REACHING THROUGH TIME

A distinctly romantic sensibility links three novellas exploring different forms of time travel.

Teenage Sarah awakens in the mansion of ever-so-handsome, but disturbingly otherworldly Heath de Charon. She remembers nothing, but sometimes in quiet moments she can hear the voice of another young man calling her and pleading for her return. The foreseeable conclusion detracts from the ethereal creepiness of the tale. In the second story, 16-year-old Drake, mildly disabled by cerebral palsy, takes a job in the isolated mountaintop home of a professor, where he falls in love with the man’s lovely, but unusual daughter. She won’t leave the grounds of the house, and time has an odd way of standing almost still while Drake is there. His lack of suspicion in the face of the supernatural evidence will surprise readers. The final and strongest tale portrays an edgy teen from the future, Maura, who has stolen a time machine and randomly traveled to the present, where Dylan, a teen haunted by a girl from his past, befriends her. As Maura evades the time police, she gains an understanding of Dylan’s true, though predictable, problem. Keeping the tales brief makes them relatively focused, and the varied looks at time travel are mildly thought-provoking.

McDaniel’s fans won’t be disappointed by this varied presentation, although there is little here to surprise readers of the genre. (Paranormal romance. 11 & up)