Time After Time
Mikki Daughtry
G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers
Published May 27, 2025
Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads
About Time After Time
From the screenwriter and co-author of the #1 New York Times bestselling novel and film Five Feet Apart comes an epic YA sapphic romance, unfolding over two sets of lives, one hundred years apart.
Nineteen-year-old Libby has always been inexplicably drawn to the old Victorian house on Mulberry Lane. So much so that when she sees a For Sale sign go up in the front yard, Libby uses all the money her grandmother left her to pay for college to buy the house instead, determined to fix it up herself—even though she knows her parents will be furious. Soon after moving in, she discovers a journal written by a young woman, Elizabeth Post, who lived in the house nearly a century earlier. It doesn’t take long for the journal to reveal that Elizabeth was madly in love with her personal maid, Patricia. A love that was forbidden and dangerous, especially at that time.
Enter Tish, a brash, broke fellow college student, who passes by the house one day and is mysteriously compelled to knock on the door. Soon Libby offers Tish a room in exchange for her help in fixing up the old house, and the two young women quickly find themselves falling for each other. But as Elizabeth’s journal entries delve deeper into her secret love affair with Patricia, uncanny similarities between that young couple and Libby and Tish are revealed, and it becomes clear that this may not be their first time in this house, or in this love. Is this their chance to get it right?
My Review
Sometimes when I read a book, the premise strikes me as something so clever or unusual that I wonder if that’s what brought the book to publication. This is one of those books.
The narrative has a lot of moving parts. We have chapters set in 1925, from the perspective of a young woman whose family lived in the Victorian house. We also follow two points of view from the present day. First, there’s Libby, a girl who just bought the house, and Tish, a girl she meets in her college classes and who offers to help her fix up the house.
As we get to know each narrator, we notice some striking similarities between Elizabeth from 1925 and Libby from 2025. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that those similarities are more than simple coincidences.
One of the story’s strengths is in its minor characters. I enjoyed the banter between Tish and Joe, the junkyard owner who helps her fix up her scooter, and Tish and her best friend Bari. Libby’s relationship with her mom was also fascinating.
I think readers interested in LGBTQIA+ stories in a historical setting will like getting to see the 1925 timeline in this novel. If your taste for romance leans a little more in the Hallmark movie vein, I can see this being a great pick. It feels a little more like a book to curl up with under a warm blanket, so maybe save it for a stormy summer afternoon.
Content Notes
Recommended for Ages 14 up.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
Strong profanity used periodically throughout the book.
Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing. Two characters wake up in bed together.
Spiritual Content
Some references to reincarnation.
Violent Content
Brief prejudiced statements against an Irish woman. A man becomes violent in a confrontation. Someone sustains injuries in an accident.
Drug Content
References to teens drinking wine together.
Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.
