A Time-Travel Jewelry Heist Book That Will Warm Your Heart!
Tori’s from 2020. Bobby’s from 1980. Can the teenagers stop a crime before it destroys them?
Simultaneously home and not home, 15-year-old Tori Gold is an accidental time traveler who finds herself in a gritty 1980 New York City still reeling from the aftershocks of a near-bankruptcy and a police corruption scandal. Garbage, graffiti and crime are rampant; ATMS, cell phones and the internet are nonexistent but phone booths are everywhere. Women wear fur coats. Everyone smokes. And TV and typewriter repair shops, camera stores, record stores, and five-and-dimes have replaced the stores Tori is familiar with: Apple stores, vape shops, boutique fitness studios, nail salons and the many drug stores that won’t exist for decades.
Can she and her only ally (her now-15-year-old father, Bobby) prevent a front-page jewelry heist (based on an actual crime) that could destroy their family? And can they find a way to send Tori back to her time?
A Nevada Library Association’s 2027 Nevada Young Readers’ Award Nominee
2025 Silver Falchion Finalist & 2025 Silver Falchion Top Pick
2024 Claymore Top Pick
Published by Linden Tree Press.
Also by Tilia Klebenov Jacobs and Norman Birnbach: “Why Should I Trust You?” https://amzn.to/4pfKoIx
Author Events
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Book Club & Classroom Questions
Looking for thought-provoking discussions? Explore our book club questions for Stealing Time and dive deeper into its themes, characters, and 1980s nostalgia!
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Stealing Time Named a Silver Falchion Award Top Pick
We’re thrilled to share that Stealing Time has been named a Top Pick in the 2025 Silver Falchion Awards by Killer Nashville! The Silver Falchion Awards recognize the best in mystery, thriller, and suspense fiction. In its second year, according to...
Author Book Signing: Thurs., Aug. 14 2-4pm at Edgartown Books
Birnbachflyer Edgartown Books Aug 14 2025Download
Ladies of Mystery: Guest Blogger: Researching the Mystery
Tilia Klebenov Jacobs writes that there are limits to what you can expect when you research only using Google -- there are things Google might not be able to uncover. For Stealing Time, we needed specific information about rooftops, scaffolding and museum security...
Stealing Time named 2025 Silver Falchion Finalist
Stealing Time was named a “2025 Silver Falchion Finalist for YA as part of the Killer Nashville International Writers Conference. That's in addition to receiving a 2024 Claymore Top Pick for unpublished manuscripts. Click here to read more...
12 Classic Diamond Heist Movies and Stealing Time by Tilia Klebenov Jacobs and Norman Birnbach
Heist movies are about audacious, high-stakes crimes. Key elements include elaborate planning, generally involving a gang that has to learn to work together; a big score; suspenseful action; twists and often betrayals. While writing Stealing Time, our time-travel...
SINC UP with Norman Birnbach & Tilia K Jacobs Tip #2
Sisters in Crime presents a SINC-UP tip from best-selling and award-winning authors, Norman Birnbach and Tilia K. Jacobs, about the value of creating bios for your characters. Click here to read more...
Crime Wave Podcast
Tilia Jacobs and Norman Birnbach - Stealing Time This week on Crime Wave: Current events got you down? Here’s a great idea—pick up STEALING TIME, a smart, funny caper that will steal your heart. Tilia Klebenov Jacobs’ and Norman Birnbach’s time-travel jewelry heist is...
Sisters in Crime: SINC UP with Norman Birnbach & Tilia K. Jacobs
Sisters in Crime presents a SINC-UP! from best-selling and award-winning co-authors, Norman Birnbach and Tilia Klebenov Jacobs, with a tip about how outlining is key for successful co-authoring projects. Click here to read more...
Lynn Slaughter Blog: “Humor Matters When You Collaborate: Tilia Klebenov Jacobs Talks about Co-Authoring STEALING TIME with Norman Birnbach”
Can you share with our readers a bit about the novel and what inspired it? Plus a look at how writers manage to successfully co-author novels Tilia Klebenov Jacobs.Headshot Click here to read more...
CrimeReads: “Criminals Don’t Take Holidays. or, A Crime Writer’s Take on St. Patrick’s Day”
"Whatever the reason, crime and holidays often go together." Criminals, real and celluloid, don’t seem to take off holidays. In real life, holidays provide great cover for crime; and in movies, they add an additional layer to the story. Whatever the reason, crime and...
Book Club & Classroom Questions
Identity and Growth
Both Tori and her father are fifteen during the 1980 scenes.
- How do their personalities, attitudes, and priorities reflect their eras of origin?
- How does Tori’s view of herself evolve throughout the story?
Parent-Child Relationships
Both Tori and her father are fifteen during the 1980 scenes.
- How do their personalities, attitudes, and priorities reflect their eras of origin?
- How does Tori’s view of herself evolve throughout the story?
Themes of Family and Change
Divorce looms over Tori’s family in 2020.
- How do the events in 1980 shed light on the reasons for her father’s choices later in life?
- Do you think the bond they form in 1980 could change their lives in 2020?
Nostalgia vs. Reality
- For readers who lived through or are familiar with the 1980s, how did the portrayal of the time period in the book resonate with you?
- How does the book handle the differences between nostalgia for the past and the reality of living in it?
Multigenerational Trauma
As we learn in Chapter 1, Bobby’s father was arrested and served a prison term.
- To what extent did that impact Bobby and to what extent did that affect Tori growing up?
- How do events in a family’s past affect the present?
- Without going back in time, how can families move beyond terrible events?
Role of the Diamond Heist
A legendary diamond heist serves as the central plot device.
- How does it symbolize larger themes in the book, such as loss, risk, and legacy?
Setting and Character
Stealing Time takes place in New York City, and features iconic locations such as the American Museum of Natural History.
- To what extent does the setting influence the story?
- Do you feel that New York is effectively a character in the book?
Ending Reflection
Without giving away spoilers…
- How did the conclusion of the story impact your view on time travel and familial relationships?
- Did the resolution feel satisfying to you? Why or why not?
Classroom Questions: Short Answers
- How would you characterize the description of Boston on p. 4 and what it means to Tori, based on the adjectives she uses? How do these descriptions of other things indicate Tori’s mood?
- Explain the use of the phrase “bereaved bulldog.” One or the other word might have worked alone, but how do the two together create a unique picture and mood? (p. 3)
- What is a metaphor? How does the “visual metaphor” Tori sees explain the situation from her perspective? (p. 5)
- Compare the newspaper headlines Tori discovers in 1980 to topics in today’s newspapers (or online news providers). How do they show that to her 1980 will be both new and quite familiar? (p. 18; also p. 24)
- Chapter 5 has a number of references to people famous in the late 1970s and into 1980. Choose three and research them, and explain how their fame is relevant to the situation.
- Character is often revealed not only in action but in musical tastes. What do the musical selections by Tori and Bobby reveal about their personalities?
- Chapter 29 ends with a discovery of how Tori got her name, except neither she nor Bobby says out loud what the story is. Using context clues, explain what they don’t say explicitly, and how you understand this to be the case. (p. 211)
Classroom Questions: Essays
- One common motif in time travel is social critique. Based on Tori’s discoveries about1980 and Bobby’s hopes for 2020, what social criticism do the authors make? Do you think they suggest that one era is more “advanced” than the other? Give textual examples to support your argument. You might consider whether the rise of the internet, streaming music, and smartphones are shown to be advances or detriments to society.
- Throughout the novel, both Tori and Bobby/Bob must come to understand each other and themselves. Choose one character and explain which of their own personality traits they must confront and improve, and how they do it. Alternatively, explain how one comes to understand the other and makes personal adjustments to indicate a new empathy. Use specific quotations to support your argument.
- Authors often use allusions and references to other works to comment on the action in the story. The novel references period films such as Kramer vs. Kramer, and sci-fi stories such as the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises, as well as Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Choose one of these, or any music choices, and explain how the authors use those titles to reinforce the message of their own story.
Event Calendar
Discover the creative minds behind Stealing Time. Tilia Klebenov Jacobs and Norman Birnbach bring a unique blend of historical intrigue and captivating storytelling to this award-winning YA novel.
Tilia Klebenov Jacobs
Tilia Klebenov Jacobs is the bestselling author of Wrong Place, Wrong Time and Second Helpings at the Serve You Right Café, as well as the fantasy novel Casper and Jasper and the Terrible Tyrant. Her short fiction appears in 50-Word Short Stories; The Flash Fiction Press; and the anthologies When a Stranger Comes to Town and Deadly Nightshade: Best New England Crime Stories 2022. Together with Norman Birnbach, she co-authored Stealing Time and Why Should I Trust You? Tilia is vice president of Mystery Writers of America-New England, and lives in Massachusetts with her husband, two children, and their standard poodle, Dash.
Norman Birnbach
Norman Birnbach is an award-winning writer who has published more than 100 op-eds, articles and short stories. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Boston Herald, Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald, San Francisco Chronicle, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, New York Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Militant Grammarian and CrimeReads. He studied gemology at the Gemological Institute of America. Stealing Time is his debut novel and Why Should I Trust You? is the second book that Norman and Tilia have co-authored. A native New Yorker, he lives outside Boston with his wife, three children, and dog, Taxi.


















