Octavia Butler. Kindred. 1979.

Dana, a young African-American woman, is drawn into her own past as she repeatedly travels back in time to a Maryland plantation in the early 1800's. Forced into a life of slavery, Dana is soon enmeshed in the lives of her own ancestors: Alice, a free-born black woman, and Rufus, the white slave-owner whose obsessive love for Alice threatens to destroy all of them.

John Dickson Carr. Devil in Velvet. 1951.

A quiet Cambridge Don strikes a bargain with the devil and travels back in time to Restoration England. The professor assumes the identity of Sir Nicholas Fenton, baronet, rake, and swordsman. He's a man whose life is complicated by powerful political enemies, a wife, and two mistresses. And he's a man in the midst of conspiracy and murder!

Caroline B. Cooney. Both Sides of Time. 2001.

Imagine changing centuries! And, to make things worse (not better!), on both sides of time! Meet Annie Lockwood, a hopeless romantic living in the wrong century, who travels back in time to the year 1895. Annie encounters the romantic world for which she has yearned; but, also witnesses a murder. Can a trespasser in time find true happiness? This book is part of a trilogy. (Young Adult)

Jude Deveraux. A Knight in Shining Armor. 1989.

Imagine Douglass Montgomery's surprise when her tearful prayer for a knight in shining armor is granted. One problem - it's 1988 and this knight died in 1564! Together they discover a bond that defies time. Douglass is determined to help her knight regain his honor, even if it means losing him.

Daphne DuMaurier. The House on the Strand. 1969.

This is a British time travel classic set on the Cornwall coast. In 1969, our hero experiments with a time travel drug that transports him back to 1329 and the court intrigues, murders, love stories, and power struggles of that time.

Paul Ellner. A Separate Season. 2001.

A Separate Season tells about the adventures and fate of a young Connecticut farmer, Daniel Rowland, who is mysteriously transported to 1998 during the Revolutionary War.

Suzanne Frank. Reflections in the Nile. 1997.

Beautiful American artist Chloe Kingsley is suddenly thrust back to the time of ancient Egypt, and finds herself inhabiting the body of a priestess of Hathor named RaEmhotepet. As RaEm, she finds true love with the hemu-neter (first physician-priest), the handsome and noble Lord Cheftu, as they are both part of, and witness to, the biblical Jewish exodus from Egypt. Reflections in the Nile is rich in historical detail, early Egyptian language and culture. It was nominated for Romantic Times Magazine's "Best Historical Time Travel of 1998".

Suzanne Frank. Shadows on the Aegean. 1998.

This book begins where Reflection in the Nile ended. Chloe and Lord Cheftu are set adrift in "Aztlan" (or Atlantis) where both are threatened with palace schemes, passion, and a royal power struggle. They try to save beautiful Aztlan and its people from destruction, and try to find why they were sent there before they "time travel" again. Sunrise on the Mediterranean is the third book in this trilogy.

Diana Gabaldon. Outlander. 1991.

In this romantic novel, Claire Randall travels back into time to the fierce, wild Scotland of 1743. Falling in with the clan Mackenzie, Claire draws on all her wits and resources to adapt and survive, and soon her passionate love for the gallant Jamie Fraser blocks out thoughts of her former life.

Neil Gaimon. Neverwhere. 1997.

When Richard Mayhew befriends ragged and wounded Lady Door, he slips from 1990's London to London Below, a shadowy network of abandoned sewers and subway stations where pockets of time and strange people accumulate, unchanged, for hundreds of years - where the Great Beast of London lurks like a nightmare, waiting to annihilate anyone who braves the darkness of London's netherworld. Part quest, part Alice-in-Wonderland with a rough and menacing twist, this is a great adult title for young adults.

Margaret Peterson Haddix. Running Out of Time. 1995.

Thirteen-year-old Jessie and her family live in Clinton, Indiana, in 1840. Their daily lives in the frontier village are threatened when diphtheria strikes. When the village children start dying from the disease, Jessie is stunned to learn form her mother that the year is really 1996 and Clinton is reconstructed village tourist attraction. Jessie must escape Clinton to get help while facing many dangers and dealing with bewildering situations. Can Jessie escape Clinton and obtain help before it is too late? (Young Adult)

Michael Hale. A fold in the Tent in the Sky. 1998.

A struggling actor and reluctant psychic, Peter Abbott, is recruited by Calliope Associates, an elite private investigation firm. For a price, they can find a kidnapped child, hunt for buried treasure, or discover if there really was only a long gunner on that fateful day in Dallas in 1963. Also, a member of the firm is sociopath Simon Haywood who has discovered he can commit the perfect crime. How can you have murdered someone when they never existed?

Dean Koontz. Lightning. 1988.

Throughout her life Laura Shane has been rescued from perilous situations by the same mysterious stranger, whose arrival is signaled by violent lightning and thunder. While she has aged from infancy to almost 35 years, he seems to stay the same age. It's gradually revealed that he's a defecting Nazi from 1944, using an invention to travel forward to her time and return. In his efforts to save the adult Laura, he's pursued by SS agents - a pursuit that culminates in some violent shoot-outs and an eventual romantic conclusion with a twist in history.

Madeleine L'Engle. Many Waters. 1986.

Teenaged twins, Sandy and Dennys Murry, fiddle with their father's space travel experiment and find themselves thrust back into Biblical times. They become entangled in the conflict surrounding Noah's family and the Ark. This book is part of a series that includes the Newbery Medal winner, A Wrinkle in Time (1962).

Maggie Prince. The House on Hound Hill. 1998.

Emily has scarcely settled into her new house in London's historic Hound Hill neighborhood when she is confronted by a wild-eyed boy looking for a kitten with a bent tail. This is only the first in a series of encounters that draw her irresistibly back in time into one of history's terrifying moments: the great plague of 1665!

Emily is upset when she must move with her divorced mother to a new home in a historic London neighborhood. Her unhappiness soon leads to a rash of physical ailments and hallucinations that show here a time in the past. This past intersects with the present when she meets a strange young man, who takes her back to the terrifying time of the Great Plague of 1665.

Gore Vidal. Smithsonian Institution. 1998.

The story is set in 1939. Vidal imagines a museum where the exhibits come to life each day at closing time, and where the staff is working with the exhibit characters and real-life scientists, such as Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein, to develop the atomic bomb. Into this steps T., a teenage boy from St. Alban's School who has absentmindedly scribbled the key equation for the bomb in the margins of his algebra exam. When the exhibits come to life, T. joins them in their time. Thus, his after hour's wanderings find him in an old west exhibit, where he is nearly roasted alive by a group of native Americans. The woman who rescues him turns out to be Mrs. Grover Cleveland (she calls him "Veal" for the remainder of the story)! In the course of his work, T. discovers a means successfully to time-travel. T. takes on himself to alter events so that the world wars do not happen. He prevents wars in Europe; but only succeeds in moving Pearl Harbor forward by two years. This short novel (it's only 260 pages) has some great humor. Because of Vidal's sharp wit, his impressions of certain historical figures and events are sure to offend some readers!

J. T. Whitman. STR8 Bolt. 2006.

STR8 BOLT is an action-packed time travel thriller, written in the spirit of Ken Grimwood but with a 21st century "Frequency" type twist. Wyatt Colman and Jennifer Tomas began living their lives over again when they are contacted from the future through a powerful generator called STR8 BOLT, designed by Dr. Rajiv Ramakrishnan. They are given disturbing news about another time traveler and must alter their lives to change his. STR8 BOLT is a story about second chances and how the sacrifices we make impact our future.

Connie Willis. To Say Nothing of the Dog. 1998.

Poor Ned Henry has been jumping back and forth between the 21st century and pre-Blitz Britain, searching in vain for something called a Bishop's bird stump. After one too many trips, he becomes time-lagged and is sent back to the late 1880's for a "vacation". Of course, while he's there he becomes involved in an attempt to fix an unspecified problem in the time stream. Mistaken identity, near misses, literary allusions, and an impeccable comedy of manners all combines to produce one of the funniest books I've read this year.