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A Novel
by Darryl Brock
Time travel meets baseball in this "grand adventure" about a modern-day reporter who witnesses the birth of America's favorite pastime (The Washington Times)
Contemporary reporter Sam Fowler is stuck in a dull job and a failing marriage when he is suddenly transported back to the summer of 1869. After a wrenching period of adjustment, he feels rejuvenated by his involvement with the nation's first pro baseball team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings. But American sports isn't the only thing to undergo a major transformation—Sam himself starts to change as he faces life-threatening 19th-century challenges on and off the baseball diamond. With the support of his fellow ballplayers and the lovely Caitlin O'Neill, will he regain the sense of family he desperately needs?
Darryl Brock masterfully evokes post-Civil War America—its smoky cities and transcontinental railroad, its dance halls and parlour houses, its financial booms and busts. Equally appealing to sports fans and anyone who appreciates a well-told story, If I Never Get Back is a literary home run that "grabs you from line one on page one and never lets go" (San Francisco Chronicle).
"Grabs you from line one on page one and never lets go. Enchanting." —San Francisco Chronicle
"An engrossing, even charming tale.… By its final inning, the reader is sad to see it end." —The New York Times Book Review
"A grand adventure and joyful embrace of baseball the way it ought to be played … If I Never Get Back should be required reading for players and owners as well as fans."—The Washington Times
This information about If I Never Get Back was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Darryl Brock is the author of Havana Heat and the sequel to If I Never Get Back, Two in the Field. He has published articles on Mark Twain, baseball, and other historical subjects.
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