Gail Rae-Garwood

Portal in Time Gail Rae-Garwood

Jesse Reiman is an overweight, financially strapped, independent, single parent with two little girls. She passionately dreams of living in 1885. Her world is her children, the rest of her family, her job as a high school art teacher, and Victoriana...until she meets Colin Graham, that is. Older, of a different race and religion, he only wants Jesse and her daughters to share their lives with him. He realizes he knows Jesse and the children from his dreams of another time. When Jesse's children discover a time portal in the Victorian home she's recently scraped together enough to buy, she starts to believe her dreams can come true. Her 19th century neighbors have no inkling that she and the children are from the 21st century and no one from the 21st century knows of their time travel - until she tells Colin. The mathematically inclined Colin adds up the clues and figures out he may be the descendant of their 1885 neighbors. Now Jesse must choose. Does she live her dream by staying in 1885 even if it means no Colin - the man she loves who chooses not only her, but her children, too? Or does she give up her dream of living in 1885? Does one or the other choice mean she's taking a chance on never meeting the man she was meant to love? Love, time travel, family life, independence, intermarriage, intergenerational conflicts - Jesse faces it all and makes it work.