The Time Table

by Caroline Mather

Jeremy Finch loses billiard balls. One stormy night, his billiard table disgorges a person known to the house’s future owner. What?

Tony Finch disappears while playing billiards in the 1850s. He reappears in the early 21st century through an ancient stone circle. What?

Is it the billiard table? The standing stones? Are the Finches just prone to time-travel, or is this about true love? These intertwined stories explore the future-and-past of The Time Table.

97 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 10, 2017

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this independently published book to review as a member of the Book Review Directory, where my blog is listed. The writing style is fluid and a little formal, which fits the setting, and the formatting is clean and error free. I read it in about an hour on a plane, and it made the flight time pass quickly.

The Time Table is about a billiard table, built from slate cut from a Standing Stone in the British Isles, which serves as a portal through which people can travel through time. The author spends just the right amount of time and effort on explaining how this works—that is, not much—and gets right to the stories, which are all set in attractive periods of English history, including the present day.

The book works well as a collection of loosely-related tales centered around the billiard table and the London house where it has been located since the early 1700s. Quite a few people end up going through the table—so many that one is a bit surprised that it’s still a secret in 2016. Overall the pacing of the stories is pretty good, never draggy, but sometimes the kissing starts surprisingly quickly and without much warning. There is a lot of kissing, caressing, and stolen, smoldery looks, but nothing more. The sexism of past ages is invariably dealt with or mitigated by the love of good men, and the table itself is always a force for good, helping its hapless humans work through their modern and not-so-modern dissatisfactions. The author’s optimism about love, relationships, the power of conversation, and the possibility of living happily ever after, is refreshing.

I don’t usually read time travel romances, so others more familiar with the genre might be less forgiving of some of this book’s foibles than I, but I found it to be a delightful break from heavier reading fare, like a tasty chocolate bon bon.

[Cyrene Olson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will admit, most time travel books I find trite and not all that interesting. This one was done in a format where it was short stories about each couple which weren’t boring. In fact, it was almost believable. I loved that she tied it all together with Larry and Dilys and the Finch family. (I have to admit I liked Tony a lot.) Unlike most time travel, there was nothing fantastic any of the characters did other than going to a different century. Ms. Mather deals with the adaptations of the one who jumps through time, and sets the stage for various romances. The only unbelievable part is the immediate acceptance of a person showing up out of nowhere who is totally different. That had me thinking, “Right! As if someone will act like it’s normal for strange people to pop out of nowhere.”
Over all, the book is one you can read Part at a time. It was fun to discover which Finch was going where and who they would meet. I give it 4 stars. As I said, the plausibility of belief was pushed too far when everyone seems to expect the unexpected and aren’t the least bit surprised when a strange person pops into their world.
Reviewed by Barbara

[Susan Berger · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love time travel (and write time travel), and this sounded like an interesting read. The Time Table exceeded my expectations. A series of short tales with one connection. A pool table fashioned in the 1600’s from a standing stone that occasionally creates time pockets. Caroline Mather deftly weaves four charming stories together, leaving room for more. I’m following her because I really want to read the sequel. Surely there will be a sequel? Five stars.