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In Another Time: A Novel
In Another Time: A Novel
In Another Time: A Novel
Audiobook8 hours

In Another Time: A Novel

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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About this audiobook

A sweeping historical novel that spans Germany, England, and the United States and follows a young couple torn apart by circumstance leading up to World War II—and the family secret that may prove to be the means for survival.

Love brought them together. But only time can save them…

1931, Germany. Bookshop owner Max Beissinger meets Hanna Ginsberg, a budding concert violinist, and immediately he feels a powerful chemistry between them. It isn’t long before they fall in love and begin making plans for the future. As their love affair unfolds over the next five years, the climate drastically changes in Germany as Hitler comes to power. Their love is tested with the new landscape and the realities of war, not the least of which is that Hanna is Jewish and Max is not. But unbeknownst to Hanna is the fact that Max has a secret, which causes him to leave for months at a time—a secret that Max is convinced will help him save Hanna if Germany becomes too dangerous for her because of her religion. 

In 1946, Hanna Ginsberg awakens in a field outside of Berlin. Disoriented and afraid, she has no memory of the past ten years and no idea what has happened to Max. With no information as to Max’s whereabouts—or if he is even still alive—she decides to move to London to live with her sister while she gets her bearings. Even without an orchestra to play in, she throws herself completely into her music to keep alive her lifelong dream of becoming a concert violinist. But the music also serves as a balm to heal her deeply wounded heart and she eventually gets the opening she long hoped for. Even so, as the days, months, and years pass, taking her from London to Paris to Vienna to America, she continues to be haunted by her forgotten past, and the fate of the only man she has ever loved and cannot forget.

Told in alternating viewpoints—Max in the years leading up to WWII, and Hanna in the ten years after—In Another Time is a beautiful novel about love and survival, passion and music, across time and continents.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperAudio
Release dateMar 5, 2019
ISBN9780062908308
Author

Jillian Cantor

Jillian Cantor is the author of award-winning and bestselling novels for adults and teens, including In Another Time, The Hours Count, Margot, and The Lost Letter, which was a USA Today bestseller. She has a BA in English from Penn State University and an MFA from the University of Arizona. Cantor lives in Arizona with her husband and two sons.

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Reviews for In Another Time

Rating: 4.157276995305164 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Spoiler alert! This review gives away the end.
    I absolutely loved this story right up until the end. It is very disappointing to me that Hannah never learns the truth about Max and the time traveling. It feels like the book is unfinished. The end just ruined it for me.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Love it for so many reasons. Such a great read!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The story really flows. It keeps interesting till the end and gives me lovely feeling inspite of the sad undertone of how nazis created a world of lies and terror. One more thing you should read this book. Never forget.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I would have given this book a 5 but I thought the whole time travel element was irrelevant and really did not add to the story. I think this whole book could have been written without that part. Other than that a beautiful and well told story. I really liked the part that discussed Hitler's rules were there to keep people safe, seems rather relevant to how many American Governor's are dictating rules during Covid to keep us safe. It is something to think about.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I loved the narrator and the characters in the book Who are highly spirited and passionate
    I also enjoyed The time traveling theme
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Meanders along and it all culminates to nothing. Too much talk about violins and not much action. Abrupt ending.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The undying love and loss and survival!it was very good
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    What a unique and fascinating time-travel/love story taking place before/during/after WW2 and in particular, Nazi Germany. The author also did an amazing job of capturing the reactions of both the victims of the perpetrators. For example, the author said something to the effect of that people didn’t “have to be” as anti-Semitic and the Nazi salute wasn’t used as often during the Olympic Games in Berlin. This choice of words shows that if Hitler suddenly decided to love the Jews, his fervent followers would do the same. No questions asked. And the victims, primarily the Jews, were either too busy living life to recognize the danger that was coming to them, or they refused to believe that evil could prevail. Reminds me of the Trump era… Anyway, all this combined with time-travel and a love story is a big winner for me.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A gripping historical novel that will tear your heart out. This has romance and a bit a science fiction tied into it, but those who love historical novels and romances will certainly be captivated by this read. Be prepared with some tissues in hand.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Lovely reading. Strong and vibrant Hanna. She follows her heart and her passions even if she have all reasons to give up.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Hanna wakes up in a field where she has no memory of her life for the past decade - she remembers nothing about World War II or immediately after. The one thing she does remember is that she loves Max, and she is unsure of what happened to him.

    Hanna and Max meet by happenstance as he enters the auditorium where she practices her violin. They quickly fall in love and dream about spending their life together. Hanna, a young woman who happens to be Jewish and Max, a Christian begin a love affair that will alter their lives.

    There is an interesting turn of events in the story that I am still unsure how I feel about. It seems like an odd way to add sci-fi to a historical fiction genre book and it left the ending a little rushed and unsatisfying.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    It only took me a day and a half to read this book. It is reminiscent of The Time Traveler's Wife. The story is told from two POVs, Max and Hanna and alternates between pre WWII to the years after the war. It is a story of love, music and survival. It is told beautifully with characters that will tug at your heart. I was totally enthralled.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Oh my!!! I have just concluded reading Jillian Cantor's novel, "In Another Time". What an original, tragic, mind-blowing, surprising effort. I love her prose, her "voice" if you will. After the first page, I felt a connection. I felt as if I were sitting with Jillian over a cup of coffee (with Amaretto cream) and hearing the passion in her voice, hearing the lilting strains of the violin, as she slowly revealed the drama of Hanna and Max. What a love story! I am adding Jillian's other novels to my TBR list. What a writer she is!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Interesting book.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I’m a sucker for historical fiction books around WWII and this one did not disappoint! It pulled at my heartstrings all the way through. I was really hoping for a different ending, but completely understand the direction it took. I will be looking up more by this author because I really enjoyed this one.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Another tragic, heartbreaking, but ultimately uplifting story about the devastation that WWII and the Nazis caused. It is told in alternating POCs and time periods with Max's taking place in 1931 before the war and Hanna's in 1946. This is the second book this year I've read where the main character was Jewish in Nazi Germany and also a violinist. It makes me curious to know if this was common. Highly recommend for fans of WWII historical fiction.I received an advanced copy through LibraryThings Early Reviewers in exchange for an honest review.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    In Another Time is both Historical Fiction and Sci Fi. The odd thing about the story is how long it takes to reveal it isn't exclusively Historical Fiction. It's the story of a romance between a German man, Max, of Christian descent, who doesn't care much about religion and a German woman, Hannah, who is Jewish and does. The book starts in Germany, during the years leading up to World War II. It speaks to the politics existing during that period of Germany's history and how so many of the German people reacted to the calls for hatred. At first Max isn't affected by the bigotry of the time and place, but his bookshop is near a bakery owned by a Jew. The baker is affected, especially during kristallnacht. This is important for Max, not only because of his sympathy for his neighbor, but also because it teaches him about the hatred Hannah will experience.As I mentioned, it takes a while before the book's narrative makes it clear this is also a Sci Fi story. I think it helps to know there is something unexpected coming, but not to know what it is, so I won't get into the details.Another aspect of In Another Time I enjoyed is that Max is not Hannah's first love. She is in love with her violin and was for years before she met Max. Fortunately, Max also love's Hannah's music. They would make a perfect pair, if it wasn't for government sponsored intolerance. In Another Time is a page turner and very hard to put down.Steve Lindahl – author of Motherless Soul, White Horse Regressions, Hopatcong Vision Quest, and Under a Warped Cross.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is well written and a page turner hard to put down. It is very intense emotionally. The reader can almost feel the emotion of the main character's love of playing music. The main character is complex, and torn between her love of music and love of several men, as well as hardships, discrimination, extreme danger, and even memory loss. I found it stressful to continue reading. It ends like many nonfictions, without a simple "happy ever after" ending. However, there are no major loose threads at the endI give it 4 stars instead of 5 because at this stress level, I would have expected a nonfiction, not a fictional plot. Other than that, it is an absorbing read with what is probably a very realistic accurate setting. The author does discuss the specific accuracies in the "author's note" after the conclusion of the book. Others, with more armor against the emotion of the story, will rate this a 5 star.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I thought that I would like this book more than I did. Most of my review contains spoilers, so be forewarned. It became pretty clear pretty fast that there is time travel involved in this book. Max has a closet in his bookshop with a secret: he can use it to transport people, including himself, into the future. The only problem is that he knows that the closet probably killed his mother (I'm assuming cancer) and likely his father (who dropped dead of a heart attack at a young age). But Max, who is in love with a Jewish violinist named Hanna, is determined to use the closet to help her to escape to another time, where she will be safer. (He also uses it on a few Jewish friends, to get them to safety.)It seems for most of the book that Max did just that - when we "meet" Hanna, she is in a field in 1946 with no memory of the last ten years. We learn at the end, however, that Max didn't "save" Hanna; she saved herself, with her violin. She spent the war in a camp, kept alive for the camp orchestra. I wasn't too surprised by the ending, because Hanna had some dreams and flashbacks that made the reader think that maybe time travel wasn't involved for her after all (she has recurrent dreams about an SA soldier telling her to play like her life depended on it because it does, for example). Only Max seemed surprised; he had spent the prewar years thinking that he was going to be the one to save Hanna.I liked that Hanna saved herself. But I didn't like that Max never got a chance to really explain to her about the closet or what he had done. Max eventually finds her in the 1950s in America, but much like his father, he dies at a young age, likely because of the effects of time travel. I kind of felt cheated with his death - the whole time their romance was played up and developing before our eyes, and I got a little invested in it, I admit. So when he just dies unexpectedly, I wasn't too thrilled. It's not like I regret reading the book, because I don't, but I wouldn't really recommend it, either.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    About a third of the way into this book, I had two concurrent thoughts: what the heck is a science fiction time travel plot doing in a historical fiction novel? and I can't stop reading now. Genre-mixing aside, this novel is primarily historical fiction, set in Germany during the 1930s and Europe after WWII. The main characters of Max and Hanna meet and fall in love in a small suburb of Berlin, but their relationship is complicated by the rise of the Nazi party and the restrictive laws that encroach on the life they had hope to build together. Max, however, has a secret weapon up his sleeve, or rather, in the closet of his bookshop, which allows him to travel into the future. Overall, I greatly enjoyed the story and the time travel aspects gave the plot a extra twist of the unexpected.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The author gives a beautifully written story that spans decades, and countries, all the while focusing on a couple that love one another, but in a time that it wasn’t allowed.This is a historical novel and brings the times alive in such a real way, and we put faces to these individuals. Can’t you just picture someone not wanting to leave the only home they have ever known, telling themselves it will be ok, only it wasn’t!Up front I am not a lover of sci-fi, but given this time period, if it were only true, and would I wish for more to have it, yes! Love how it was woven into this book.While I might have yearned for a different ending, I so enjoyed this book!I received this book through Edelweiss and the Publisher Harper Perennial and was not required to give a positive review.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Would you have left Germany in the years leading up to World War II? It's easy to sit at this historical remove and declare that you would have seen the imminent danger and the toxic, spreading hate and left. But so many people didn't leave. For those with the money and the ability to go, especially the Jews with the money and ability to go, why didn't they? What kept them tied to a Germany becoming increasingly hostile to them? Jillian Cantor's newest novel looks at one young Jewish woman who chose to stay and the young Christian man who loved her and vowed to protect her.In 1931, when bookstore owner Max Beissinger stumbles into the wrong auditorium at the Lyceum, he is transfixed by the magical violin music he hears and the lovely young woman playing it. Despite her horror at his accidental intrusion on her practice session, they eventually come together and fall in love. Their road is not an easy one though. Hanna is a Jew and Max is not. Max disappears for weeks and months at a time with no contact beyond a simple goodbye letter, never telling Hanna where he has been nor inviting her to join him. But they manage to come back together each time something tears them apart, seemingly fated to be with each other, in defiance of the rising anti-Semitism as Hitler gains more and more power. Max begs Hanna to leave Germany as freedom after freedom is curtailed but she refuses, saying that she is a German, Germany is her country too, and as an aspiring concert violinist, she will come to no one's notice. Max worries until he opens a forbidden closet in his bookstore. What's inside convinces him he can keep Hanna safe.When Hanna opens her eyes in a cold field in 1946, she is convinced that she had just been in the bookstore with Max when four SA men broke into the shop. How she got to the field and where Max is are both mysteries. In fact, it's been a decade since that night and she has amnesia. Taken in by a kindly nun and then her older sister who thought she'd died in the Holocaust, Hanna struggles with the missing decade of her life and whatever happened to Max. Her violin is the only thing she has to hold onto and she works towards making a living as a musician even as it strains her relationship with her sister. Healthy in body but with her traumatic amnesia seemingly permanent, she has to bring herself back to life through the music that still lives within her. She will always love Max, searching for him in the memories she cannot access, playing her violin like fire, and finding the passion within her.The novel is told moving back and forth in time between Max and Hanna. Hanna's story only starts in 1946 as she tries to build a new life without knowing her past. Max's chapters start in 1931 and tell the story of the two of them meeting and falling in love as Max tracks Hitler's rise. Nothing that Max tells illuminates Hanna's missing years, leaving the reader as in the dark about her whereabouts during the war as she is. He tells of the years of their pre-war relationship and the reason behind his occasional months long absences that threaten to break them up. But he never tells Hanna why or where he's gone thinking she will never believe him. Their two stories work towards a crescendo of memory, loss, and enduring love in their two different timelines.Cantor knows how to write engaging stories and this is no exception. Max and Hanna's relationship is occasionally volatile but their love feels real and strong. The mystery of Hanna's missing ten years and Max's whereabouts underpins almost the entire story and the reader is eager to find out the answers to these two questions as well as whether they can find each other and be together "in another time." There is a speculative fiction piece to the story that feels out of place in this otherwise captivating novel. This piece is underdeveloped and comes rather out of the blue. It does offer another potential answer to Hanna's missing years but it sits strangely beside the otherwise realistic and emotional story of two lovers facing the coming danger of the Holocaust. Hanna and Max are well drawn and the secondary characters anchor them in time and place. This is a well-written and affecting, very different look at both pre-war Germany and post-war London and Europe and the people whose lives were rent apart by a terrible war.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Lindas Book Obsession Reviews “In Another Time” by Jillian Cantor, HarperPerennial, March 2019Jillian Cantor, Author of “In Another Time” has written an intense, captivating, emotional, intriguing, enthralling, poignant, and beautifully written novel. The Genres for this novel are Historical Fiction, Fiction, Romance, and a little Science Fiction with Time Travel. The timeline for this story is between 1931 and 1946. The timeline does go to the past or future when it pertains to the characters or events in the story. The author describes her interesting characters as complex and complicated. In this novel, Jillian Cantor has layered a story with love, war, music, books, family, loss and hope.Max Beissenger, a book store owner first meets Hanna Ginsberg, a talented concert violinist in 1931. Max is immediately drawn to Hanna, and feels her music can be compared to fire and passion. The two are like magnets and are attracted to one another. As time goes on in Germany, it becomes apparent that Hanna is in grave danger, because she is Jewish.Max has a secret special closet in his store and home, and he is certain no one could possible understand what it means. Max leaves for months at a time, and is convinced that he can save Hanna.With Hitler in power, Germany is a devastating place for any Jew. In 1946, Hanna finds herself in Berlin near a church. She has no memories of the last ten years. The amazing thing is that Hanna does have the memory to play the violin as well as before. What has happened in the last ten years? What has happened to Max? I highly recommend this amazing novel to readers who enjoy a thought-provoking and well written story. I received an ARC from Edelweiss for my honest review.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    In Another Time, by Jillian Cantor is a historical novel set before and after the Holocaust. It is a serious story of a young Jewish violinist who falls in love with a non-Jewish bookseller. Told in alternating viewpoints by the Hanna, the violinist, in first person, and Max, the bookseller in third person, the story goes from the early 1930's in Berlin and its outskirts to the 1940's and 50's in various places that Hanna resides. The tone of the novel is well set to the era and the characterizations and personalities are believable. The author's research about the era is incorporated with accuracy. The novel works as a love story of star-crossed lovers. However, and a big however, you must be prepared to suspend credulity to give credence to the far-fetched and contrived premise of time travel that is incorporated into this story. It just didn't work for me. This is not a whimsical fantasy with a bit if magic, (I occasionally read those sorts of books) but a sober story during Hitler's rise to power and the aftermath of World War II. Also, the novel explores Hanna's dream of becoming a concert violinist and speaks of the power of music and the violin in Hanna's life. While integral to the story, I thought there was far too much repetition about her feelings for the violin. Overall, it did keep me reading so I could learn the fate of the lovers.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The essence of time and the power of love are the central theme of this haunting love story. Alternating between the early days of pre-war Berlin and the post-war cities of Europe, the main protagonists, Max and Hanna, meet, fall in love, and search for each other while trying to overcome the obstacles placed in their paths. The horrors of war cannot diminish the strength of their love and the determination to find and embrace their emotional journey. Enjoyable read with an unpredictable ending.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    As usual, I'm drawn to novels that feature musicians as main characters, so In Another Time was a book I went into with a positive attitude. Once I started, I could not stop reading. The combination of an interesting story and beautiful writing made the book difficult to put down.Hanna Ginsburg is an aspiring young Jewish violinist in 1930's Germany who falls is love with Max, who is not Jewish. Hanna wakes in a field in 1946 with no recollection of the previous 10 years. Chapters alternate before and after the war, with the later time period from Hanna's perspective in first person. The chapters that take place as the Nazis come to power are chilling, as we see, in hindsight, the hints of what was to come (and the parallels to the rise of anti-Semitism in recent times). The post-war story is also poignant, as Hanna reclaims her life, her memory, and eventually her love. The ending is bittersweet, but very fitting.There are some plot threads that hang, and there is an underdeveloped element of time travel that added a considerable twist. This author is new to me, and, based on reading this, I will be looking for other of her works.Thanks to Harper Collins and LibraryThing Early Reviewer for the opportunity to read and review this book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This seems to be the year for historical fiction about young Jewish female violinists in Nazi Germany. (See my review of The Girl From Berlin by Ronald Balson.) It is probably a rational approach to creating a Jewish protagonist who survives, because those who could dazzle the Nazis with music had a better chance of making it through the camps, at least for a while.This story has an additional twist, however, involving - oddly enough, time travel. The time travel aspect is not well developed at all, and leaves open too many questions. I thought the author could easily have omitted it. Hanna Ginsburg is the main narrator, and we first meet her in 1958. She is playing first chair violinist in an orchestra in New York City. She played since she was six, and always loved the violin more than anything, until in 1931 at age 19 she met Max Beissinger, a book shop owner who was not Jewish. He fell instantly in love with Hanna. Hanna soon reciprocated his feelings, but their relationship became more problematical after the Nazis came into power in 1933. Not only did anti-Semitism become official policy of the German government, but in September, 1935, the “Nuremberg Laws” banned marriage between Jews and non-Jewish Germans. It also criminalized sexual relations between them. These relationships were labeled as “race defilement” (Rassenschande).Max had wanted to marry Hanna, but now that was out of the question unless they escaped. But Hanna did not want to leave her symphony. In any event, after November, 1938, most escape routes from Germany vanished. Late on November 9, 1938 — in what became known as Kristallnacht, the "Night of the Broken Glass,” Jewish shops, schools and homes were smashed and burned by German civilians and Nazi storm troopers. Kristallnacht was followed by additional economic and political persecution of Jews, and it is viewed by historians as the beginning of the Nazi's "Final Solution" and the Holocaust.Max had one ace up his sleeve: his secret closet, which enabled any who entered it to travel into the future. Max had gone into the closet several times; he could not control when he returned, and he and Hanna had numerous fights over his disappearances. He did not tell her about the time traveling because past experience had shown him no one would believe him.By 1936, Hanna, being Jewish, was no longer allowed to play in the symphony and Max had convinced her they had to leave. Then one night at Max’s bookstore, the Nazis showed up to arrest them, and it was too late.Hanna awakened in a field in 1946, ten years later. Did she enter the closet with Max? Did Max survive? Ten years are missing from her memories, and it takes the rest of the story before we find out the answers to these questions.Discussion: There are some elements of the plot barely developed, and some plot lines dropped. Nevertheless, the main story about what it was like to live through the growing terror of Nazi Germany is worth reading. And it certainly provides a bittersweet thought experiment: what if Jews had a way to escape to another time?Evaluation: The story is absorbing, in spite of some loose threads in the plot. The book also provides yet another way to understand why Jews didn’t leave Germany before it suddenly became, unbelievably to them, too late. The author says in a note at the end of the book that part of what inspired her to write this book was the 2016 election. This too was similar to the author’s note at the end of another book I recently read, The Ragged Edge of Night by Olivia Hawker. Hawker said she wrote her book about Nazi Germany after the election of 2016 showed her that history can repeat itself, recalling:“As I watched the U.S. I thought I knew devolve, seemingly overnight, into an unrecognizable landscape - a place where political pundits threw up Nazi salutes in front of news cameras, unafraid - a place where swastikas bloomed like fetid flowers on the walls of synagogues and mosques - I knew the time had come.”Interesting how many books about the rise of fascism, both non-fiction and novels, have been inspired by the Trump Era.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    With thanks to LibraryThing for the chance to read “In Another Time”.Unfortunately I recently read”The Girl From Berlin”by Ronald Balson and couldn’t help comparing the two stories. Both young women were Jewish and committed to their violins and in relationships with German men. The stories were actually very different but shared the same time frame in Hitler’s Germany. The premise of time travel set this novel apart and added another dimension to Ada and Hanna’s stories.I enjoyed this book and will pass it onto my reading friend.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Interesting combo of time travel, music, the set-up to WWII, and a love story.My thanks to LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program and the publisher for sending me my copy of the book.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book is told in alternating viewpoints and goes back & forth between before and after World War II. Hanna meets Max before the war and falls in love with him, but they have two things going against them..... Hanna's first love is her violin, and Hanna is Jewish and Max doesn't practice any religion. I absolutely loved this book. I wanted to see their relationship succeed and I wanted Hanna to be able to have a permanent position with an orchestra. The storyline kept me engrossed and I couldn't put the book down. I highly recommend this book.