perfection can't exist in this world. I assumed that his cancer would play out in the 1896 rather than what has happened. It is beautiful too. And the other would have been beautiful too. Short and sweet. Longing and separation. True and sincere love that consumes heart and soul. Brilliant!!