Soulmates across time. Two souls connected by destiny.In present day, Jake, lonely and cut off from his parents, travels to the Chamberlin Inn in Cody, Wyoming to work on extra credit for his college seminar. In 1932, Sebby labors at the Chamberlin Inn for pennies a day, wishing with all his heart for a better life. While taking photographs in the room where Ernest Hemingway once stayed, Jake is … Hemingway once stayed, Jake is flung back in time to the year 1932. There he meets Sebby who is living on the edge, half starving, a victim of the Great Depression. He’s been dodging rent collectors, getting behind on doctor’s bills, trying to care for his ailing Pop.
Sebby falls hard for Jake with his movie star smile, but knows something is different about him. Jake wears strange clothes, talks too fast, and doesn’t look like he’s gone hungry a day in his whole life. He’s also the handsomest boy Sebby has ever seen.
Jake is drawn to Sebby’s dark eyes, shy smile, and gentle heart. Sebby is like nobody Jake has ever met. And though the year 1932 scares him to his very core, he needs to decide. Go home? Or stay and weather the Depression with Sebby, whom he has grown to love.
A male/male time travel romance, complete with hurt/comfort, true confessions, a shared bed, first time romance, the angst of separation, and true love across time.
more
Jackie North is an amazing author.
She is able to transport you through time and space with the brush stroke of pen to paper.
Her words have the power to completely immerse you in an amazing universe.
As I read this story I found myself living and breathing with the characters.
Jake who is flung back in time to the Great Depression, left off balance and scrambling for purchase as he tries to navigate his new reality.
Poor Sebby and Pop, their lives were a miserable existence of just barely surviving.
As they struggle, learning to rely on each other, their love blossoms and becomes the cornerstone guiding them through all obstacles.
I was sucked into Sebby and Jake’s story as soon as I started reading. I love time travel stories, and this series is one of my favourites of the genre.
I love the way the descriptions of the settings and characters are so invocative of the time period. I felt—like Jake—that I’d stepped back several decades into an earlier, harder time. I like that the author uses slightly different time travel mechanisms to send her characters through time, so that each story has a unique take on that part of the story. I loved that Sebby got a glimpse of the future this time round, so it wasn’t just one way.
I liked the differentiation between the sensibilities of the time periods. I thought it added to the realism of time travel, as, rather than having Jake just knowing about the future, his mindset is definitely different to those living in the 1930s.
Jake and Sebby come across as individuals. Both are strong characters, and a product of their time. I loved the supporting cast too. They add flavour to the story, and help flesh out the universe. It’s obvious the author has done a lot of research about the time period. I love the details.
The growing romance between Jake and Sebby is very sweet. I loved that Jake was willing to wait for Sebby to feel comfortable, and that they were given the time to build a solid friendship alongside their romance. I also loved the family vibe within the story, especially between Sebby and Pop, and then how they included Jake. The Chamberlin Inn comes across as a character in its own right, and I liked Hemingway’s part in the story.
I loved the ending and hope to get a glimpse of these guys in a later story, although I trust the author to give them their HEA.
To me, Jackie North has managed something close to magical with Hemingway’s Notebook. Every small detail was strongly linked to an emotion, so much so that streets, rooms and objects seemed to change aspect based on what the characters were feeling. For example, the same street under the rain went from gloomy because of Jack’s apprehension, to full of light despite the water falling and the cold when Sebby looked up at Jake with eyes full of love. And it was all so amazingly depicted that for a few hours it felt like I actually lived in Cody, Wyoming and within the walls of the Chamberlin Inn, listening to the radio with Pop or working with Jake, Sebby and the girls at the inn.
Talking about the people at the inn, they’re all wonderful. Well, with two exceptions, at the beginning at the book, but they went away pretty fast. The remaining ones are the kind of people I would love in my life: kind, generous and supportive. They all felt so incredibly real, their emotions so tangible. And honestly, I don’t have enough words to describe how amazing it’s been to live amongst them, going from heartbreak at witnessing their dejection, to joy seeing their appreciation for even the even the smallest thing they could share with each other. Just like Jake realized, maybe too late, they’re family…a family he couldn’t live without.
All of them are so dear to me, but Jake and Sebby will stay with me for ever. Especially Sebby. He’s just so innocent and intrinsically good, that his kindness pours out of the pages. It’s no wonder Jake couldn’t resist him. That’s not to say Jake isn’t incredible, because he absolutely is. I loved them together, so sweet and endearing, making their lives perfect for one another, despite the tough world around them.
Hemingway’s Notebook is a highly charged emotional story. It made me ugly cry and laugh, despair and hope. I consider every page, all the characters and feelings in it a precious gift, for which I can’t thank Jackie North enough.
I have never read any Hemingway books, but I loved the story about his notebook. I absolutely adored Sebby and Jake was just too sweet. Add in all the warm and wonderful secondary characters like Pop and Janina, well it’s a well-rounded book. As I came to the end of the book I realized that Sebby and my Grampy were born in the same year. It was kind of like a peek at my grandparent’s life back then and how I wished I had asked more and listened better. I really felt like I had gone back in time and I think though it was such a hard time, every moment would be appreciated. It’s a time in history that I haven’t read too many romance novels set and I loved the book and their sweet, slow love story. I definitely recommend this book.
Hemingway’s Notebook
MMy Thoughts, Confessions, and Review
Hemingway’s Notebook was beautiful in its world-building and character-driven quality and pacing. Though at times but wrenching the story was a powerful reminder of why you can have all the comforts and modern technology around you and still feel broken and alone inside while someone else with one-tenth of what you own can be happy and content because of the love and safety of family and friends. A very sobering and important reality North brings to life in a tremendous fashion in her storytelling.
Confessions:
Hemingway playing a role was the big draw for me in taking on this ARC because time travel tropes are one of my least favorite. However, I cannot thank the author enough for reaching out, because this story sparked a few conversations with one of my sons about Hemingway, The Great Depression,
and stories I remember from my Gran and Great-gran.
Least favorite trope or not, this book took world building to another level. I could feel the cold in my fingertips and even wrapped an extra blanket on while I read a couple of times. The smells would take over, the colors seeped into my mind, and I even found myself feeling much more grateful for warm tap water, liquid soap, and stevia and hazelnut creamer for my coffee. Such simple things we never think about.
I loved how the author could sweep me away after I’d had to put the book away for a while. Instantly after turning on my TTS, I was back with the MCs, Sebby and Jake in 1932. No matter if the guys were helping hotel guests with luggage, carrying coal buckets to guest rooms, helping in the kitchen, tending to Sebby’s ailing father whom they both called “Pop,” or secretly snuggled together beneath warm blankets after working hard all day, I was a time-traveling voyeur, who crossed the threshold right along with Jake.
If you love getting lost in a book and letting it take you away for hours knowing, in the end, it will leave a lasting impression, Hemingway’s Notebook is not one to miss. It is an old-fashioned romance crafted for the contemporary heart.
Simply Beautiful.
4.5 love-is-more-precious-than-silver-stars
I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author. I am giving an unbiased review in return.
I just love a time travel book by Jackie North, she just has a way of drawing you into the past and the lives and loves of her characters, she gets you so wrapped up in the story you have no choice but to keep reading until you know how is going to end, because it is so good. I came to Cody, Wyoming to visit the Chamberlin Inn where Hemmingway stayed, I am taking a course in college and will use the information and pictures I’ve taken for extra credit, so as I was finishing up checking out his room, I had a some sort of dizzy spell and then it happened. Everything has changed at the Inn, even the people, as I was trying to explain this to Sebby the person at the desk what is going on, the next thing I know I’m called a hobo and cast out onto the street. There I am left wandering through the streets without a coat in the freezing rain, slowly discovering for myself that it’s 1932 but that just can’t be can it, and now I’m in need of help because I have nothing. Sebby the young man from the Inn, is out on the street delivering the laundry to the laundromat when he sees me he offers me a place to stay with him and his Pops. From there we begin a journey of discovery together, but I know I have to go back, that this is all a dream and I’m going to wake up soon, I can’t stay here, my life is in the future, right. So why do I keep telling Sebby and myself that things are going to get better, and that the sun’ll come out tomorrow.
Another great book by Jackie North! I was immediately drawn in by Jake and Sebby. And all of the other characters added to the story. Beautifully written and wonderful characters. I highly recommend!!
Jake is sucked back into 1932 from present-day Wyoming, and the last thing the unwitting time traveler and college student studying Hemingway expects is to fall in love. For Sebby, life during the Depression is like the black and white newsreels at the cinema, everything depicted in various shades of grey, constantly hungry and cold… until Jake appears before him in the hallway of the hotel — a ray of light in the darkness, a vision of health and male beauty, and his world is illuminated for the first time with a new hope. As Jake struggles to cope with the rigors of a daily life that is not his own and the trust and care Sebby is showing him, the quiet moments of a new love — a shared smile, a conspiratorial glance, working side by side — contribute to a story that may have begun in black and white, but has now progressed to Technicolor. A gorgeous read from start to finish, Jake and Sebby’s slow burn romance will warm your heart as the difficult times they are living in will tug at your heartstrings. Throughout is the uncommonly wonderful prose I have come to expect from Jackie North, her painstaking research of the period manifest in the smallest details, competently rendering 1932 with brushstrokes that leave nothing lacking in the picture. 5 out of 5 stars
Thank you for the ARC read, I voluntarily give this book an honest review. Sebby is working hard just to help his pops, willing to take the brute of the bullying Mr. Blair. Here he is minding the reception desk when this guy stands in front of him talking of the most crazied things, like Hemingway shooting himself… yeah this man was of his rocker but there was just something about him that captives him.
Poor Jake is slammed into a different universe.. time shift or he fell and was a coma and just didn’t know it. A modern day man stuck in 1932, one bright spot in this nightmare was the young man Sebby. Will Jake meet the famous Hemingway and learn if his secret theory is right? Is Jake going to stay or go when or if given the opportunity. Can a man from the future help a young lonely young man see there is more in the world then sorrow of selfdoubt from the kindness of others. Future boy just may learn things from a young man from the past if he is willing to stick around. Just love how Jake and Sebby are together with each other, and pops can’t forget that man who is so important to Sebby.
A wonderful book I have had the pleasure of receiving a ARC for. I followed the process of the book being written. As Jackie North wrote and researched she shared her findings and thoughts and the pure love and excitement she had while writing Hemingway’s Notebook shines through each page. It made you feel like you were right there with Sebby, Jake and Pop. I truly love this whole series and I already look forward to the next one. If you haven’t read the series yet. Please do. You will not be disappointed.