Vaulting Through Time

by Nancy McCabe, Sura Siu (Read by)

Overview

Can she perform the vault of her life to save her loved ones—and herself?

Sixteen-year-old gymnast Elizabeth Arlington doesn’t care that her mother is older than the other girls’ moms or that she doesn’t look anything like her parents. She has too much to worry about like her body changing and how all of a sudden the balance beam is not as easy as it used to be. But when she makes a discovery that throws her entire identity into question, she turns to her ex-best friend Zach, who suggests a way for her to find the answers her mother won’t give her: a time machine they found in an abandoned house.

As Elizabeth catapults through time, she encounters a mysterious abandoned child, an elite gymnast preparing for Olympic Trials, and an enigmatic woman who seems to know more than she’s revealing. Then when a thief makes off with an identical time machine, Elizabeth finds herself on a race to stop the thief before the world as she knows it—and her future—are destroyed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798228576285
Publisher:	Baker & Taylor
Publication date:	09/02/2025
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.50(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

An adoptive parent and former longtime gymnastics mom, Nancy McCabe is the author of six books for adults and has published articles in Newsweek, Salon, Writer’s Digest, The Brevity Blog, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among many others. She’s a Pushcart winner and her work has been recognized nine times on Best American Notable Lists. She directs the writing program at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford and teaches in the graduate program at the Naslund-Mann School of Writing at Spalding University.

Editorial Reviews

In the world of competitive gymnastics, 16-year-old Elizabeth must overcome physical and emotional fears in this page-turner novel that will leave you spinning. Swinging through parallel generations of women, Elizabeth comes to know her spiritual and biological ancestors, her mother, and herself. Evocatively written, McCabe weaves a heartwarming and absorbing journey. Great mother-daughter read!” —Margaret McMullan, author of Sources of Light

“Vaulting Through Time is clever, suspenseful, and big-hearted.” —Beth Ann Bauman, author of Jersey Angel and Rosie and Skate

From the Publisher

2023-06-08
A time-travel novel with a gymnastics twist, adult author McCabe’s debut YA novel follows high school athlete Elizabeth Arlington in her quest to find answers about her biological parentage.

After living with unresolved questions that her older, widowed mom is cagey about, a secret DNA test reveals to Elizabeth that her ancestry is 70% European and 30% Han Chinese, surprising her, since neither of her blond parents appear to have Asian heritage. Zach, Elizabeth’s best friend, convinces her to try using a mysterious old watch they’d stumbled across that he believes is a time machine. Elizabeth ends up cycling through dates programmed into the watch, which are notable in part for their importance to international gymnastics or to Elizabeth’s biological mother, an Olympic hopeful. McCabe portrays each interconnected generation of women as appealingly resourceful, if understandably distressed by their circumstances, and their grit propels much of the story. Once Elizabeth has mostly unraveled her initial mystery, a new obstacle appears, and Elizabeth must race through time to prevent a family disaster. The antagonist’s motivations, however, feel murky and her personality, mutable according to narrative necessity. The author raises questions about adoption and its potential for trauma but does not examine its impact on Elizabeth. Elizabeth’s small-town Pennsylvania community is largely white; her feelings about her newly discovered biracial background are also not addressed.

Despite the original premise, a book let down by limited exploration of the subjects raised. (Science fiction. 12-17)

Kirkus Reviews