
Rating: ★★★
Audience: Contemporary Romance + Magical Realism
Length: 384 pages
Author: Kristin Dwyer
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Release Date: March 3rd, 2026
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads
BOOK SUMMARY:
A gripping speculative romance about one girl saving her first love’s life by falling for the last person she ever should – his best friend.
Nieve Monroe is devastated after her boyfriend Carter dies saving her from drowning. Even worse she blames herself for his death… and so does his best friend, Max. He was there with them on that fateful day, and he’s never liked Nieve.
Unable to pull herself from her grief and wanting to hide from the accusation in his eyes, Nieve goes to stay with her grandmother, who has always had strange stories to tell of uncanny happenings, of magic and make believe. The next morning, Nieve wakes up on the first day of college, the year before.
This time she plans to make sure Carter never follows her into that river. She’ll do everything in her power to keep him safe, even if it means losing him in other ways. But the more distance she puts between her and Carter, the closer she gets to Max, drawn to him in ways she never expected.
But is she betraying Carter if the only way she can save him is to move on? And can she ever forget her past to embrace her future?
Kristin Dwyer’s In Time With You is a heartbreaking story of first love, loss, and one chance to change everything.

Thank you Macmillan Audio for the gifted audiobook.
YEAH I HAVE THOUGHTS.
What did work for me was the general idea of the plot. I’m not really a magical realism fan but the idea of how this operated? It was fine. And I liked the directional shift of the romance.
Now moving on to the struggles.
I’m not sure the time slip worked on audiobook. I’m sitting here writing this wondering if I got the present vs. past vs. other timelines in the correct order because there’s no delineation on the audio. And switches were happening with chapters. I’m wondering if this is easier to follow on an ebook/physical book format?
And for the romance. This book was heavy with grief and anger and trying to change fate vibes. And while valid and necessary for the story, it also overwhelmed it too. SO much of the book was focused on Nieve looking back, trying to fix things, being angry or upset about different situations that I hardly felt the hope that showed up right at the end.
I also thought the scape goat for the final moments seemed tossed in? Like how can I make this work, oh, I’ll just do this, and it didn’t work.
Unfortunately this is my least favorite of KD books but I still plan to read what she writes next.
Overall audience notes:
- Magical realism romance
- Language: moderate
- Romance: 2ish open door
- Violence: mild
- Content warnings: loss of a loved one, grief depiciton

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