Out of Time

by Lynn Abbey

From fantasy fan favorite Lynn Abbey, co-creator of Thieves' World(tm), comes a novel of modern witchcraft and one woman's newfound powers. The novels of Lynn Abbey are..."Brilliantly conceived."-C.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0441007511
• Release Date: July 2000
• Publisher: Ace
• Length: 311 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.8" x 0.9" x 4.3"

Customer Reviews

The Second Face of the Goddess

Lynn Abbey has always had the happy knack of writing what I wanted to read at the time I needed it. (I'm excluding her franchise work here.) This book is no exception.The main characters in fantasy works are often very young. The theme is often coming of age. This is a fantasy for the sandwich generation, the one caught between the demands of children and aging parents. The story opens with the heroine essentially an orphan. Her father, who raised her after her mother's death, has died. Romantic relationships have failed her and all she retains of her last marriage is an attachment to her step children. However, she finds herself reluctantly playing maternal figure to some troubled college kids while her mother reappears. It turns out her life is a great deal more complicated than she expected. There are going to be great demands placed on her but she is going to have great personal resources to meet these demands.Watching the heroine discovering who she is and essentially coming into her power is a positive experience. I found myself cheering her on as she copes with the unexpected burdens she finds laid on her, both magical and mundane. Of the three faces of the goddess-- virgin, matron, hag, this is the one that is shown the least and I'm very happy to have Ms. Abbey fill this lack.

Good start

Lynn Abbey makes a departure from her usual style to write a very comfortable fantasy that is based in the current time. Her characters are believable and Emma, the primary focus of this novel, is quite real in her actions and thoughts. Time travel isn't really the topic, in spite of the title. This fantasy is more about one woman's wyrd, her ignorance of it until later in life, and how learning of that wyrd impacts her and some people near her. She deals with strange teenagers who are apparently afflicted with a curse (maybe more than one), a life that seems to be going in very odd directions and, right at the end, the reappearance of her mother. Interestingly enough, her mother should have been in her seventies but appeared to be much, much younger. That conundrum is wrapped up very tightly with the teenagers' curse and her role in trying to lift the curse.The book ends abruptly and quite obviously paves the way for a sequel. This is a very good read!

Out of Time is another winner for Lynn

I thoroughly enjoyed Lynn's unique ability to blend the modern world with a fantasy world. She evens mixes in a little real ancient history for good measure. Emma travels from being a librarian to a rogue hunter and meets all kinds of interesting curses along the way.

Abbey Creates a Believable Alternate Reality

Out of Time by Lynn Abbey is one of the best new fantasy novels that I have read in a long time. Emma Merrigan, is a Librarian with a comfortable if slightly lonely and predictable life. Until she decided to help a terrified young woman who is haunted by both what we can see and what we can't. That is when Emma begins having her childhood nightmares again. Only her nightmares are manifesting themselves physically and she is losing time and waking up bloody.It really is quite a good book, it meanders a bit in a couple of places which may be off putting to some but well worth the read. The world she has created is engrossing, fresh and just believable enough (well sort of this is a fantasy novel after all) for the suspension of disbelief to occur. I eagerly await the next book.

18k fantasy

Fifty-year-old librarian Emma Merrigan lives alone in a Bower, Michigan townhouse. Emma enjoys her quiet solitude, especially after two failed marriages. When Emma was one, her mother mysteriously disappeared. For decades afterward Emma suffered from severe night traumas that have eased up in recent years.However, Emma's quiet lifestyle changes when she meets badly beaten law school student Jennifer. She provides Jennifer with a temporary home while she recovers from her injuries. The meeting sets in motion a chain of events that leads to the return of Emma's night traumas. Only this time when she awakens she sees evidence that indicate she traveled somewhere. Emma found a hidden cache of letters from her mother that tells her how to remove curses and that she has the innate ability to travel through time. When Jennifer,s boyfriend arrives, Emma believes he suffers from an ancient curse. Emma goes back in time and changes the past but she botches the job and it looks like Jennifer's boyfriend will die. To correct her error, Emma needs the help of a fellow time traveler, a person she does not trust.Imagine a contemporary drama sprinkled with a few horror and fantasy elements. This is the essence of OUT OF TIME, a very good tale. Emma is a fabulous heroine while the support charcaters augment the plot with depth. This novel appears to be the first installment of a new modern day fantasy series in which the audience remains clueless as to the overall direction Lynn Abbey plans to take in what is an enjoyable opening act.Harriet Klausner