SK Webb
Roundfire Books ($20.95)

This time-travel tale entertains while offering an intriguing hypothesis for the spate of odd sightings, or UVEs (Unexplained Visual Experiences), happening across the globe. Turns out these seeming hallucinations are tears in space-time, glimpses of past ages, and one such UVE nets a bona-fide, unintentional Victorian time-traveler, Mary Stepney. While much of the story follows Mary’s adaptation to modern times via her at first disbelieving discoverer James Harvey, author SK Webb devotes a few chapters to the hypothesis of quantum physicist Professor John Beale, who attributes the UVEs to overuse of technologies utilizing electromagnetic radiation (cell phones, satellites, etc.). While this side step into quantum origin is fascinating (I’m a sucker for it, myself), the real story is the growing affection between Mary and James, an unlikely couple who overcome time and kidnapping by a suspicious government ultimately to be together.