FEELS LIKE THE FIRST TIME
By Kimberly Packard
Romance / Time-Slip / RomCom
Publisher: Abalos Publishing
Publication Date: 16 June 2026
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*** SYNOPSIS ***
Blink and your life’s halfway over. What if that happens literally?
College party girl Emily Murray bounces through majors and boys until an ill-advised art major leads her to a rebellious relationship with an aspiring rock star. When her father cuts off the college fund—and her boyfriend ditches her to chase a record deal—Emily spirals, hard.
One shaved head and emotional black out later, she wakes up thirty years in the future, living a life she doesn’t recognize as a successful therapist and engaged to a total stranger.
With no apparent way to rewind the clock, Emily scrambles to make sense of her new reality. With a wedding date looming and a competitive therapist threatening her fragile career, Emily is forced to question: Was this really the future she was meant for?
Witty, sharp and unexpectedly heartwarming, Feels Like the First Time, the highly anticipated follow up to This Time Around, is a love letter to our younger selves, reminding us that even when we feel lost, we often end up exactly where we need to be.
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*** REVIEW ***
Feels Like the First Time is a wonderful love story with delightful people to invite into your reading space.
At first, I wasn’t sure if I’d like the time-travel aspect, as that isn’t a plot device I usually enjoy, but this one works! Emily is a quirky, loveable character and her reactions to waking up one morning 30 years into her future are great, although she could’ve been a little more alarmed about the situation and that hunky stranger in the shower. But then that would be my reaction as a much older woman and as more of her character was revealed, it made sense.
Plus the introduction to the humor that makes the story so much fun would’ve been delayed. In addition to how she responds to the situation that first day, figuring out what a smartphone is, as well as other technological advances that affect so much of daily life in the modern era.
How Emily comes to grips with her ‘new life’, introduces some interesting characters, like Astrid, the psychic she visits first as a nineteen-year-old, then thirty years later, and the reader meets Emily’s parents, who are well presented as unlikeable people is some ways, making them real. And we meet the best friend from before, who is still in the “now”, and much of how Emily pieces together the threads of her life are through conversations with Josie.
Through much of the story, Emily is conflicted about her feelings for her fiancé Craig. The initial alarm slowly changes to love, even though she has difficulty admitting that, and that part of the plotting works well. The back and forth as to whether she should forget about her past and just live in the future, with this wonderful man, or try to make her way back brings tension to the story that keeps a reader engaged. I read the book in just a couple of sittings, even though I was spending more time with breakfast than I’d planned. 🙂
Feels Like the First Time is a well-written novel that surpsises a reader along the way to a very satisfying conclusion. I highly recommend it to readers who enjoy a story with romance, time-travel, humor, and a super cast of characters.
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*** Watch the Trailer ***
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*** ABOUT THE AUTHOR ***
Kimberly Packard is an award-winning author of women’s fiction and romance.
When she isn’t writing, she can be found planning her next trip, asking her dog what’s in his mouth or curled up with a book. She resides in Texas with her husband Colby, a clever cat named Oliver and a precocious black lab named Tully.
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