The Music of Time

Time remembers what we cannot

Roman’s sleep is not filled with dreams, but with memories from another life.

In present-day Indiana, Roman lives quietly while struggling with a rare and violent form of parasomnia. Night after night, he is drawn into World War II-era Kraków, Poland, where he becomes Abraham, a Jewish jeweler engaged to Eliana, the woman he loves. Their life is shaped by devotion, craft, and hope, even as Nazi occupation closes in around them.

Convinced his visions are more than imagination, Roman travels to Kraków in search of answers. There, he meets Jadwiga, a woman who shares his strange feeling of belonging to another time. As Roman uncovers the truth behind Abraham and Eliana’s fate, grief turns into obsession: he must find a way back to the past and save Eliana.

Guided by Elisabeta, a mysterious child who appears across lifetimes, Roman is forced to confront what time will and will not allow. Some losses cannot be undone. Some loves are not meant to disappear, but to change form.

Dan Blacharski’s The Music of Time is a lyrical time travel novel about memory, reincarnation, grief, and enduring love, moving between modern America and Nazi-occupied Poland. For readers drawn to historical fiction with a spiritual edge, it asks whether healing comes from changing the past—or learning how to live again in the present.

Discover The Music of Time and follow Roman’s journey through love, loss, and the memories that refuse to fade.

Excerpt from the book

“No, no, no!” he screamed, tears streaming down his face as he looked over at his beloved as she lay writhing on the plain wooden platform in the strange building, crying. He felt so deeply for her, so inexplicably in love, and despite his own fears, most of all, he didn’t want her to suffer. He wanted her to be happy again, but he knew that would never be. There would be no more happiness. There would be no more beauty for them. Would anything lie beyond, he wondered? Their life had been beautiful, filled with love and everyday delights, and plans for a future together that would never be.

He looked over at the steel door, bolted shut. He heard faint shouts from outside as the guards gave loud instructions in German, and he heard an ominous “click,” and he knew it was coming soon. He had heard the stories but couldn’t believe they were true, but here it was. How could such a thing be? He reached out and touched her hand to try to give her comfort, but touching her was so tenuous, like trying to touch a cloud. He was there, but he wasn’t—but she comprehended the mystery of his loving presence in that moment, and she reached out to him.

It started. A faint “whooshing” sound came from above, and she squeezed his hand. “Ja cie kocham,” she whispered. “I love you.” Soon breathing became difficult. He noticed a strange taste in his mouth, and as he looked over and saw her starting to shake, his heart fell. She was everything to him. He would give anything to spare her, but there was no hope. Just one year before, he had proposed to her in a café in Krakow, sitting at their usual table outside the Sukiennice at Rynek Główny, that beautiful and ancient town square so full of life and beauty, where in their exuberance and sense of endless joyful possibilities that only the young can realize, they declared their love and envisioned a beautiful life together. He spent those few months before they came and took everyone away giving her every joy he could imagine. They went to the best restaurants. He bought her a beautiful ring and a fur coat. He was attentive to her every need, and they delighted in each other’s presence every day. He was determined then to give her the best possible life he could, to fill their house with love and laughter, to raise their children and spoil their grandchildren, to grow old together. That day they both were put onto the cattle car, that wonderful dream slipped away.

He looked over at her, imagining for a moment what it would have been like. He tried to speak, but no words could come out. It was near now. Soon it would be over. He felt her hand slipping out from his grip.