Book Three in the ‘My Time Again’ series of time travel novels
Graham’s marriage has broken down, he has become isolated, and the effects of his time travel and the advancing years are producing some challenging problems.
He asks the Prof to send him back, once again, to 1970 – this time with the chance to prepare himself for the jump.
Armed with enough information, Graham can surely fulfil all his ambitions and help people along the way. He might even find a companion to share his life with.
Will events produce some unexpected results? Or will our time-traveller find true happiness?
I’m going to review all three books in this trilogy, since I read them one after another.
The first, My Time Again, landed at exactly the right time, as I was approaching my 70th birthday. So the whole premise of the story resonated—as a fan of time travel books, it was one I’d seen and enjoyed before. There’s been some criticism of how the story was told, a lot of it as narration in the third person, at least as much as there were scenes with dialogue or action to carry the story forward. That worked for me, since it was recounting fifty years’ time, and while it could have done more of the latter, that would have made it a looooong book.
The second book, And Again, deftly side-stepped any repeat of the first book, with a new challenge driving the plot along, time travel woven into a kind of mystery or thriller. Like a good sequel should, it had callbacks to characters and events from the first book, but they didn’t distract from the new story being told. It was a quick and enjoyable read, easily my favorite of the three.
That gets us to the third book, One More Time. This time around, it was told in the first person (something I enjoy) by Graham, the protagonist in all three books, with a handful of short interludes in other characters’ voices. That said, I’m still not sure there was a plot or some kind of challenge for Graham to be overcome. It was more a series of standalone vignettes of what a third-time around time traveler might have missed the first two times and decides to do the third. He takes up a new hobby, he helps start a handful of businesses, he revisits a character from one of the previous books, and meets a series of women with whom he has brief relationships that do little to move the story forward (whatever it was intended to be). One chapter—I think it was called “50 Shades of Graham”—was an awkward effort at soft-core BDSM porn that had little to do with anything else in this or the previous books. The author explains its origins in the afterword, but ultimately it was one of many chapters that left this reader wondering what was the point? When it finally ended (abruptly), I was both relieved and confused. As far as I could tell, there really hadn’t been an overarching plot, as had been the case with the other two books. This was more like an overlong coda, that at times echoed what had come before, but added nothing of real consequence. I haven’t been this disappointed in a book in a long time.
So 4 stars for the first book, 5 stars for the second, and 1 star for the third. That’s an average of a little more than three for the series. Not a terrible average, but the last book really dragged it down from where it might have been.
I live time travel stories, but be aware this might have more sex than you like. Jumping from 2022 to 1973 is taking the main character back and forth. When Carol is saved, I felt the story just felt flat. What would happen to the professor, that part of the story was empty.😑
An enjoyable third book in the series. Very easy to read and also easy on the heart strings. As the title says, this is our protagonist Graham doing "One More Time" again as his third life evolves in a very different way than his other two. But does it all work out in the end.???. Grab a copy and find out, you'll be glad you did.
They say third times a charm. Most of us don’t get even one chance to relive their life, let alone three. But it seems like Graham got most things right this time around. This is a charming story.