Time After Time

by Ginny Rorby

Twelve-year-old Daniel, under circumstances he doesn't understand, has finally made a friend. Though thirteen-year-old Theodora's life revolves around her duties as a lightkeeper's daughter in 1934, and Daniel is a lonely, bullied kid trying to tamp down his emotional upheavals in the year 2012-through a slippage in time-they've met. Theodora is intrigued by Daniel-his odd clothes and odder behavior, and with his fascination and knowledge of whales. Their lives are put in danger as they attempt to rescue a mother whale entangled in crab trap lines. When a rogue wave throws Theo from the boat, Daniel's emotions spiral. Desperately trying to save his friend, he finds himself ricocheting back and forth through time. Did she survive, as an old newspaper article says, or did his attempt to save her change the course of both their lives?

268 pages, Paperback

First published March 19, 2026

About the author

Ginny Rorby was raised in Winter Park, Florida, and lived in Miami during her career as a Pan American flight attendant. Midway through that career, she enrolled in the University of Miami to pursue an undergraduate degree in biology, graduated and changed direction again. She went on to receive an MFA in Creative Writing from Florida International University. Her goal, after wrapping up her flying career and her graduate studies, was to move someplace where she would never be hot again. She now lives on the chilly coast of northern California. Ginny is the author 6 novels for Middle Grade and Young Adults readers: Freeing Finch, How to Speak Dolphin, Lost in the River of Grass, winner of the 2012 / 2013 Sunshine State Young Readers Award; Hurt Go Happy, winner of the 2008 American Library Association’s Schneider Family Book Award. The Outside of a Horse and Dolphin Sky. Ginny is a past director of the Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference.
Her most recent novel, Like Dust, I Rise, is a Coming of Age novel set in Texas during the Dust Bowl.

Reviews

[Norma Watkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love a good time travel book, and Rorby's latest is enthralling. Theodora, a lighthouse keeper's daughter in 1934, through a series of events, is left alone to manage her father's lighthouse on the northern coast of California. Through some accident in time, she finds a strange boy wandering through her home. Daniel is from 2012, lonely and bullied, with no idea how he got back here (or how to return--one of the mysteries of the book.).
He and Theodora bond. They learn from each other, share adventures, and get in terrible trouble. I don't want to spoil the book's surprises, but trust me, you won't want to put this one down.

[Cynthia Wall, LCSW · Rating 5 out of 5]

Only Ginny Rorby could take such a complicated plotline, time travel and loneliness, history and animal activism and turn it into an educational and compassionate tale.She gets it all right: from how a therapist works with an autistic child, to the heartbreak and break up in families who have a child with genius and disability combination and make it a Page Turner. I learned so much about whales and weather and the lighthouse history. I’ll have to read it again after I loan it to all of my family. And other therapists who work with neurodivergence.