Cara Bastone’s audiobooks have been on my favorite lists for the past few years. They are written for audio, and the sound effects add to the story, but that’s not what makes them special, it’s that her stories are basically all communication in some form. I love romances that start with texting, emails or wrong numbers and I love when couples get to know each other and fall in love before they ever even really see or know eachother in person. Maybe This Time is SciFi/Magical Realism and her previous books that I have read have all been contemporary, and you really need to suspend belief and overlook some crazy coincidences in this one, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying it.

June Flint is a painfully shy high school English teacher who is caring for her mother with dementia when solar flares cause her to fall into a wormhole and land 85 years in the future. A scientist there has her hiding out, and the only form of communication she has is her 85-year-old cell phone.

For some reason, the only person her phone connects to is Mikey Shannon, the gym teacher at the school she taught at, and the guy she avoided like the plague. He’s 85 years in the past, and in his time, it’s just a few weeks before she gets sucked into the wormhole, so he is there working with past June. Her goal is to get Mikey to keep her from falling through in the first place. But there is only one problem: Mikey can’t get present-day June to even be in the same room as him, let alone talk to him.

While future June gives Mikey hints on getting past June to warm up to him, lines get blurred and he starts falling for both versions of June.

OK, so the premise of the story is ridiculous, but it was so unique and fun! Maybe This Time was told through conversation, like Cara Bastone’s other books I have loved. Her stories are light, fun and different, and they make you feel like you are eavesdropping on a couple falling in love. It’s like you are right there listening, and you only know what you hear which makes for a different reading (listening) experience.

Likes:

•The whole story is told through dialogue.

•The sound effects and dolby atmos. It’s SO MUCH better with headphones!

•A completely different and unique storyline, as well as a unique way it’s told.

•I smiled the whole time.

•I loved both characters.

Dislikes:

•Of course with any scifi or fantasy you have to suspend belief, but here you have to do it without any world-building and way too many unexplained coincidences.

The Narration:

5++++ for the performance and the sound effects together. The production was half the fun! Headphones are a must, without headphones I sometimes thought there was annoying background sound but with headphones, you hear the details of the sounds. Zoë Chao and Noah Reid (Schitts Creek) were the main narrators, but the full cast also included: Josh Hurley, Beata Pozniak, Jim Seybert, Emily Lawrence, Tina Wolstencroft, Petrea Burchard, Joel Simler, Aaron Shedlock, Christian Barillas, Eric Yves Garcia, Alex Picard, Lorrie Grant, Andy Garcia-Ruse, Dominic Russo, and Ian Hackney.

The Down & Dirty:

Maybe This Time by Cara Bastone is another audible exclusive in the Audible Plus package. It was clearly produced to show the full potential of audiobooks in a light, easy, and fun story. I tend to rate Cara Bastone’s audible exclusive stories higher than most people, but banter and conversation are my favorite and her books are all dialogue. I loved the execution of this story, but the story itself had a few too many plot holes to rate it as high as her others even though I still had fun listening. Still, if you like a fully immersive audiobook that’s light, silly and fun, I highly recommend Maybe This Time.

Rating: 4 Stars, 0 Heat, 5+++ Narration