This is probably not a book I would have chosen to read, but a friend gave me a box of books and this was in it. Reading the back cover, I thought perhaps it would be more of a fantasy or time-travel type "magic" and it did start that way, but midway through the first novella, fortune-telling came into the story and I was done with it.

Warning: Potential Spoilers Ahead
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I didn't actually mind the "legend" of the painting. reading the back cover blurb and the part I did read, it kind of seemed like the owner of the painting chose the next person who would have the experience. (But the third novella's blurb didn't seem to follow that pattern.)

I also didn't mind the time travel aspect of the first book. I've read other scifi/fantasy stories involving time travel--so why not through a painting? Though you do run into that pesky "if you change something that already happened, what does it mean for the future?"

I thought Matt and Sara had been married before he died based on the narrative in the beginning, but then something Sara said when she went back in time and met Matt again made me think that was not so. Even though I'd still have disliked the sex between the two when they met again, if they'd been married, I probably could have rationalized it (even if Matt didn't know they'd get married at the time) but since it seems they were never married before he died . . . I had a harder time with it.

And then when the fortune-teller at the fair came up and Matt wanted to have it done . . .well, that was the last straw for me. ( )

I pick up anthologies specifically so I can try new authors with very little time or money invested. Each story was good for different reasons. I think I liked the Kearney story the most. ( )

commits the worst of all crimes - it's boring. All three stories are completely forgettable and not enjoyable. ( )