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A sequel to the author’s debut time travel adventure, Sara Found it First, this young adult novel stars Meredith Byers, an octogenarian near the end of her life who is fast losing her memory. One evening in 2018, she reaches out to shut off her shower faucet in Bristol, Rhode Island, and finds herself standing near a stone wall under a waterfall in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in late June 1863. Discovered behind Rebel lines by some Union scouts, she soon discovers through their admiring glances that she’s an attractive young woman again. Meredith, a former surgical nurse, shakes off her confusion, telling herself that God must need her there. Soon she’s recruited to work with a Union company surgeon, patching up both Union and Confederate soldiers during the bloodiest battle of the U.S. Civil War.
This story may interest time-travel enthusiasts as well as historical fiction aficionados. The simple prose and short chapters create a fast-moving story. Although the prologue and the brief back story chapters provide some useful information to the overall tale, the real meat of the book begins in Part II. Meredith and her nineteenth-century companions are the most compelling, captivating, multidimensional characters by far, and once the story is infused with her viewpoint, it flows with the heartfelt sentiment that the preceding chapters lack. The story continues beyond the war into more peaceful, settled times during the reconstruction era, when Meredith stays on in Gettysburg to work with the local doctor, and an old friend with love on his mind re-enters her life. Years later, in 1892, the cause of Meredith’s time travel adventure finally becomes clear in this tale of romance, war, and new beginnings.