Review: Time in my Pocket by Gina Dewink

I was sent this book in exchange for an honest review.

Time in my Pocket by Gina Dewink

Opening sentence: “Gramps stabbed his fork into the rye bread and sawed with a steak knife, his hand trembling.”

I have to admit, time travel themed books are not ones I usually go for. They tend to edge too much into sci-fi territory for me, so I was very pleasantly surprised when Time in my Pocket, although being firmly in this genre, didn’t.

Lead character Liza Anderson is a midwife and a divorced mum of two young children. Her life is often stressed and less than glamourous. While visiting her grandfather in a nursing home, she strikes up a friendship-of-sorts with another lady in the nursing home, Valentina.

Valentina spent 30 years in a coma and claims that this was due to the fact she had time-travelled to 1898 and was living as a young Jewish boy. Her body in the present day went into a coma to preserve itself while she was not there. She wants to share and pass on the ability to time travel with Liza, who unwittingly ends up doing just that. Liza finds herself in 1947, in Hollywood to be precise, inhabiting the much younger body of Barbara Miller, and must work out who she is and just what situations Barbara Miller has got herself into.

Liza’s link to her present life is, of course, very important due to her two young children. Staying in 1947 is not an option for her, but will she be able to work out how to get back to 2011 and life as she knows it?

Gina Dewink explores an interesting theory of time travel in this book, obviously a suspension of disbelief is required (due to the subject matter in general) but what I liked is that Liza shared a dubious approach to the whole thing too: “I sucked in a deep breath. Then another gulp. I still wasn’t sure how lucid Valentina was. This was nuts. If I travel in time?” For me, this made the subject matter far more approachable and easier to get on board with. I also really enjoyed the era that Liza travelled back in time to, 1940’s Hollywood is a place that will always captivate me, and gave an extra enticing element to this book.

Well written and a very easy read, Time in my Pocket packed a lot of twists and turns into its 225 pages and I whizzed through it over a few days commuting. It’s always a good sign when you’re so engrossed in a book you don’t notice the length of your train journey!

If you fancy finding out a bit more about the author, Gina, and her inspiration for this book, check out my interview with her here.

Rating: 4/5