Into a Golden Era is the seventh novel in Gabrielle Meyer’s Time Crossers series, where the main character lives in two different years and must decide by her 25th birthday which timeline to remain in.

Ally is a well-known actress in 1929 California during the “Golden Age” of Hollywood. Her father owns a small movie studio, but it’s on the verge on bankruptcy. Bigger studios like that of L. B. Mayer are absorbing the smaller ones. Ally’s family is throwing everything into making one last film, Little Women, with Ally in the starring role as Jo.

Mayer approaches Ally’s father with a proposition. One of Mayer’s most famous stars, Spencer Hayes, has gotten into some trouble due to bad decisions and alliances. Mayer will loan Spencer to Ally’s father for the role of Laurie in the Little Women film if Ally will agree to date Spencer publicly. Mayer’s thought is that Ally’s good reputation will rub off on Spencer, making his latest scandal ebb away.

Ally’s father is afraid the opposite will happen, that Spencer’s bad reputation will rub off on Ally. But Ally agrees to the arrangement in order to save the family studio.

In 1849, Ally and her father and sister have just arrived in San Francisco. Her father had attempted to help Bronson Alcott, father of Louisa May, start a school in Massachusetts. When that failed, Ally persuaded him to travel out west and try to start a school there. Secretly, she wants to use her knowledge of the Gold Rush era from her 1929 path to help her father find gold, so he and her sister would be taken care of if she chooses to remain in 1929.

However, her father falls gravely ill en route. They are taken to a boarding house where Ally agrees to help in the kitchen to support them. However, she is stunned to learn that the owner of the boarding house is an infamous gangster. According to a recent popular movie in 1929, a fire is supposed to start in that very boarding house the next day, setting off a series of fires throughout the city. Ally isn’t supposed to knowingly change history in either timeline: if she does, she’ll forfeit her life in that timeline. But she can’t let the building burn down, not when her father is too ill to be moved.

To be honest, the Gold Rush era is about my least favorite time period in history to read about. But I did find both timelines interesting. Ally has difficult decisions to make in both timelines. She learns that there is often more to a person’s life that what appears on the surface.

Gabrielle always manages to put a little different twist on the time crossing scenario into each story. But I felt that in this book and the last one, there were a few too many time crossers in the story. If I remember correctly, in the first book, there were very few. Now it seems just a little too convenient that there are so many who turn up just at the right time to help out.

I’m still enjoying the series, though. There are enough hints about the next story in this one that I am already looking forward to it.