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A Time for Love
Elizabeth Mackenzie had decided long ago that happily-ever-after was just an illusion. Her career was what mattered, and the ambition that had carried her through many a lonely Saturday night brought her out west to land a new account for her firm. Then a force greater than anything she'd ever imagined took her even further... back in time to 1876... and into the life of Jordan McCabe.
Mistaken for the proxy bride of the handsome Texas rancher, Elizabeth found a passion powerful enough to make her believe in love. But could she sacrifice all she had known for a fragile dream? As she struggled to understand the choices that lay ahead, Elizabeth came face to face with her own destiny... and the desires that tempted her to surrender her very soul!
Mistaken for the proxy bride of the handsome Texas rancher, Elizabeth found a passion powerful enough to make her believe in love. But could she sacrifice all she had known for a fragile dream? As she struggled to understand the choices that lay ahead, Elizabeth came face to face with her own destiny... and the desires that tempted her to surrender her very soul!
447 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1991
2 people are currently reading
276 people want to read
About the author
Constance O'Day-Flannery
27 books127 followersConstance O'Day-Flannery is a best-selling American author of romance novels.
Constance O'Day-Flannery has never taken a writing course or attended college. She began writing in 1986 when her son entered school. While reading romance novels during her recovery from a hysterectomy, O'Day-Flannery began to think about the type of book she would want to read. She finished her manuscript 18 months later and sold it quickly. Since then, she has published over twenty novels, all of which have appeared on a national best-seller list. Many of her novels are paranormal or time-travel romances. She has been awarded the Romantic Times BookClub Award for Best Time Travel for Timeswept Lovers and the Romantic Times BookClub Award for Best Contemporary Fantasy Romance, Second Chances.
In 2001, O'Day-Flannery took a hiatus from writing. She spent three years living in Ireland before returning to the United States and continuing her writing career.
O'Day-Flannery currently lives in Pennsylvania. She has two children.
Constance O'Day-Flannery has never taken a writing course or attended college. She began writing in 1986 when her son entered school. While reading romance novels during her recovery from a hysterectomy, O'Day-Flannery began to think about the type of book she would want to read. She finished her manuscript 18 months later and sold it quickly. Since then, she has published over twenty novels, all of which have appeared on a national best-seller list. Many of her novels are paranormal or time-travel romances. She has been awarded the Romantic Times BookClub Award for Best Time Travel for Timeswept Lovers and the Romantic Times BookClub Award for Best Contemporary Fantasy Romance, Second Chances.
In 2001, O'Day-Flannery took a hiatus from writing. She spent three years living in Ireland before returning to the United States and continuing her writing career.
O'Day-Flannery currently lives in Pennsylvania. She has two children.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
July 30, 2022
I don't usually write reviews, and I don't rate books, because the conversations I have on Shelf Love are not reviews so I try not to muddy the waters...
...which is to say, that only the towering inferno of my rage is motivating me to write this review, primarily to warn people off of this book.
The Promise of the Premise
I like time travel romance so I was intrigued by the premise. I came upon this book and another time travel romance by O'Day-Flannery in a used book store and at $1 a book, why not?
The heroine, Elizabeth (aka Elle, Lizzie) is a Career Woman TM in a gabardine suit from 1991, on a business trip in Wichita when she needs emergency dental work. The lights go out when she's high on laughing gas and she wakes up in 1876 Wichita at a train station. Two ranch hands mistake her for the mail-order bride their boss Captain McCabe is waiting for and in her disoriented state, she goes along.
The Premise Has A Problem
By page 47, we learn that Captain Jordan McCabe, our MMC "hero," is so-called because he's a former captain in the Confederate Army. He's lost it all: his way of life (gag), his Georgia plantation (burned to the ground by the "invading army"), his family (dead).
Except...has he lost it all? Because thanks to a generous investment from a mysterious Scottish businessman (this is mentioned but is completely irrelevant), turns out he's still quite rich, and owns a giant ranch in Texas where he's built an "antebellum style" replica of the home he lost in Georgia.
He's determined to also rebuild a family, so he works through a friend to find a gently-bred Southern Belle TM who embodies the "innocence of the South" to come out West and marry him.
My Yikes-o-meter was spinning out of control. WHY? Why ANY of these choices? And these are INTENTIONAL choices, because I'm not always directly quoting here (summarizing/pulling choice phrases from the text), but it's pretty clear that this author is validating McCabe's point of view via the rhetoric and the narrative: that HE's the victim in this situation.
Oh, not the enslaved people whom HE literally enslaved and dehumanized on his fabulously wealthy plantation, exploiting their unpaid labor to fund his "innocent" Southern Way of Life? By the way, Black people and slavery is not mentioned ONCE in this book, nor is much detail given about his politics or his life before the Civil War. "Way of Life" and "the way things used to be" does a lot of heavy lifting in this book.
Dude, you fought to protect your financial interests, which were essentially to enslave human beings. That's why you fought and had to see "boys who were too young" and everyone you love die. You're not the victim.
The Problem with Rehabilitation
So when you start off with this as the premise for your male main character, how are we supposed to believe it when the book contradicts some character facts (slave-owning, Confederate Captain) with character descriptions that seek to convince us that this guy is good, decent, hard-working, kind?
The book does a half-assed job of this too, by the way. The text TELLS us he's good and kind, and of course he's universally admired as the Best Man by all who know him, but honestly? He consistently shows himself to be uptight and somewhat misogynistic, and there's NO chemistry with the heroine. I mean...none. She thinks he has tight buns and consistently compares him to 1991 hottie Mel Gibson (you decide if this reference has aged poorly or in fact too well).
This character is irredeemable: you cannot rehabilitate him, no matter how many rhetorical hoops you jump through. I'm not buying it.
The Problem with Time Traveling
I love a time traveling premise, but of course it's always about escaping the problems of the present.
Well it turns out that the problem of the present (1991, that is) is that women don't need men anymore because women can make their own money! Women (according to this text) only need men for one thing: making babies.
In this text, you can only have one of these things at a time, and if you're a Career Woman TM, you hand over all hope of familial and personal happiness to get access to bougie Ralph Lauren wardrobes, salon massages, mascara, and frequent flier miles. Oh, and the privilege to compete with 20 other sales reps, all men, who think you can't cut it in computer sales...er, technology or something. (It doesn't matter.)
There is LITERALLY a multi-page manifesto about this anxiety, presented in monologue by the heroine to the MMC. (He doesn't believe she's from the future of course, because he thinks she's mentally unwell. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he won't even consider it until he has physical evidence on the last page of the book.)
CW for below hidden text: abuse, sexual violence, child loss, death
How does this book resolve her heroine's fear of becoming her mother? By randomly sending her to 1959 so she can save her mother from meeting her father. (How? IDK she's been making deals with God throughout, so is this an Inspirational?!)
Now wouldn't that mean she doesn't exist in this time travel paradox? This book doesn't give a shit. She makes the choice (CHOICE!) to abort herself from existence, but somehow still exists, she gets a vision of her mom being happy in the future and realizing all her dreams, and Elle goes back to 1876 and MAGICALLY....
Is No Longer Infertile!
That's right: she erases herself from existence, which means that her abortion never happens, so she can exist in the past to have a miracle baby with the hero: because it was feminism that made her infertile.
Final Rant
I'm leaving out so much that made me mad, but let me hit on 3 final points:
1. Racial stuff: As I mentioned earlier, this book never mentions Black people or the institution of slavery once, which is telling given they talk about the Civil War constantly, but there is some racist commentary re: Mexicans and Indigenous people.
Super weirdly for this book, at one point between everyone talking about "Indian attacks" the heroine muses, in a rare self-aware moment, "It was one think to read about the conquest of the West. It was quite another to actually witness that it had been obtained at the expense of an entire race." (Insert upside down clown face.)
2. The weird God stuff. She is literally bargaining with God at points, and there are real Deus Ex Machina moments that seem to prove God's hand is at work.
3. Fade to black sex scenes (personally not my thing) zero chemistry, very little sizzle to the romance or relationship. This book failed on every level as a satisfying romance for me, even if you can leave aside (and you can't) all the other problems. So if ALLLL the other stuff hasn't convinced you, please just know there really isn't anything romantic you're missing out on.
Why did I keep reading? I am a glutton for punishment, but also I have a scholarly interest in these things. This book wasn't particularly subtle, which actually made it helpful to pick up on patterns that may be more subtle in other texts but are similarly problematic. I think it's important to notice and name these issues because they're not isolated to older texts, even if contemporary texts can feel less egregious.
I hope that this review has convinced you not to read this book. It's certainly convinced me that I don't need to read any other books by this author, as I get the sense that I got an accurate (dis)taste of her worldview.
...which is to say, that only the towering inferno of my rage is motivating me to write this review, primarily to warn people off of this book.
The Promise of the Premise
I like time travel romance so I was intrigued by the premise. I came upon this book and another time travel romance by O'Day-Flannery in a used book store and at $1 a book, why not?
The heroine, Elizabeth (aka Elle, Lizzie) is a Career Woman TM in a gabardine suit from 1991, on a business trip in Wichita when she needs emergency dental work. The lights go out when she's high on laughing gas and she wakes up in 1876 Wichita at a train station. Two ranch hands mistake her for the mail-order bride their boss Captain McCabe is waiting for and in her disoriented state, she goes along.
The Premise Has A Problem
By page 47, we learn that Captain Jordan McCabe, our MMC "hero," is so-called because he's a former captain in the Confederate Army. He's lost it all: his way of life (gag), his Georgia plantation (burned to the ground by the "invading army"), his family (dead).
Except...has he lost it all? Because thanks to a generous investment from a mysterious Scottish businessman (this is mentioned but is completely irrelevant), turns out he's still quite rich, and owns a giant ranch in Texas where he's built an "antebellum style" replica of the home he lost in Georgia.
He's determined to also rebuild a family, so he works through a friend to find a gently-bred Southern Belle TM who embodies the "innocence of the South" to come out West and marry him.
My Yikes-o-meter was spinning out of control. WHY? Why ANY of these choices? And these are INTENTIONAL choices, because I'm not always directly quoting here (summarizing/pulling choice phrases from the text), but it's pretty clear that this author is validating McCabe's point of view via the rhetoric and the narrative: that HE's the victim in this situation.
Oh, not the enslaved people whom HE literally enslaved and dehumanized on his fabulously wealthy plantation, exploiting their unpaid labor to fund his "innocent" Southern Way of Life? By the way, Black people and slavery is not mentioned ONCE in this book, nor is much detail given about his politics or his life before the Civil War. "Way of Life" and "the way things used to be" does a lot of heavy lifting in this book.
Dude, you fought to protect your financial interests, which were essentially to enslave human beings. That's why you fought and had to see "boys who were too young" and everyone you love die. You're not the victim.
The Problem with Rehabilitation
So when you start off with this as the premise for your male main character, how are we supposed to believe it when the book contradicts some character facts (slave-owning, Confederate Captain) with character descriptions that seek to convince us that this guy is good, decent, hard-working, kind?
The book does a half-assed job of this too, by the way. The text TELLS us he's good and kind, and of course he's universally admired as the Best Man by all who know him, but honestly? He consistently shows himself to be uptight and somewhat misogynistic, and there's NO chemistry with the heroine. I mean...none. She thinks he has tight buns and consistently compares him to 1991 hottie Mel Gibson (you decide if this reference has aged poorly or in fact too well).
This character is irredeemable: you cannot rehabilitate him, no matter how many rhetorical hoops you jump through. I'm not buying it.
The Problem with Time Traveling
I love a time traveling premise, but of course it's always about escaping the problems of the present.
Well it turns out that the problem of the present (1991, that is) is that women don't need men anymore because women can make their own money! Women (according to this text) only need men for one thing: making babies.
In this text, you can only have one of these things at a time, and if you're a Career Woman TM, you hand over all hope of familial and personal happiness to get access to bougie Ralph Lauren wardrobes, salon massages, mascara, and frequent flier miles. Oh, and the privilege to compete with 20 other sales reps, all men, who think you can't cut it in computer sales...er, technology or something. (It doesn't matter.)
There is LITERALLY a multi-page manifesto about this anxiety, presented in monologue by the heroine to the MMC. (He doesn't believe she's from the future of course, because he thinks she's mentally unwell. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he won't even consider it until he has physical evidence on the last page of the book.)
CW for below hidden text: abuse, sexual violence, child loss, death
How does this book resolve her heroine's fear of becoming her mother? By randomly sending her to 1959 so she can save her mother from meeting her father. (How? IDK she's been making deals with God throughout, so is this an Inspirational?!)
Now wouldn't that mean she doesn't exist in this time travel paradox? This book doesn't give a shit. She makes the choice (CHOICE!) to abort herself from existence, but somehow still exists, she gets a vision of her mom being happy in the future and realizing all her dreams, and Elle goes back to 1876 and MAGICALLY....
Is No Longer Infertile!
That's right: she erases herself from existence, which means that her abortion never happens, so she can exist in the past to have a miracle baby with the hero: because it was feminism that made her infertile.
Final Rant
I'm leaving out so much that made me mad, but let me hit on 3 final points:
1. Racial stuff: As I mentioned earlier, this book never mentions Black people or the institution of slavery once, which is telling given they talk about the Civil War constantly, but there is some racist commentary re: Mexicans and Indigenous people.
Super weirdly for this book, at one point between everyone talking about "Indian attacks" the heroine muses, in a rare self-aware moment, "It was one think to read about the conquest of the West. It was quite another to actually witness that it had been obtained at the expense of an entire race." (Insert upside down clown face.)
2. The weird God stuff. She is literally bargaining with God at points, and there are real Deus Ex Machina moments that seem to prove God's hand is at work.
3. Fade to black sex scenes (personally not my thing) zero chemistry, very little sizzle to the romance or relationship. This book failed on every level as a satisfying romance for me, even if you can leave aside (and you can't) all the other problems. So if ALLLL the other stuff hasn't convinced you, please just know there really isn't anything romantic you're missing out on.
Why did I keep reading? I am a glutton for punishment, but also I have a scholarly interest in these things. This book wasn't particularly subtle, which actually made it helpful to pick up on patterns that may be more subtle in other texts but are similarly problematic. I think it's important to notice and name these issues because they're not isolated to older texts, even if contemporary texts can feel less egregious.
I hope that this review has convinced you not to read this book. It's certainly convinced me that I don't need to read any other books by this author, as I get the sense that I got an accurate (dis)taste of her worldview.
June 4, 2013
Loved this book! Like her other books Constance O'Day-Flannery did a stellar job with this book. Elizabeth finds her self thrown back in time after a storm and mistaken for a mail order bride. Being a bit out of it from Novocaine and having just had a tooth pulled she goes along with the men waiting to take said previously mentioned 'mail order bride', and only begins to realize that things are not as they should be when the drugs start to wear off. Elizabeth's character is one of endurance. Having already lived through Hell as a child growing up, she shows remarkable fortitude after being thrusted into this new bizarre situation.
I full heartedly recommend this book, my only caution is that you will need some tissue...
I full heartedly recommend this book, my only caution is that you will need some tissue...
July 13, 2015
There is a fine line between fantasy and nonsense. Often, that line hinges on to what extent you wish to suspend disbelief. For me, give me a great character or an exciting adventure or a glimmer of an attempt to explain what the heck is going on.
This was a time travel romance. The main character, Elizabeth, goes back in time from 1991 to 1876. No reason. Just happens.
Along the path to a painful ending (that I won't spoil for you no matter how much I don't recommend you getting there anyway), we have very superficial character development, especially for the romantic hero. I'm not sure why these two got together, or what made them right for each other. They picked up a couple of stray kids who behaved like an unrealistic fantasy spun by moms who want to adopt troubled youths but never have.
I don't recommend.
This was a time travel romance. The main character, Elizabeth, goes back in time from 1991 to 1876. No reason. Just happens.
Along the path to a painful ending (that I won't spoil for you no matter how much I don't recommend you getting there anyway), we have very superficial character development, especially for the romantic hero. I'm not sure why these two got together, or what made them right for each other. They picked up a couple of stray kids who behaved like an unrealistic fantasy spun by moms who want to adopt troubled youths but never have.
I don't recommend.
December 30, 2017
I read this book twice
February 6, 2024
Not one of my favorites, same with the author's other time travel books. (I've read three and this is the "strikes-you're-out" one.) I much prefer Eugenia Riley and other authors who don't go berserk with the back-and-forth from one era to the next, which gets really annoying.
This book was no exception, but I caught on to what Ms. O'Day-Flannery was trying to say with the weird side trip to the 1950's, where the h rescues her mom from getting boned by her abusive dad, yet still managed to exist. The h's prayers to God give a hint. Humans create bodies, God creates souls, so even if her parents never got together, she'd still exist, spiritually, and would be free to live her life in another place and time. (I'd have included a new set of parents, but that's just me.)
BTW: a botched abortion??? In the late 20thc???? GET REAL!!! No need for backstreet docs anymore! And if someone did something wrong, she'd have sued their asses and obtained a 7-figure bank account!
Wouldn't it have made more sense to say she had endometriosis or some other med condition that caused infertility? But since this is an author who has people going back and forth through time from one era to another at a hat drop, I guess that'd be expecting a bit much.
This book was no exception, but I caught on to what Ms. O'Day-Flannery was trying to say with the weird side trip to the 1950's, where the h rescues her mom from getting boned by her abusive dad, yet still managed to exist. The h's prayers to God give a hint. Humans create bodies, God creates souls, so even if her parents never got together, she'd still exist, spiritually, and would be free to live her life in another place and time. (I'd have included a new set of parents, but that's just me.)
BTW: a botched abortion??? In the late 20thc???? GET REAL!!! No need for backstreet docs anymore! And if someone did something wrong, she'd have sued their asses and obtained a 7-figure bank account!
Wouldn't it have made more sense to say she had endometriosis or some other med condition that caused infertility? But since this is an author who has people going back and forth through time from one era to another at a hat drop, I guess that'd be expecting a bit much.
June 28, 2019
I'm weak for road trip story and this one with time travel as the main theme. I liked it. Has better plot than the other two books I've read.
August 20, 2025
Very nice time travel romance. The heroine goes to the dentist to get a tooth pulled only to wake up in the old west. She's immediately mistaken for a mail order bride to a rugged cowboy. I loved the western story line. The hero was your typical cowboy, reserved at times, vocal at others, honest kind and sexy as hell. I was soo glad when the heroine realized he didn't look like Mel Gibson after all. Big relief. You got the feeling that the guy would be able to handle anything. In situations of panic he was always the level headed hero coming to save the day. The poor heroine spent the complete first half of the novel in pain. First with having her tooth pulled and next with the fever. My only complaint is I felt like the story was way too long. It didn't really have all that good of pacing.
August 4, 2012
Elle is unhappy with her life, she's been through a lot of trauma, etc. During a visit to the dentist she travels back in time, she first thinks it's all due to the Novocaine, that she's just having hallucination but then she realizes that she's really in 1876, there she meets handsome cowboy Jordan, who thought Elle was his mail order bride, turns out she's nothing like any woman he's ever met. Then you know what happens they fall in love, and etc. I won't say much more otherwise it would spoil the book. It's a quick read, and I would recommend it for those of you like me who like Time travel, it's nothing great but it's entertaining.
November 2, 2011
Meski awal ceritanya aneh banget tapi oke banget jalan ceritanya. Gara2 badai terus mati lampu di ruang dokter gigi, Elizabeth yang habis cabut gigi dan dalam pengaruh obat tiba-tiba pindah ke masa lalu?? Masa lalu Elizabeth pun juga bukan cerita keluarga bahagia, jadinya dia terus teringat dengan wajah ibunya yang bersedih, terus terakhir gara2 jatuh dari kuda, tiba-tiba dia loncat ke masa depan, saat ibunya masih muda jadinya dia berusaha untuk mengubah nasib ibunya. Seperti biasa cerita time travel lainnya yang berakhir bahagia.
August 14, 2017
How much do I love historical romances? A lot! And if there's time travel? Woot, even better! I love "A Time for Love" because the romance isn't shoved in my face.
When it comes to historical romances, I like it when the physicality isn't so wa-pow, in my face... it's nice to see romance unfold slowly.
This is one of my favorite books - it's really heartwarming and made me cry. Not a lot of books have accomplished that. :)
When it comes to historical romances, I like it when the physicality isn't so wa-pow, in my face... it's nice to see romance unfold slowly.
This is one of my favorite books - it's really heartwarming and made me cry. Not a lot of books have accomplished that. :)
December 6, 2013
This was pretty good. It was given to me by a co-worker and I found out that I like it. the only thing I really don't like about it was that Elizabeth and Jordan are like oil and water, they really don't get alone half of the time in the book, I mean I like htat it didn't have insta-love, but come on it you are going write a romance novel, unleast let them get along from the beginning.
Read
May 27, 2010Another book from my e-bay boxes, wont read this one because it has time travel.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews