About the book, This Time Around

• Genre: Time Travel Romance / Contemporary Women’s Fiction / Romantic Comedy
• Publisher: Abalos Publishing
• Date of Publication: June 11, 2024
• Number of Pages: 286 pages
• Scroll down for Giveaway!

Most of us would jump at a chance for a do-over of our teenage years…but what if our worst mistakes lead to our happily-ever-after?

Josie Gardner’s life revolves around her amazing children and her career. But, when her husband threatens to take her kids in their divorce, and the business she’s put most of her passion, time and money into building is at risk of failing, a panic attack shatters her grip on reality… and the present.

Josie wakes up in her teenage bedroom, thirty years in the past. She’s forced to relive her emotionally devastating senior year of high school — the year she cut her father out of her life, caused one of her best friends to sever ties, and turned away the boy she loved.

Determined to get back to her children in her own time, Josie tries to fix the mistakes she made, in the hope that righting wrongs will send her back to the present. But when tempted by her high school crush Josie faces the real possibility of losing her future for good.

Would you take a second chance for love…even if it meant losing everything?

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About the author, Kimberly Packard

Kimberly Packard is an award-winning author of women’s fiction.

When she isn’t writing, she can be found planning her next trip, asking her dog what’s in his mouth or curled up with a book. She resides in Texas with her husband Colby, a clever cat named Oliver and a precocious black lab named Tully.

Her debut novel, Phoenix, was awarded as Best General Fiction of 2013 by the Texas Association of Authors. She is also the author of a Christmas novella, The Crazy Yates, and the sequels to Phoenix, Pardon Falls and Prospera Pass, and her stand-alone titles Vortex, Dire’s Club and This Time Around. She was honored as one of the Top 10 Haute Young Authors by Southern Methodist University in 2019. Vortex was the 2019 winner of the Pencraft award in Women’s Fiction, and Dire’s Club, was awarded the 2021 General Fiction of the Year by the North Texas Book Festival.

Connect with Kimberly:

Website | Newsletter | Instagram | Facebook | Goodreads | BookBub | X/Twitter | Amazon

My Thoughts

Have you ever wished you could live your life over again and make different choices? Or make the same choices but with more information? That’s the question Kimberly Packard explores in her new novel, This Time Around.

Josie Gardner is given that chance when a panic attack in response to a custody battle she hadn’t anticipated sends her body into a coma and her brain back to her high school self. What ensues is part self-examination, and part fix-it fiction, where she attempts to seed better future results into the lives of her past friends.

Does it really happen? It doesn’t really matter. Author Packard has given us a likeable, well-meaning heroine who knows she isn’t perfect, and isn’t trying to be. She just wants to be better. It’s that distinction that makes her so relatable, and makes this book suck you in. Sure, the scenes of present-Josie interacting as past-Josie are often amusing, but the emotional truth that runs through everything is what really resonates.

With snappy dialogue, a believable cast of characters who alternately doubt and support Josie, and a present-day family that knows they don’t quite deserve her, this book is a rich tapestry of people and situations.

I particularly liked that past-Josie’s closest friends were willing to believe in her even when they didn’t quite believe her. I also liked that in the present day her almost-ex husband wasn’t painted as a one-dimensional villain, but as a complex character whose intentions were good, even if the execution of them was not.

Packard has a knack for making impossible situations feel both plausible and organic, and she’s true to form with This Time Around. Overall, it’s a satisfying story, and much meatier than the blurb reveals.

Goes well with: pepperoni pizza and cherry coke.

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