For a Limited Time Only: The Time Traveler's Passport

by Peng Shepherd, Jonathan Davis (Narrator)

A time-traveling salesman searches for the moments that truly matter in this poignant short story from nationally bestselling author Peng Shepherd.

Russ commutes to work—not across town but through time. An ambitious employee stuck in Oracle Marketing Solutions’ mundane “near past” division, he longs for the excitement of ancient eras and distant futures. But Oracle’s secretive management has refused every one of his transfer requests, and Russ can’t understand why…until he makes a devastating discovery about his own timeline.

Peng Shepherd’s For a Limited Time Only is part of The Time Traveler’s Passport, an unforgettable collection of stories about memory, identity, and choice curated by New York Times bestselling anthologist John Joseph Adams. Watch time fly as you read or listen to each short story in a single sitting.

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Time Travel, Fiction, Audiobook, Novella, Fantasy

Audible Audio

First published November 3, 2025

About the author

Peng Shepherd is the nationally bestselling, award-winning author of All This and More, The Cartographers, and The Book of M.

Her novels have been acclaimed as a “Best Book of the Year” by the Washington Post, a “Best Book of the Summer” by the Today Show and NPR, and featured in the New York Times, the LA Times, and on Good Morning America, as well as a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize. Her work also has been translated into more than ten languages, and optioned for TV and film.

A graduate of New York University’s MFA program, Peng is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. She was born in Phoenix, Arizona, where she rode horses and trained in classical ballet, and has lived in Beijing, Kuala Lumpur, London, Mexico City, and New York. When not writing, she can be found planning her next trip or haunting local bookstores.

Reviews

[JJtheBookNerd]

This is book 3 in a six-part collection of short stories titled 'The Time Traveller's Passport', all of which surround the theme of time travel. Each book can be read as a standalone and is written by a different Author.

We are introduced to Russ, a time-travelling salesman who is an employee of Oracle Marketing Solutions. He is being interviewed for a department transfer—his request, however, once again gets denied.

Russ is disillusioned with his job; he and his colleague Vik travel around the same decade over and over again, making deals with clients. Vik sometimes disappears on solo trips, much to Russ' bemusement.

Russ seems to have a happy family life with his wife, Maya, and his daughter, Opal. As the story progresses, we realise there is a really sad tale behind why Russ has the job he has and why he keeps getting passed over for a transfer.

I quite liked this one—sad and poignant. I always find it hard to rate these short stories, as there isn't much in the way of story to rate, or review for that matter. I thought this was one of the better ones in the series so far, so I'll go with 3.5/5.

[Vivian]

Quietly devastating, Shepard uses time travel as a powerful vehicle to explore family, grief and the fierce importance of spending our time wisely. The character work is excellent and the non-linear timeline not only makes perfect sense but heightens the story's emotional impact. And when the reveal comes, it lands with perfect, heartbreaking clarity.

My thanks to Amazon Original Stories for a copy of The Time Traveler's Passport collection.

[Gerhard]

Wow, this was heartbreaking. Everything has consequences ... especially time travel. An elegant, measured, devastating story about parental love ... and its limits in time.

[Brooke]

Time, see what's become of me? This short shifted in its time travel focus from others in the Time Traveler's Passport series. It opens with a job offer--but the company doesn't exist yet. Like other stories in this series, there is a corporation involved in time-travel. What was different about this at first was the focus was on the corporation. Various trippy laws involving past and future effect what department employees work in. Other stories in the Passport series focused on more big-picture effects of time travel, alternate realities, societal implications. This story shifts to a much more personal take on time travel.

As the story morphs, it grows into something more about the personal ramifications; the grief and secrets we hold. I loved that while taking a formula, the author created something fresh and intimate, a new take on a familiar premise. This was my favorite in the series because of the personal take. The characters are dealing with a child's terminal illness.

Time is our greatest gift.

Time isn't something you lose, it's something you make.

Or I suppose, it will make you. The possibilities....

[Vavo ☆]

holy fucking sad

This hit me like a thousands bricks, and if you make me cry in 40 pages you get my 5 stars. It was heartbreaking and probably the way I would realistically expect the time travel to be used by regular people. (Also capitalism)

[Alan (The Lone Librarian) Teder]

Time and Time Again
A review of the Amazon Original Stories Kindle eBook edition (November 3, 2025), released simultaneously with the Brilliance Publishing Inc. audiobook.

For a limited time only! Management gets a huge kick out of that catchphrase. Oracle has two main departments: Past and Futures. Including Vik and me, there are probably fifty employees in Past, and I have no idea how many in Futures ... Most of them, we’ll never meet, because they haven’t even been hired yet.

In the year 2040, the Oracle Corporation has monetized time travel. In this short story we meet Russ who works in the Past Department but is hoping to get a transfer into Futures. As a junior he is bored with his limited portfolio of time travel back within only a decade or so. He doesn't even have to change his wardrobe when he is on the job. Without being given a lot of detail we can gather that the Past Department goes back in time in order to set up deals / purchases that will be of benefit in the future to a present day client.

He works with a partner Vik, but finds that during jobs Vik often disappears on solo sidetrips before they return to their present day of 2040. Russ has a happy home life with wife Maya and child Opal, but Vik's relationship with his partner Simon is in difficulty. As Russ's life continues and Opal grows up, a crisis occurs and suddenly Russ finds out what Vik has been doing behind the scenes.

This had an unexpected twist to it that I quite enjoyed and thought of as being outside the norm in time travel adventures. The corporate business side of things was really not even the point of the story. So a 4 star Like from me.

Soundtrack
There are many recording artists with songs titled Time and Time Again. I listened to the Dusty Springfield song from the album White Heat (1982) which you can listen to on YouTube here or on Spotify here.

Trivia and Links
Author Peng Shepherd is best known as a writer of fantasy and sci-fi with her most popular book (per GR ratings and reviews) being The Cartographers (2022).

For a Limited Time Only is the 3rd of 6 stories in The Time Traveler's Passport anthology collection from Amazon Original Stories released on November 3, 2025. The promo for the collection reads:

Six short stories. Infinite possibilities.
Embark on a mind-bending journey through time with six of today’s most visionary authors. Brimming with humor and heartache, this collection of short stories maps the roads we took to get here and the paths that lie ahead. The present may be a gift, but the future and the past both come with a price. Curated by John Joseph Adams, New York Times bestselling anthologist.

You can watch for current and past Amazon Original Stories which are usually paired with their Audible Original narrations at an Amazon page here (link goes to Amazon US, adjust for your own country or region).

[Akankshya (catching up!)]

An emotionally crushing read, building on a real story and character dynamics brilliantly, while intertwining it with time-travel. This story deals with a time-travel company and an employee who desperately wants to switch from the mundane near-past division to the future division, but keeps getting denied with no concrete explanation. The core plot is an interesting idea, although I can't help but feel that I've seen/read it many times before. I really liked the ending, but it was so, so illogical and full of holes. I feel like the author stopped just short of dealing with poignant and realistic issues about healing.

Published as a part of The Time Traveler's Passport series, I recommend picking it up without looking at the blurb, especially if you know you like stories about wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff with a strong emotional core, but are newer to them.

The Time Traveler's Passport series
3 Days, 9 Months, 27 Years: ★★★★
Making Space: ★★
For a Limited Time Only: ★★★
A Visit to the Husband Archive: ★★★★★
All Manner of Thing Shall Be: ★★★★
Cronus: ★★★★★

[Lucia]

The concept of the time-traveling salesman was really interesting. I have the feeling the logic of this time travel company might not withstand a lot of scrutiny but for the purpose of this short story it worked very well.
I really liked that the story was actually about family and relationships, and the sci-fi aspect was just a means to talk about other deeper things.

The beginning was a bit confusing until I realized we weren’t following the events in a linear way. I had a hard time following this in audio format, I think maybe reading it instead of listening might be a better experience in this case.

Other than that, I enjoyed this wholesome and bittersweet story.

Thanks to Amazon Original Stories via NetGalley for providing an ALC

[mimi (catching up)]

If “the days are long, but the years are short” was a book.

↠ 4.5 stars

Thanks to Amazon Original Stories and NetGalley, who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest opinion.

[Sarah]

Well damn. This has me bawling. Whew. We are afforded such little time and this short story is a reminder to truly stay as present as we can with the people we love. 😭😭

Thank you NetGalley for the ALC.

[Oscar]

Depressing

[Sara]

Surprisingly moving novella about a time travelling salesman and the gift a job travelling backwards in time can give to see loved ones over and over. In many respects the job itself is pretty mundane, and our narrator is desperate to move onto another department, but his discovery into why he has to keep his current job really touched me. The characters are well thought out, and although fleeting, I think this story will stay with me for a while. It gives About Time type vibes.

[LucieWolf]

¿Y ESTA LLORERA?

Cómo algo tan corto me ha podido generar esta tristeza y esta angustia, madre mía.

Iba sin esperar nada y es que me lo ha dado todo.

Una gran reflexión a que, al final del día, lo que más importa no son las cosas, ni el trabajo, es pasar el máximo tiempo posible con la gente que quieres.

Me ha roto, pero dejando por el camino un mensaje que de vez en cuando no viene mal recordar.

[tiff]

Decent!

[♡ retrovvitches ♡]

time travel but make it soul crushing. omg this one was SAD 😭😭 really well written, made me want to cry so bad

[CadmanReads]

I struggled with this one at first, mainly due to emotional whiplash from the previous story. My advice: take a short break between each story if you're listening to the full collection, as it helps each one shine. By the end, I was completely drawn in. It's emotional, clever, and wonderfully narrated.

[lorenzodulac]

I wasn’t expecting this to be so sad. This is probably my favorite short story in this collection so far. It deals with grief in a way that’s different than what you’d expect. It’s a sci-fi story, like the rest of the ones in this collection, so you’d probably expect that to be the case.
A few of Opal’s lines put me through it, they really hit. That part on burial v. cremation;
“She holds up her arm, bruised by the IV line. ‘I don’t want any more of this.’”
I’m distraught. 4.25/5⭐️ to be nitpicky.

[Lisa Wolf]

At the beginning, this short fiction seems like a fairly standard time travel piece, until the emotional impact hits and elevates this into something else entirely. Terrific story that left me wanting more.

[Allison]

Oh man, this one really dug into the feels!

[Howard]

3 Stars for For a Limited Time Only: The Time Traveler’s Passport, Book 3 (audiobook) by Peng Shepherd read by Jonathan Davis.

I was kind of surprised that a book about time travel really revolved around work and family life. It’s not bad but the time travel is just a way to look at life from another perspective.

[Brok3n]

There is nothing wrong with this story

Peng Shepherd's For a Limited Time Only is the third installment of Amazon's Time Traveler's Passport series. At 39 pages, this one is firmly in short story territory.

I found it disappointing. I can't really say why. It presents a non-trivial twist on Time Travel, without falling into any of the tired time-travel tropes. What's more, the plot twist was novel and involved time travel in an essential way. The characters are gray business suits who have mostly ordinary cares.

I am disappointed in myself that I can't explain why I didn't enjoy this more than I did. It just never caught my interest.

Blog review.

[emilybookedup]

another short story binge! i liked RF Kuang’s more than this one. this one was honestly kind of confusing to follow? and sad!!! easy to pick up and binge (less than 45 mins to read) if you want to read something quick but overall forgettable long term for me personally.

[Darnell]

I feel like this one ends where it should begin: the idea of time travel where you can't make meaningful changes, but people can still spend time with loved ones, is potentially interesting... but the interesting part would be exploring the consequences. What does this do to people, psychologically? Would it always have to be a betrayal of trust, or could people form unusual cross-time family types? This goes for surface emotional appeal and leaves it there.

[Susan]

A love story about time travel between a father and his daughter... good one.

[Hungry Rye]

2.5 stars.

Well that was depressing

[Kira FlowerChild]

Normally I'm not a big fan of stories about time travel, but this sweet, sad little tale is definitely an exception. Highly recommend.

[Maria reads SFF]

We follow Russ, an employee to a company that does time travel both in the past and future for commercial purposes. His job is only traveling to the near past.
We also follow his family and his two colleague’s family members.
The story has some strong emotional parts that pulled at my heart strings. But from a technical point of view, for me there was a major plot hole that I could not ignore.
If you can look over a fault of logic and just focus on the emotional component, this can be a worthy read.

[Jane]

Wow

Great story, thought provoking, could not wait to see how it ended. Highly recommend this amazing story. First time reading this writer

[Siân]

well this didnt go where I thought it was going... beautiful little story

[Michelle]

Such a sad book