Carolyn Rose’s A Love Through Time would have been a far better story had it not been “through time.” The time travel aspect weakened the story considerably, since it really didn’t work. There is also a serious lack of chemistry between the hero and heroine, and some problematic believability issues. Despite these flaws, however, the book has a good, solid, and suspenseful plot, albeit one that takes a while to build up any sort of steam.

Peg Malone has just arrived in Berlin, on a vacation that was apparently forced on her by her parents. They hope the vacation will help her to recover from the loss of her grandfather, Poppy, a one-time inhabitant of Auschwitz. If this doesn’t make much sense to you, you’re not alone. She finds herself alone in Berlin at night, and in the rain, and is given directions back to her hotel by a mysterious man English-speaking man dressed in black who walks away and promptly disappears from the story forever. These directions lead her over a bridge in the dense fog that has sprung up, and she suddenly realizes that she can no longer hear sounds of the modern world. She sees a house ahead, and enters to find a soldier wearing a Nazi uniform, injured and unable to move. She immediately accepts that she has been thrown back in time to World War II, and sets about tending to the soldier’s wounds, despite her strong feelings about Nazis.

Thomas Heiden has just deserted the Nazi forces. Shot by his former comrades, he stumbles into an abandoned house, and passes out in the living room, only to awaken to find a strange but beautiful woman tending to his injuries. She seems secretive and unwilling to let him have his gun, which makes him reluctant to trust her. But he’s got secrets of his own, and he’s not really willing to share those with Peg either.

After a few weeks of this mistrust and these adversarial attitudes – which drag terribly for both the characters and the reader – they are forced to come clean with each other. He reveals that he is a deserter, she admits that she is from the future. They are discovered by German forces, and Thomas shoots two of them in their escape. They run to Potsdam, where Thomas’ aunt Kat takes them in. One of Rudolf Hoess’ mistresses, she would seem to be the enemy, yet she takes them in without question, confident of her ability to protect them. They fall in love, and he reveals his deepest secret – a “surprise” regarding his ancestry. Kat can’t protect them forever – especially after Thomas learns that his mother is in danger. He leaves, and Peg finds herself alone – and pregnant.

Right about this point, the story begins to have some real tension. Despite the fact that the characters have no sexual chemistry, and the little emotional chemistry that exists doesn’t really appear until late in the book, their furtive struggle to be together lends a suspenseful quality to the book, which is sadly lacking in any other interesting qualities. However, there is also a distinct lack of realism as the characters continuously confide in nearly everyone they meet, and not a single person seems seriously inclined to turn them in, a rather unlikely circumstance, given the paranoia of Nazi Germany.

The unrealistic quality is heightened by the extreme coincidence of them finding (and naturally trusting in) an older couple in Dresden, who just happen to be able to help them. Furthermore, when the couple speak of the mysterious bridge where the fog makes people disappear, Peg automatically assumes (rightfully, as it turns out) that if she goes into the fog, she will resurface in her own time, as apparently the bridge only exists between 2001 and the 1940’s. The one element during this part of the book that really shines is Peg’s frantic attempt to get herself, Thomas, and the old couple out of Dresden, which she knows to be doomed by the inevitable and constant air raids which will eventually flatten the city. In this instance (and only in this instance) the time travel element truly works for the plot.

Peg is a fairly decent character, even though she makes assumptions and decisions that a normal person probably wouldn’t. However, we have very little info about her. We’re given no other details about her other than that she’s an RN who has just lost her beloved Poppy. We never hear who or what she misses. She seems a tabula rasa.

Similarly – and even more problematically – we know next to nothing about Thomas. By the time his secret is revealed, it’s already been strange that, unlike Peg, he has yet to have a political thought. As a deserter, this seems highly unlikely. His decision to leave the army, by the way, came about because they wouldn’t allow him to attend his fiancée’s funeral. Not because of any deep-seated political or ethical misgivings. Once we know more about him, it seems even more improbable that he has no thoughts about the Nazis, other than that they are suddenly the enemy. We don’t know if he regrets any of the things he did as a Nazi soldier (whatever those may have been), or why it took him this long to desert. We don’t see very much through his eyes, and this makes for a lot of questions about him as a character, none of which are answered.

Between the extreme unlikelihood of many of the plot elements, and the poorly developed characters who don’t relate all that well to each other, this novel has a long way to go toward being a good romance and especially toward being a good time-travel romance. However, the tension of the later part of the book signals that in time, Ms. Rose may become an author to watch. Until then, however, pass on this one.