“Willis effortlessly juggles comedy of manners, chaos theory and a wide range of literary allusions [with a] near flawlessness of plot, character and prose.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

From Connie Willis, winner of multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards, comes a comedic romp through an unpredictable world of mystery, love, and time travel.

Ned Henry is badly in need of a rest. He’s been shuttling between the twenty-first century and the 1940s in search of a hideous Victorian vase called “the bishop’s bird stump” as part of a project to restore the famed Coventry Cathedral, destroyed in a Nazi air raid.

But then Verity Kindle, a fellow time traveler, inadvertently brings back something from the past. Now Ned must jump to the Victorian era to help Verity put things right—not only to save the project but also to prevent altering history itself. "The most hilarious book of its kind since John Irving's The Water-Method Man and A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole."
--Des Moines Sunday Register

"An utter delight.  Ms.  Willis's unique, engaging voice will carry you off to a place where chaos theory makes perfect sense, time travel is a REASONABLE mode of transport, and safeguarding the fate of humanity is a respectable day job."
--Amanda Quick

"Willis effortlessly juggles comedy of manners, chaos theory and a wide range of literary allusions [with a] near flawlessness of plot, character and prose."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"I have long thought that Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men In A Boat is one of the highest points of Inimitable British Humor.  I chuckle; I gurgle; I know those three men--to say nothing of the dog.  And now I am convinced there was a woman concealed in that boat, too: Connie Willis."
--Laurie R. King