Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite

Waiting for Orpheus is a time travel fantasy novella written by Ria Dimitra. Lisa Klein had increasingly begun to feel that her real life was experienced while she was asleep. Her dreams about That Man were so real, so poignant and rich with promise -- and such a far cry from the reality of a dreary basement studio apartment and a job as a waitress in the local diner. Granted, Lisa enjoyed her job and had come to see some of her coworkers as more than that. They had become, for the relatively friendless and lonely young woman, a family. Roxie, one of the other young waitresses, had tried to set her up with a date recently, but Lisa felt a chasm-wide rift between Roxie and herself and hadn’t seen that date as a promising idea. Mel, one of the older waitresses, who was apt to see herself as mentor of sorts for Lisa, worried that the young woman would spend her life alone and living in her dreams. Then a strangely attired man came in and happened to sit at one of the booths in Lisa’s station. She was stunned when she looked into his eyes -- it was him. He was also startled and called her “Katja.” His name was Athan and he was convinced that she was the wife who had died so tragically, whom he had travelled through time to try to find again.

Ria Dimitra’s time travel fantasy novella, Waiting for Orpheus, is a sweet and lovely story that proves that dreams sometimes do come true. I loved watching as the harried and frustrated young woman, who seemed to have been passed up by life’s great pageantry, finds herself first in her recurring dream and then in the sudden companionship of a man who seemed the virtual embodiment of her thirteen-year-long acquaintanceship with a dream lover. Dimitra’s Athan is a fascinating character whose need to invent and desire to share his discoveries with a world unready for them shattered his home and happiness. Seeing him try to assimilate with a culture years beyond his own time frame is a grand exercise as he expresses disappointment in the present and sees a disparity with his own expectations for the future. Waiting for Orpheus is a time travel romance that offers the reader so much more than the usual titles in this genre. This thought-provoking and beautifully written novella is most highly recommended.