Author: Rita Woods
Publisher: Forge Books
ISBN: 9781250805645
A woman finds herself timetraveling to her own city a century earlier. As she grapples with theeffects her travel has on her current life, she must figure out howto manage the changes without losing everything. Author Rita Woodstries to give readers a historical perspective through time travel ina book that ultimately doesn’t succeed in her newest novel The Edgeof Yesterday.
For ballerina Greer Coffeyin 2025, life is over. Once a principal dancer with a Harlem balletcompany, now all Greer can do is get out of bed in the morning andcross her New York apartment without collapsing. A mysterious illnesshas robbed her of her ability to dance, and even though her husband,Sebastian, or Bass, has tried to be supportive and understanding,Greer can sense the tension mounting between them.
Bass suggests moving backhome to Detroit, and Greer agrees with the utmost of reluctance. Whenthey return, and Bass jumps right back into his family business. ForGreer, though, it’s not that simple. Yes, she has her childhoodbest friend, Leah, and her police commissioner dad has made it clearthat his door is always open, but Greer is mourning the loss ofdance. Her one true passion is gone forever.
In Detroit in 1925,physician Montgomery “Monty” Gray is preparing to marry hischildhood best friend. His family is a part of the Talented Tenth,that most elite group of Black families dedicated to lifting up theentire Black population of Detroit through their connections andmeans. Monty, though, feels trapped. What he’s always wanted to dois compose and play music. With racial tension simmering, there isn’tmuch time for “trivial” pursuits.
On a night when he wants abreak, Monty goes for a walk and discovers a woman wearing strangeclothes in the middle of the street. She says her name is Greer andthat she’s from the year 2025. Monty scoffs, thinking she might bea little touched in the head, but when the incident repeats severaltimes, Monty knows neither of them are crazy.
Both are caught in somestrange time vortex that allows Greer to visit Monty but not theother way around. As they share the similarities and differences ofeach of their versions of Detroit, Greer and Monty form an unlikelyfriendship that will force them to make choices with permanentconsequences.
Author Rita Woods aims tobalance the Detroit of the mid-1920s with Detroit in the present dayin a novel that doesn’t do justice to either. Both Greer and Montyare fairly passive as protagonists of their own storylines. Neitherof them takes decisive action to figure out why they’re timetraveling, how to make the most of it, or even how to end it. Greergets a secondhand explanation as to the potential causes of the timetravel but never seeks answers herself, letting someone else do theinvestigative work on that end of the story.
The book takes too long toget into the crux of the main plot device of time travel. Severalchapters go by with both Greer and Monty’s thoughts on theircurrent states in life and why they’re unhappy before finallybringing the sci-fi element into the mix. Author Woods’s intentionsto highlight the Motor City seem sincere; the book, however, doesn’tcover nearly enough of it in either timeline, a shame given the manyeasy plot choices history offers.
Once the time travelingdoes start, Monty and Greer go back to being their passive selves.Monty does ask Greer questions about the state of race relations in2025, but he’s willing to accept her hesitant answers withoutpressing for more. Greer, too, only does a cursory web search ofMonty before returning to her unhappy self.
Their conversations aboutthe two timelines are glossed over, and neither seems to want to diginto the history of either version of Detroit. These missedopportunities become glaringly obvious in the sloppy ending thatleaves too many questions unanswered. The supporting charactersalmost feel like afterthoughts; one off-screen character is mentionedin Greer’s sections, only to disappear from mention or memory untilthe very end. Some readers may struggle to remember who that personis and then realize the character doesn’t have much to do anyway.
The plot offers theopportunity for too many questions that any fairly reasonable timetraveler from 2025 would have asked the minute they landed in anotheryear and century, especially of their own city. This book’s goodintentions aren’t enough to save it. I recommend readers Bypass TheEdge of Yesterday by Rita Woods.