Time Lottery [Mass Market Paperback]

Nancy Moser (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 20, 2005

 

PREMISE: Who wouldn't like another shot at "the road not taken?" Three people get their wish when they win a chance to travel back into their own lives and enter a new 'Alternate Reality', or their "Alternity" a second chance at life. During one hour of clarity each will decide whether to say in their 'Alternity' or return to their place in the present, with a life made richer from the experience.

Winner of the 2002 Christy Award for best inspirational fiction in its genre... 

SYNOPSIS: The entire population of the United States waits to hear the announcement of the three winners of the new Time Lottery--where the prize isn't money but a chance to go back into their own lives and change something. Though the odds are absurd, hope is high. The spoils are too exciting to resist. Everyone can think of a time in their lives they would like to relive. Everyone has an 'if only' that hangs over them-a dream or a regret that enters their thoughts repeatedly.

The three Time Lottery winners will be privileged to travel back in time in order to relive a portion of their lives in their Alternate Reality--their Alternity. They enter the past without the burden (or advantage) of remembering what happened the first time around. Yet through the technology of the Time Lottery, they will make a different choice, and live out different results.

After one week in their pasts, the time-travelers will be given an hour of Dual-Consciousness, a condition where they will be able to see both their lives with full knowledge. At this point they will face a unique decision. They can stay in the past--where the Dual-Consciousness will fade and they will live out their lives oblivious of the future. Or, they can return to the present, their lives made richer from their experience.

And the winners are:

PHOEBE THURGOOD

Phoebe Winston Thurgood is a San Francisco socialite. She has two grown children, every material possession ever coveted, and a husband who is consumed with making money-which she is happy to spend. She has always wondered what her life would have been like if she had not become rich and idle; if she not been so weak and complacent in regards to Colin's unethical exploits; if she had not been unhappy. She returns to 1969 when she was the secretary of an ambitious new employee, Colin Thurgood, at Hopner, Wagner, and Greenfield.

ROOSEVELT HAZEN

Roosevelt Hazen is homeless.  He has a lot of what-if questions to choose from.  But will he get his chance to go back in time?  The odds are against him.

CHERYL NICKOLBY

Cheryl is a single, forty-five-year-old surgeon in Boulder, Colorado. Her one regret is that she is alone. The joys of a husband and family have eluded her. Although she's had numerous lovers, she has never found a partner. No one in her recent past interests her, but there was one guy, back in high school . . . might he be up for a little commitment if given a second chance? She returns to 1973 . . .

Meanwhile, back in the present...

Alexander MacMillan's job is to market the Time Lottery and be the liaison between the company and the winners. His association with the Time Lottery is no accident. Mac was drawn to the organization after his wife was brutally murdered, leaving Mac alone to raise 5-year-old Anthony. If only he could go back before Holly was killed....

Make sure you check out three more winners of the Time Lottery in Second Time Around, book #2 in the Time Lottery series.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Time Lottery was the recipient of a Christy Award for best inspirational fiction in its genre.

Book Description

If you could go back in time, what would you change? After winning the Time Lottery, there people will answer that question for themselves.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Barbour Publishing, Incorporated (January 20, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1593106696
• ISBN-13: 978-1593106690
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,585,370 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Nancy Moser is the award-winning author of over twenty novels that focus on the characters discovering their unique purpose. Her genres include both contemporary and historical stories. Her latest release "An Unlikely Suitor" was named to Booklist's "Top 10 Romance Novels of 2011". Both "An Unlikely Suitor" and "Masquerade" are set in the Gilded Age of New York City (see a book trailer for "Masquerade" below.) Coming out in 2012 is a Christmas/Quilt antholgy,"A Patchwork Christmas", containing three novellas by Moser, Stephanie Grace Whitson, and Judith Miller. Moser's contemporary books are known for their big-cast utilization of multiple points-of-view and intricate plotting. Some titles are "John 3: 16", "The Sister Circle", "The Good Nearby", and "The Invitation." Her historical bio-novels allow real women-of-history to share their life stories: "Just Jane" (Jane Austen), "Mozart's Sister" (Nannerl Mozart), "Washington's Lady" (Martha Washington) and "How Do I Love Thee?" (Elizabeth Barrett Browning.) Her time-travel novel, "Time Lottery", won a Christy Award and "Washington's Lady" was a finalist. Nancy and her husband Mark live in the Midwest. She's earned a degree in architecture, traveled extensively in Europe, and has performed in numerous theaters, symphonies, and choirs. She gives Said So Sister Seminars around the country, helping women identify their gifts as they celebrate their sisterhood. She paints canes voraciously, kills all her houseplants, and can wire an electrical fixture without getting shocked. She is a fan of anything antique--humans included. Find out more at www.nancymoser.com, www.sistercircles.com. and her historical fiction blog at: http://footnotesfromhistory.blogspot.com/

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The chance to go back in time..., December 18, 2002

By 

Cindy Swanson (Rockford, Illinois) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Time Lottery (Time Lottery Series #1) (Paperback)

Alexander MacMillan...successful Hollywood image maker who happens to be a born-again believer...is still reeling from the senseless killing of his beloved wife, when he gets a job offer he can't refuse: publicist for a scientific corporation that has found a way to go back in time. The bait: after a national lottery in which three people will get a chance to return to a time in their personal histories,Mac will get his own chance to do so...a chance to prevent his wife's murder.

"Time Lottery," by Nancy Moser (Promise Press,2002) explores the idea of time travel with a spiritual and scriptural twist.

The three people the lottery falls to are very different. Dr. Cheryl Nickolby is a beautiful,successful surgeon who has spent most of her life trying to exercise her control over men through a near-promiscuous lifestyle. Pheobe Thurgood is the unhappy,unfulfilled wife of a wealthy but unscrupulous businessman. Roosevelt Hazen is an elderly former preacher who has somehow ended up homeless and on the streets.

Hazen never gets his chance,though. A homeless lifelong con-artist named Leon Burke sees his opportunity to impersonate Hazen and seizes it through nefarious means.

The three lottery winners will get to go back to a specific point in their lives...an "alternate reality" that scientists believe is actually existing out there somewhere,parallell to our own "real" lives. Alexander MacMillan explains the Time Lottery experience in his role as publicist for the Time Travel Corporation: "...after exploring the way their life could have been for one week,they will be given the ultimate choice. During one hour of total clarity,they will be able to assess both alternatives: the way their life played out the first time,and the way it played out through the miracle of the Time Lottery. They will get to choose betwen staying in the past--continuing their life with the consequences of their new choice--or returning to their place in the present with a life made richer from the experience."

Cheryl goes back to her senior year in high school, determined to forge a "committed" relationship with the high school basketball star she used to admire from afar. Phoebe heads back to 1969,when her cad of a husband,Colin,first became her boss. Leon find himself back in the early 60's, when he first met a young,dedicated preacher named...Roosevelt Hazen.

What will they do differently? What spiritual lessons will they learn? Will they choose to stay in the past,or come back to the present,armed with new knowledge that will help them change their present lives for the better? And will Mac go back in time to try to stop his wife's murder?

Few books can really be characterized as "page-turners," but I found this one was. I've always been fascinated with time travel,and author Nancy Moser's handling of the subject causes it to come off as believable rather than far-fetched. The idea of being able to go back in one's own past and possibly right some wrongs is also a compelling one.

The story moves along effortlessly with the help of Moser's crisp,clean writing style and characters that spring to life on the page. Scenes switch frequently among the storylines,never giving the reader a chance to get bored.

As always in her books,Moser includes plenty of scripture and scriptural applications without being preachy or schmaltzy. The three Time Lottery winners are each faced with their need for Jesus Christ,whatever their "reality." And that's something we will all have to face....now or later.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Time travel with a Christian message--unique!, May 31, 2004

By 

Jackie Tortorella - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Time Lottery (Time Lottery Series #1) (Paperback)

I love taking a mental time travel trip and feel I've read most of the genre. I had just finished Thrice Upon a Time by James Hogan--a very theoretical hard science look at communication across time. Time lottery was kind of an opposite--light reading from the technical aspect, not believable or even plausible, and very short on theory. What this book offered was something very different. The story line dealt with the common regrets that fallible humans accrue in life, and the question of what would you do if you could go back to a pivotal time in your life and choose a different course. I feel that this theme would appeal to most people--who hasn't wished to have made a different choice somewhere along the line? Four diverse characters are main players. Their individual experiences with a "second chance" are chronicled well. All three time travelers have interesting stories and choices to make. The fourth main character is the marketing directer who is to be the next "traveler" after the initial three make their decision to either return to the present or stay in their new time line. The characterization is excellent. Woven into their very interesting situations is a Christian undercurrent that becomes the main "message" of the book. Each chapter begins with an appropriate Bible quote. There are some very valuable lessons in this book, and the author conveys them in a most entertaining manner by using some compelling characters and situations with which we can all identify. Clearly the author's intent was to impart an important message. She succeeded brilliantly. The powerful stories guarantee that the message will not be forgotten. Bravo!

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Definitely worth a read, March 22, 2003

By 

Donna B. "Shorter than a To Be Read stack!" (Raleigh, NC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Time Lottery (Time Lottery Series #1) (Paperback)

I love time travel novels.

Time Lottery follows three characters as they are given the opportunity to enter another dimension and relive a portion of their past. At the end of their 7-day experience, they are given the choice to remain in the other dimension and forget this life (their body in this reality will die) or return to this reality. One of the characters has a story that makes it apparent from the outset that the choice will be to remain. All three characters make new choices - some of them very small choices at the time - that forever change how they perceive themselves, their lives, and their place in God's world.

An enjoyable read that leaves you satisfied.