Conversation Pieces

Vol. 56 — In Search of Lost Time

by Karen Heuler

$12 $10.00 (paperback)
$5.95 (e-book)	EPUB	MOBI

Read a sample from the book.

After beginning chemo for a rare cancer, Hildy discovers an extraordinary talent—the ability to see and take other people's time. She also discovers there’s an underground market for quality time. After all, who has enough time? The dying, especially, want to get more of it, but giving it to them means taking it from someone else. How moral is she? How will she juggle the black marketers' strong-arm tactics and her own quandaries about stealing something so precious and vital that it can never be replaced?

Reviews

It's a curious story, leaving the reader with more questions than answers about what’s really going on, to say nothing of the morality of the process (not that it isn’t questioned). Hildy herself is an interesting character, recovering not just from cancer but from the death of her married lover, and the people she encounters are likewise a bit off-center. I was intrigued throughout... 
  —Locus, Rich Horton, June 2017

Author Karen Heuler's heroine Hildy discovers that chemo infusions targeting malignant lesions on her "tempora"— an imaginary area of the brain — allow her to see, manipulate, and ultimately steal other people's time. Her superpowers neither free nor cure Hildy, though. Instead, she struggles to integrate them into a humane and principled philosophy while fending off the self-interested alliances of warring would-be time-mongers. She girds herself for battle in red-heeled boots, silk head scarves, and penciled-on eyebrows, but kindness and self-reflection prove to be her most kickass weapons.   (Read the whole review)
  —Seattle Review of Books, Nisi Shawl, June 2017

ISBN: 978-1-61976-125-4 (13 digit)
Publication Date: Jul 2017
paperback 132 pages