Baezy is born in 2069, the centennial of the legendary Woodstock Music and Art Fair.

Everything peace, love, and flower power is celebrated that year in a wave of nostalgia that takes over fashion, music, and the public’s imagination.

She grows up listening to and loving the artists of that time, dreaming of witnessing everyone from Joan Baez to Santana in person. When presented with the opportunity to time-travel, Baezy immediately chooses Woodstock as her destination.

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She plans to enjoy a glorious weekend of vibrant sights and sounds; her bell bottoms and a peasant blouse are packed for the adventure and she’s excited to surprise her great-great-great-grandmother, Kelly Adams.

While Baezy’s certainly not a typical Woodstock attendee, Kelly isn’t either. She is at the very beginning of a stellar career researching artificial intelligence in the 1960s, and will later develop much of what will lead to the utopian society Baezy lives in.

Kelly’s future family is immensely proud of her historic accomplishments.

The contrast between Baezy’s 2101 and 1969 is stunning from her first moment.

Woodstock exceeds her wildest expectations, but holds far more than an introduction to her distant grandmother. Baezy quickly finds herself in life-altering situations she could never have anticipated.

Part sci-fi, part historical fiction, and all heart, Anywhen is an intriguing concoction sure to delight readers. Imagine it as Cloud Cuckoo Land meets Back to the Future meets The Woodstock Music and Art Fair of 1969. This is a must-read for fans of The Invisible Life of Addie Larue, The Time Traveler’s Wife, and The Midnight Library.

My Review

I hope the author won’t mind, but I am going to approach this review in a slightly different fashion. There will be thousands of reviews in the future, so here goes with mine, based on some of Beth’s bookclub discussion topics.

But firstly, I’d better quickly comment on the book! I loved it, especially Sarah and Jack. Kelly irritated me from her time in 1969, right up to 2024. Her treatment of Sarah was appalling, as was that of her friends. Not very love and peace, was it? ‘Prickly’, the author calls her. Damn right!

I am in the UK, so I obviously didn’t attend Woodstock in 1969 (I was 16 and had just finished my O levels). I did, however go to the Isle of Wight Festival where Bob Dylan was the headline act, along with The Who. Memories of the toilets are the same as Woodstock, disgusting and overflowing. I can’t believe we were allowed to go when we were so young.

‘There’s no need to be vulgar or start that women’s lib crap with me, Kelly,’ Dr Lawton says in 1969. Have we achieved female equality yet? I don’t think so. I’m not going to give examples. You know what I’m talking about.

2069 is about Unity and G-HOP, the Genetic Homogenization and Optimization Project, that essentially eliminated racial characteristics in Baezy’s society. I think this goes against everything I believe in and hope for the future. We should accept people for their differences, not by making them all the same. No falling in love, just a modern version of an ‘arranged marriage’ to ensure the perfection of the species? Nothing changes in the end does it. No hunger, war or disease and a life expectancy of 150. But no chocolate or pizza or peanut butter – everything is optimised in a Nourish Cube. I’d die of boredom.

Would I like to time travel? Not really. While every period of history looks interesting or better than the one we live in, for all their beauty, peace and love, the sixties and seventies were filled with hatred, racism, and judgement.

What do I think of Jack’s decision to avoid the draft by going to Canada? I support him wholeheartedly. Why should men have had to fight in a war that had nothing to do with them? No disrespect to veterans, but if more people stood up to the ‘rulers’, then maybe wars could be stopped in their tracks. I’m not talking about defending your country against an aggressor, just getting involved in things that are not our business and we often don’t understand. ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’ Like object to being used as cannon fodder.

There is a saying, which was also the title of a book I read many years ago (None To Make You Laugh) None To Make You Cry. Without tragedy, there would be no laughter. Without despair, there would be no hope. Without adversity, there would be no resilience. It’s what makes us human, and we must strive to succeed without ‘homogenization’.

My AI glitch animal would be a cat, hopefully (I am getting vibes of Philip Pullman’s daemons in His Dark Materials. My dog nicknamed Pancake – now gone three years – was named after Lyra’s daemon Pantalaimon.

Finally, I went to see Joan Baez live at Wembley in 1973. She was wonderful!

Many thanks to @ZooloosBT  for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the Author

Beth Duke is an Amazon #1 Best Selling Author and the recipient of numerous honors for her fiction on two continents. She is eyeing the other five.

Her book Tapestry was the Bronze Medal Winner in Southern Fiction in Publishers’ Weekly’s 2020 Readers Choice Awards, an Award-Winning Finalist in the 2020 International Book Awards, and a Five Star Readers’ Favorite Award Winner. Country music superstar Randy Owen said, “Beth Duke’s works are as real as grits and gravy in The South, and her usage of her Southern English has the taste of Mama’s biscuits.”

Beth lives in the mountains of her native Alabama with her husband, Jay, and an assortment of dogs including a recently-rescued coonhound named Daisy who has stolen her heart. Beth is the adoring and proud mother of Jason and Savannah. She is a constant reader, travel aficionado, and likes to pretend she’s in baking competitions.

She also finds great joy in joining book clubs for discussion (usually via Zoom). If your group would like to schedule a date, please email beth@bethduke.com.

Her books DELANEY’S PEOPLE, DON’T SHOOT YOUR MULE, IT ALL COMES BACK TO YOU, TAPESTRY, and DARK ENOUGH TO SEE THE STARS are all love letters to her home state.

Please visit bethduke.com for more information, to request a book club visit, and to see photos of the most beautiful readers in the world!

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Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/220605667-anywhen
Purchase Link: https://mybook.to/anywhen-zbt