Time After Time [Paperback]

Sue Haasler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2002

Remember the eighties! The batwing jumpers, the puffball skirts, the dragged-through-a hedge-backwards hair! Cass Thomson does - from the heavy eyeliner to the hits of Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran, it all feels like yesterday...Cass is intrigued and a little frightened by the invitation asking her to a school reunion. If she goes, there's the possibility that she'll meet Gideon Harker, the boy Cass adored from the age of thirteen with the desperate intensity of first love. From his bleach-blond hair to his punk boots, Gideon was her ideal man, and she's never met anyone to match him, not even now that she's running a minor stately home and perfectly content with her sports journalist boyfriend, Greg. It's dangerous to go back and see what might have been: what if Gideon is no longer the romantic, soul-searching, green-eyed charmer she remembers, but a balding, beer-bellied, nine-to-fiver? But Cass just can't help herself...

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Cass Thomson has a lot on her hands in this amusing romantic comedy set on the outskirts of London. As the live-in administrator of historic Coltsfoot Hall, a family manor turned museum, Cass must come up with a financial plan to save the estate-and her own living quarters-from the clutches of real estate developers. At the same time, the current man in her life, a sportswriter who lives for soccer games, doesn't exactly light her fire. No man, in fact, has sent her reeling the way her teenage boyfriend, Gideon Harker, did years ago, when the six-foot-four hunk in black eyeliner and leather trench coat won her heart by asking her to pierce his ear. When her 15th high school reunion rolls around, Cass goes into fits of anxiety and anticipation. Haasler (Two's Company) builds suspense and piles on the pop culture references-Thin Lizzy, Wham!, The Waltons and much more-as Cass reminisces about Gideon and the rest of her early-'80s youth. It turns out that the rebel heartthrob is now in high finance, and there's an unconvincing subplot about his possible dabbling in fraud, which has him being trailed by a tiresome, hapless detective. The blissful ending will satisfy the 30-something romance-reading set, who will also appreciate the nostalgic references (though Haasler lays it on a little thick, with each section heading titled after a pop song). This featherweight, by-the-numbers effort is as ephemeral-yet curiously appealing-as the fashions it celebrates.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Cass Thomson hasn't seen Gideon Harker in 15 years, but she still thinks about him. A rebel punk with a sweet nature, Gideon captured Cass' heart when he helped her out of an embarrassing situation in math class. Now living in Coltsfoot Hall, a stately manor-cum-museum in London, as the curator, Cass is trying to keep the city council from closing Coltsfoot and selling it to the highest bidder. She has a reliable boyfriend, Greg, a sportswriter, but when an invitation to her high-school reunion arrives in the mail, Cass begins to think she might seize the opportunity to see Gideon again. The threat to Coltsfoot Hall has been getting her down, and her relationship with Greg seems stale, so Cass decides she's going to go. But her eventual reunion with Gideon isn't quite what she expects, leaving Cass hurt and uncertain about whether she and Gideon can ever reconnect. Filled with laugh-out-loud 1980s references, Haasler's entertaining romantic comedy will appeal to any child of that time. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Orion Paperbacks (August 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0752838377
• ISBN-13: 978-0752838373
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,849,940 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lyrical Story of Hope and Love, March 5, 2003

By 

Fran (Arizona, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Time After Time (Hardcover)

Cass Thomson (better known as Catherine) is all alone in the world, though single with a boyfriend, living in London, and the caretaker of an old, slightly dilapidated mansion/museum. Fifteen years previously there had been this magical person in her life by the name of Gideon Harker. He was heroic and gorgeous and intelligent and irreverent and, most importantly, someone who cared about her a great deal. But as most do, they grew up, moved on, branched out. Cass put her childhood dreams away. Then, out of the blue, an invite arrives for a fifteen-year school reunion in the northern England town of her youth. And all the loneliness that had lain just beneath the surface comes welling up. She knows she must see Gideon again - whether it is to re-ignite their love, to find a lost soulmate, or even to lay something to rest.

I liked this book from the beginning. Ms. Haasler writes beautiful prose, and creates lovely, sympathetic characters. The minor characters were likeable and they helped move the story along very efficiently. Ms. Haasler's settings are quite vivid, and the teeter-totter emotional states that the heroine goes through are just what they should be for someone exploring her past both with courage and trepidation. Did I mention the music? It certainly sent me down memory lane - and the 80s weren't even my decade!

I definitely recommend this book. I hope to read more of Sue Haasler's writings - as soon as I can find them here in the U.S.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Cute!, January 11, 2003

By 

CoffeeGurl - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Time After Time (Hardcover)

I thought this novel was cute. Set in London, Cass Thompson prepares for her fifteenth high school reunion and for the inevitable trip to Downtown Memory Lane. Even though she thought she was content with her career at an art museum and her relationship with a football-crazed boyfriend, Cass is forced to reassess her feelings and priorities, especially when she is faced with the prospect of reuniting with an old crush...

Time After Time is a cute and light read that will have you reminisce the times in which young love had begun. I liked the references to the eighties and the chapters named after songs from the aforementioned decade. This isn't the most literary work out there, but it makes for a fun and breezy read. Enjoy.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Laugh out loud..., November 7, 2004

By 

skisno "skisno" (Hollis, NH USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Time After Time (Hardcover)

Sue Hassler writes a fast-paced and witty book. I see so many books dubbed as humorous chick-lit and "bridget jones"-like. And so few of them actually do compare to the combination of unforced wit and pathos of Bridget Jones, quite frankly. This book is an exception. It stands up to Bridget Jones in humour. Ms Haasler has a light touch and manages to weave the flashbacks to the 80s and present day musings of Cass, or Catherine into a coherent and sweet story. Cass and Gideon were school sweethearts who broke up shortly before college. This is not revealed immediately, but you do know that Cass is heading to a class reunion in hopes of meeting up with Gideon so you make that assumption.

I liked the characters and enjoyed the 80's references. I also enjoyed the surfing references. Surfing on the English coast? That alone, made this book fun and different.