Spring, 2020: High school senior Gracie Ingraham hasn’t time traveled in ages. It’s crazy enough living through the scary first months of the Covid pandemic, going to school on Zoom, and being quarantined with your best friend Zoey—and your ex-boyfriend Dylan. But suppose you start slipping into the past again in the middle of all that?
October, 1962
It's almost Halloween, but something a lot scarier than ghosts is on everyone's mind: nuclear war. After President Kennedy's speech to the nation about the Cuban Missile Crisis, Grace Ingraham overhears her parents' plans to keep her safe. She'll be sent off to live with a wealthy uncle—in the nineteenth century.
Just over a year ago, Bean and Zak headed for colleges two thousand miles apart, promising to write, but to see other people … until Bean fell for the wrong guy and Zak fell off the planet.
Now, Bean’s got two weeks’ worth of Zak’s year-old letters that she still can’t bear to open—and a broken heart.
Summer 1970: Bean Donohue’s sixteen, she’s finally got a good band together, and she’s crazy in love with her artist boyfriend Zak. She’s also about to get the coolest summer job ever, and her impossible mom’s conveniently out of town. So why does she keep ending up in 1953…or 1779? And who's that guy with the black ponytail and the Kent State t-shirt? He knows way too much about her.
It’s not easy being Bean. Bean Donohue lives for her guitar, but her mom threw her out of the house during a snowstorm for singing. No way she’s going to get permission to go see The Grateful Dead at the Fillmore East.
Zak, her almost-boyfriend, will get drafted if he doesn’t get into art school, pot makes Bean paranoid, and her best friend can’t stop talking about sex. 1970’s not for wimps.