This Time, Forever
by Constance O'Day-Flannery

Rated 3.5
Copyright 1990
Reviewed 5/31/97 by Isolde W.

Is there anything worse than being an excluded person in your home town? Meggy Gilbride knows the people in her district will never forgive her for becoming pregnant without being married. Her baby died but she has to live with her "disgrace".

Meggy lives with her brother Brian in a little town where all the men work in the coal mine. The working conditions are very hard and Brian ask Meggy for her help. She should smuggle dynamite into the company office to blow up it. Brian fights together with others against the owner of the coal mine for changing their wages. Meggy agrees to his suggestion, dress up like a nun, and brings the dynamite into the office. She can't leave the building quickly enough and the explosion sends her into another time.

Meggy is now sitting in an airplane 115 years later. Next to her sits a very good looking man. Meggy is sure the "airship" brings her into heaven and the man beside her is her angel. Soon she realizes that she hasn't died.

Thomas Carter is nervous about the nun and that she doesn't want him to leave her. After an accident he takes her to his flat and invites her to stay with him until he finds her order. After a while Tom is fascinated by Meggy. He is sorry that she is a nun and Meggy doesn't dare tell him the truth.

After their first common trip into the past (Tom must learn to work in a coal mine and the people don't see Meggy because they believe she has died) they start to fall in love. Can there be a future for both while they travel from time to time? And what will Tom do if he finds out the true about Meggy?

This story goes to your heart and you need a box of Kleenex to overcome the end of the book. However you can be sure -- there is a happy end for Meggy and Tom.