What if you could know the exact moment that you would meet ‘the one’? Timer is a futuristic look at the possibility. It’s a step further than internet dating, where you can have a timer implanted into your wrist that will count down to the moment that you will meet your mate. The thing that makes this concept interesting is that there are so many variables to this seemingly foolproof plan. When you get the implant it won’t tell you immediately in some cases; and you could be waiting years for the dern thing to get to counting down. This is what happens to our heroine Oona. She and her sister Steff both have the implant, and are the last of all their friends not to have it countdown. The timer is something that is voluntary so not everyone has one, and there in lies the rub. If your intended doesn’t have one, then yours will never count down. Oona is anxious about her future as she is turning 30 and still hasn’t found the one. Steff on the other hand is perfectly happy having lots of one night stands with un-timered men in the meantime. The girls have a little brother, whom on his 14th birthday decided he wanted to get timered. The moment his timer is installed, it counts down to the next day! Oona comes completely unglued that her baby brother is about to find his ‘one.’ Much to their families chagrin his one is the daughter of the families Spanish speaking housekeeper.


One night while grocery shopping, a much younger timered checker named Mikey flirts with Oona. She blows him off, but then returns on a whim to begin dating him. She asks when he is supposed to meet his one, and he tells her 4 months or so. So Oona knows that her time with Mikey is limited and struggles with continuing to see him almost every other day. Steff meets a handsome guy on her own, whom is also untimered and begins to fall for him as well. The sisters go to great lengths to hide each of their perspective relationships from the other; until one night when Oona and Mikey crash at Oonas and Steff comes home early. The sisters begin to argue about his impending date to be with his one, and to stop the fighting he reveals that his timer is a fake. With this revelation, more questions arise and more variables. Oona seems to panic, and back out of the relationship though she knows that how she feels about Mikey is the absolute truth. But he isn’t the one, is he? She tries to convince him to get a timer to find out for sure, and he refuses. So does she move on and continue to wait for her timer to go off? Or does she stay with someone; though 6 years younger than she because he makes her happy? The story raises many interesting questions about falling in love and destiny. Very thought provoking, expertly written.