Love in a Loopy Time (Los Angeles, over five months or one repeating contemporary day): What happens when you’re stuck? Stuck in time. Stuck in life. Stuck in love. For the reader, what happens is you’re stuck in delicious entertainment.

Entertainment, the industry that is – music, radio, TV – plays an influential role in Holly James’ out-of-this-world second novel, The Déjà Glitch, expressing its passions, talents, perks, sacrifices. Where better, then, to set it in the Entertainment Capital of the World? How big a role the Hollywood strikes as of this writing will affect us is unclear, compared to James’ assuredly affecting fantastical romantic tale.

Gemma, James’ new main female character caught up in a whirlwind of one extra-extraordinary day (see her debut), is a radio show producer. She keeps crashing, bumping into Jack, a TV scriptwriter. Each day that she does, she has no memory of him the next day, other than a dream-like, déjà vu sensation of “familiarity” strong like a “brilliant sunshine,” whereas Jack’s had 156 days of memories of her. Enough time for Jack to fall madly in love with Gemma. If she could only remember him 24-hours later maybe he’d have a chance. So, to be precise, Jack’s ensnarled in a five month time “snag” that’s driving him crazy, while Gemma’s bizarre situation recycles over and over one day.

James, a psychologist, has made a much-appreciated leap into the world of charming, swoon-worthy romantic novels. She brings insight into what ails lonely hearts, together with what ails a “cutthroat industry.” A consultant for the highly competitive tech industry and the cocooned academic world, whatever stuck with her working in those environments filters into this wildly imaginative story.

James, though, isn’t a theoretical physicist – the only realm that could possibly explain the surreal plot about a “temporal anomaly” triggered when two lives intersect and time stands still for them.

The sci-fi premise feels like you’ve “entered The Twilight Zone: Rod Serling’s Emmy-award winning TV series launched in 1959 considered one of the greatest producing more than 150 episodes, inspiring a 2019 revamp lasting only two seasons. While nothing in James’ preposterous literary version terrifies us, there’s a building sense of fear that’s what’s temporary might be eternal unless the glitch comes unstuck.

Serling’s distinctive live voice drew us in. James’ literary voice does too, with charmed prose that makes us feel we’re “in the moment.” Both also warning us about the dangers of success and technology.

Gemma and Jack’s non-linear lives seem as if the universe has a scheme and reason for this madness. Almost as if meant-to-be since they’re both single, unsettled thirty-somethings. Not without considerable effort – at least 156 recycles trying to make it so.

Gemma has been traumatized by her ex-boyfriend, a rock musician, who used her to get an in with her father, a legend in the music industry. Estranged from him, having put his career over family and they paid for it. So, when she smashes into Jack at her go-to coffee shop, the last thing on her mind is noticing him or remembering him. Jack’s plight is to how to change that, after they’ve spent flirty, enchanting times together. Trust, abandonment, and forgiveness are big themes.

Gemma has two best friends. Lila, from college, who’s everything Gemma is not except the kind of loyal friend we all wish we had who’ll drop everything to be there for her, despite having a lot going on as a social influencer with 200,000 followers @ Lila in L.A. James has fun with all the freebies Lila gets, tries, and lends her BF. Not the bad smelling shampoo, but the sexy clothes Gemma doesn’t own. Rex, a fuzzy friend, “the most faithful man in her life,” is also always there for her, ready to snuggle up with her while reading a book. Gemma isn’t the let loose, let’s party kind of gal Lila is. Lila’s bold and fearless. Gemma, wary and afraid to step out of line will for Lila.

Starting with going to her fancy, overcrowded birthday party, where Lila points out to unassuming Gemma there’s a man at the end of the bar who can’t keep his eyes off of her. Does she know him? He seems familiar, but no. Oh, she’ll get familiar with him but won’t remember what happened the next day. Jack plots so many ways to get her to remember him but nothing sticks, so he too can’t move on, nor remember what he did the day before he met the love of his life.

What a spacey set-up! In James’ hands, it works. Marvelously.

How to shake things up to get Gemma to believe Jack loves her more than anything else in the world? How can she trust someone she doesn’t know? Especially when people she loved and thought she knew betrayed her?

What will it take for Gemma to believe, “The universe is a collection of infinite objects in random motion . . . Each with their own path and timeline”? That, “In any system with different parts in simultaneous yet variable motion, there is always a chance for disruption”?

Like The Twilight Zone, James sweeps us into another spectrum. Is that so unreal given the chaos our world is spinning in?

An awfully playful, page-turning approach to creating a delightful romance, one Lila says is, “a fantastic, impossibly romantic story about the two of you essentially stopping time.” Impossible? But don’t you think the universe has gone “off kilter”?

Besides, “Who was to say what could or couldn’t be possible in the great expanse of a universe humans barely knew a sliver of?”

Gemma’s younger brother Patrick adds another element to this ludicrous scenario. More than a best friend, the two grew up as a tight team after their family broke up and they only had each other. Patrick has something he hasn’t told Gemma, yet, knowing his news will make her cry, which will make him cry too. The easier-to-believe Domino Theory is seen here, and elsewhere.

Patrick and Gemma keep calling each other as he’s stuck at the airport trying to fly home to her. Like reality, his flights keep getting cancelled. James adds enough real life issues to her unreal story, including casting Patrick as the character who cares about wildlife conservation, needing protection from a world gone awry. What is the significance to the plot of his not being able to get out of airports?

Expect to be treated to feeling like you’re sitting behind a glass window glued to a live radio show interview with another legendary rock star you’ve loved since a child; swinging to rip-roaring music resounding in the Hollywood Bowl amphitheater; and whisked away to “mansions wedged into the earth like fallen-glass-and-stone meteors.” Ever wonder if the superrich Hollywood stars hidden behind private gates feel as if they’re living in “a cage filled with loneliness”? That fame and fortune comes with a hefty price tag.

Mostly, though, we’re vicariously feeling what it’s like to be somebody’s “center of everything.”

Someone once told me to look for the gems. The Déjà Glitch is one of those gems, wanting us to believe anything is possible.

Lorraine