8 Clever Books About Time Traveling Through History
When Sam’s plane crashes over the Atlantic, she’s the only survivor, rescued by a warship in 1805. Stranded in a time she can’t comprehend, she faces the daunting reality of hiding her true self forever.
Her situation grows more complicated when she meets her new landlady, Margaret Goodenough, an author on the cusp of writing the first lesbian kiss in British literature. As their bond deepens, Sam is torn between embracing her growing feelings and the fear of altering history in ways she can’t predict.
Can she find happiness without rewriting the past?
Time travel narratives can be some of the most fun narratives out there. Getting to experience, along with the characters, iconic time periods, historic events, or even infinite potential futures is delightful. The locations we’ve only read about, people who are key figures in our history books, events that changed the world, it’s all on the table. The opportunities are endless!
Time travel narratives can also be tense, emotion-heavy stories as characters grapple with wanting to save their present without losing their future. Maybe a tragedy befell a loved one and they’ll do anything, even ruin the future of the world, to save them. Maybe they made a mistake and will give it all up just to make things right. Maybe they’re furious and vow to get revenge, wiping their enemy out before they’ve even committed their transgression. Maybe, they’re desperate to know something good is in their future so they can hang on through hardship in the present. It’s a topic rife with emotion, tension, and often a ticking clock.
If you’re in the mood for some clever books about time traveling through history, check out these eight great reads! Whether you read them now, later, or…before, you’re sure to love them.
11/22/63 by Stephen King
Recently divorced English teacher Jake Epping is living a totally normal life. Until, that is, a friend who owns a diner asks him to come by and reveals something extraordinary: he can travel through time via a time portal in the back of the diner. Now ill, Jake’s friend asks Jake to take up his mission to prevent the JFK assassination. Jake soon agrees to step into history and into a not-so-normal life after all.
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
On her 26th birthday, Dana loses consciousness. When she wakes up, she’s no longer in 1976, but in the 1800s where a young boy is drowning in a nearby river. After saving him, she again loses consciousness and comes to back in 1976. Continuously thrown between her present and the 1800s, Dana must figure out what’s going on and why before she’s stuck in the past.
Here and Now and Then by Mike Chen
An agent of the Temporal Control Bureau, Kin Stewart travels through time on missions. After a failure leaves him in 1996, he soon settles into a new life in chronological order, marrying and having a daughter. After 18 years, though, agents come to save him and bring him back to his time in 2142. Now Kin is caught between his family in the past and the family waiting for him in the future where he belongs.
All This & More by Peng Shepherd
When 45-year-old Marsh is chosen for a reality show called All This & More, she jumps at the chance to rewrite her past. Her current life isn’t exactly ideal with a failed marriage, a distant daughter, and a career that leaves much to be desired. On the show, Marsh gets the chance to go back and do it all over again. Told like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, this one’s a clever take on the idea of time travel.
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
In 2057, Ned Henry is a temporal historian working with a team at Oxford University attempting to rebuild a cathedral that was destroyed during World War II. After one of his coworkers brings something to the future they shouldn’t have, Ned is sent back to 1888 to put things back in order. There, the mission intertwines with the effort to find out more about the cathedral as Ned adjusts to 1800s life.
The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier
When Dick’s friend, a professor, offers him his house in Cornwall for the summer, he accepts. With some convincing, Dick also agrees to take an experimental drug his friend is developing that somehow sends him back to the 14th century. There, he experiences how life was back then, finding the days full of violence exciting. As he finds his real life more and more boring in comparison, he takes larger doses to spend longer in the past. But the more he does, the more his real life is threatened.
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
A series of interconnected stories, Sea of Tranquility follows an exiled 18-year-old, a famous writer, a detective, and his friend who all experience the same moment spanning centuries when a violinist begins to play.
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
An unnamed woman is offered more money to become a bridge, someone who helps historical figures who have been saved from their own timelines, adjust to modern life. The main character is assigned to a Commander who was supposed to die on an Artic expedition in the 1800s and finds modern life baffling. Now living side by side, the pair must acclimate to each other until they find out what to do next.
I hope one of these clever books about time traveling through history catches your eye! If you’re in the mood for more time-bendy narratives, check out these time travel novels that will transport you or these romantic time travel novels!