Most of us read to escape our everyday lives, hoping to find ourselves in the magical world of “what if”. Whether it be science fiction, fantasy, mystery or romance we want to be surrounded by a whole new world of possibilities. Time travel brings its own set of “what ifs”: what if you could time travel, where would you go, when would you go, what would you want to experience when you got there? Then there are those thoughts of what if I did something to change the future? Would the future as I know it be there when I return? Then of course there’s a fear that maybe you couldn’t return; could you live the rest of your life in a primitive world? In Kathryn Meyer Griffith’s Egyptian Heart, one woman is faced with those very questions. What would you do?

There is a common belief that there is a special someone for everyone. We all live in the hope that we will find that exact person. Most of us spend our lives wondering if we found our special someone or continue to look. What if your better half existed, but not close by, what would you be willing to do to be reunited? This is the question Peter, the hero of R.R. Shelsky’s novel, faces in Lost Echoes.

Speaking of magic – sometimes magic threads its way throughout a time-travel story, and sometimes all it takes is one touch of magic reality that transplants someone to the new time and place that presents the setting and challenges. In Christina's Tapestry, there is a single device, a magic tapestry "created by a sorceress long since passed on," the purpose of which is "to draw back mates for the men of the land of Javara since women here are in such short supply". Marc and Jarek of the house of Garen are certainly of interest — I bet you will pick up on which one Christina prefers the instant they're introduced.

Phoebe Turlow thought she was doing rather well after her recent divorce. Even when she lost her job as a research assistant because the professor was retiring after forty-five years teaching. But when her dog turned traitor, running away to the ex's house, Phoebe decided she'd taken all she could take. So when she got a tacky advertisement in the mail, offering "sunshine" and "crystal blue seas," she figured there wasn't anything left to lose. She was off to two days and nights on Paradise Island-home to the infamous pirate, Duncan Rourke. Phoebe needed to get away. Where better than Paradise?

Keighly Barrow was seven-years-old when she first discovered the secret of her grandmother's ballroom mirror. The first time Keighly saw him, the boy was in a saloon, surrounded by cowboys and women in low-cut dresses. She saw him several more times as the years went by. Now Keighly was all grown up. Her grandmother had died, leaving Keighly her mansion-with the memorable ballroom. Struggling to decide if she should marry her fiancŽ-a man she knew she didn't love-Keighly headed back to Redemption. Maybe, if she was lucky, she'd see her friend in the mirror again. He'd always been her greatest comfort, and she really needed him now.

Allie O'Shea, dumpy little academic linguist that she was, thought someone was kidding her when a member of the CIA showed up in her office to recruit her to translate for a defrosted man being reanimated in Alaska. As much as she hated air travel, she flew to the secret base above the Arctic Circle. Before she could so much as draw breath, she, in a leather dress, leather boots and sporting a bear claw necklace, was "alone" in a reconstructed pseudo-Viking longhouse with a nude two thousand-year-old man, waiting for him to waken so they could talk. He was not a tall man, but had a commanding physique which Allie found irresistible.

Being the winter house-sitter of a beautiful lake shore property in Maine was great for Melodi Mason. She could have peace to finish her doctoral dissertation on early Eastern Woodland Indian culture and do her friend Judy a favor at the same time. One day, Melodi was down by the lake and heard a haunting, yet beautiful melody come to her from across the water. It grew in volume until it was suddenly blasting inside Melodi's head, causing her to pass out.

Frances Matthews, declared by Forbes magazine as the "21st century's financial wunderkind," was bright, intelligent and driven. With a figure that could turn a man's mind to mush, Frankie was shorter than most women, barely clearing five feet. Her commitment to everything she did more than made up for her lack of stature, though. Orphaned at the age of six, Frankie was taken in by her aunt and uncle at Craig Knoll. At the age of twenty-nine, she decided to move her financial business there to be closer to her family, only to discover that the place was reputedly haunted. Having since long ago buried her romantic soul deep inside of her, she found the rumor of a ghost ridiculous--until strange things started happening to her.