time travel

Review: How to Survive Your Murder by Danielle Valentine

~ megs14malloy

How to Survive Your MurderHow to Survive Your Murder by Danielle Valentine
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

🧡🖤🧡🖤🧡🖤🧡🖤🧡🖤🧡🖤🧡

Alice is the sole witness in her sister’s murder trial. It’s been a year since her older sister, Claire, was killed in a corn maze on Halloween night.

Since Claire’s death, Alice’s life has fallen apart. Their parents divorced in the aftermath, and Alice has given up on her plans for the future. She wishes more than anything that that night never happened; that Claire was still with them.

On the first day of the trial, while taking a moment for herself in the courthouse bathroom, Alice is knocked unconscious by a Sidney Prescott look-alike.

When she wakes up, it’s Halloween night exactly one year earlier, the day of Claire’s murder. Alice has until midnight to find her sister and save her, possibly changing the course of events forever.

How to Survive Your Murder was a super-engaging YA Horror-Thriller that kept me on my toes the entire time. It was way more Speculative than I anticipated, bringing to mind comparisons to Neverworld Wake and Summer’s Edge. Both of which, I loved.

I didn’t know that this story is centered around murderous events on Halloween night, so it’s the perfect time of year to read it. That was definitely a bonus.

I also really enjoyed Alice as a main character. She’s a huge fan of Slasher movies and True Crime. I felt like we had a lot in common, so it was easy for me to understand the events through her perspective.

Overall, I found this whole story fun and creative. I walked away thinking, be careful what you wish for. I feel like this author did a great job of bringing a true love for the Slasher genre to the page.

This is the fourth novel I have read by this author and I enjoy their style of Horror. Most recently I read, Two Sides to Every Murder, which I felt very similarly about as this one. I can’t wait to see what they come up with next. This is absolutely their sweet spot.

Give me all the Slasher Goodness!!

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Review: Never a Hero (Monsters #2) by Vanessa Len

~ megs14malloy

Never a Hero (Only a Monster #2)Never a Hero by Vanessa Len
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Never a Hero is the 2nd-book in Vanessa Len’s Monsters series, a high-stakes YA SFF series featuring time travel.

I really enjoyed the first book, Only a Monster, when I read it last year and have been looking forward to this sequel ever since. I’m so happy to report that it was just as exciting as I expected it to be.

In this installment, we continue to follow Joan, our incredibly strong teenage protagonist. Since the first book, Joan is starting to see the repercussions of her earlier actions. She’s reset the timeline, but that doesn’t ensure peace and happiness. Not by a long shot.

Only Joan remembers what happened, meaning those closest to her, such as Aaron and Nick, do not remember how close she was to them both. It crushes Joan’s heart many times over interacting with them now.

After a deadly attack, Joan finds herself back in the monster world as a fugitive. It’s clear someone is after her. She’s on the run, but she’s not alone, Nick is with her and Aaron is closing in.

First, let’s be clear, I am Team Nick, so the two of them being on the run together, even if he didn’t remember their previous relationship, made my heart happy. I know they were in serious danger, like really serious, so perhaps I shouldn’t have been so happy about it, but I was.

We do get a lot more world-development in this one. This isn’t to say the world wasn’t built out incredibly in the first book, because trust me, it was. That was one of the things that drew me in actually, but we just find out so much more about Joan, her family and the history of the monsters.

If you aren’t aware, this series does involve time travel. In fact, that’s the coolest thing the monsters can do. They travel in time by stealing time from humans in a bit of a vampiric way.

One thing I did feel in this one that I either didn’t notice with the first book, or maybe it didn’t happen in the first book, is this was giving me serious Infernal Devices vibes. I’m not even sure quite what it was, maybe some of the time jumps felt very period piece, or maybe it was the antagonist, but I wasn’t mad about it.

By this comment, I do not mean to say this is copy-catting in anyway, because it’s not. This is 100% it’s own unique story, it is just more of a vibe. A vibe that I’m addicted to.

It read so fast and some of the reveals had me gagging. I can’t wait to get to the 3rd-book. I think this is set to be a trilogy and I can’t even imagine how it’s going to wrap up.

I definitely recommend this series to Readers who enjoy fast-paced, intriguing SFF. This story is filled with secrets, dangers and angsty love interests. Bonus points for well-plotted time travel.

The third book cannot release fast enough! Bring it on!!

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Review: The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarhenas

~ megs14malloy

The Psychology of Time TravelThe Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I won’t drag this out. This book just did not work for me.

I was kindly sent a copy by the publisher to read and review, which I truly appreciate. I accepted the title because it sounded like something that would be right up my alley.

I went in, rightly or wrongly, with the following beliefs: the story was Science Fiction, that it followed a group of female scientists who discovered how to successfully travel through time, that a murder happens and they use said time travel abilities to solve it.

What I got was sort of that.

I would say this is a Literary Fiction novel with a few characters who happen to be scientists and where time travel is used as plot device to tie different parts of the story together.

Okay, fine. That’s great, so it wasn’t what I initially expected. I can usually get over that fairly quickly.

The execution of the story, however, for me, was not good.

I generally enjoy multiple perspectives, and even multiple timelines, but here, it jumped around so much, to so many different characters, none of whom felt distinctive in any way, I couldn’t remember who I was reading from or where I was in time.

The chapters were really short, so you were never in a particular perspective long enough for it to have a lasting impact.

On a lot of occasions, I find that short chapters help to increase the pace of the story and the rate in which you read it. Not so here. This was incredibly slow. It just never really went anywhere.

Then I get to the last page, the last paragraph and am left scratching my head. That’s it?

So, yeah, not for me, but it may be for you. This book has numerous positive reviews, so please do not take my word for it. Pick it up and find out for yourself. Will you or won’t you?

Thank you so much to the publisher, Crooked Lane Books, for providing me with a copy of this to read and review. I appreciate the opportunity to provide my opinion.

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Review: Recursion by Blake Crouch

~ megs14malloy

RecursionRecursion by Blake Crouch
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I feel like I am waking from a fever dream.

Recursion. Wow.

The possibility of this type of scenario in a future world is terrifying. Can you even imagine?

Maybe you don’t know what Recursion is about. Honestly, I am not sure I can adequately summarize it.

Basically, this novel follows two characters, Helena Smith and Barry Sutton.

Helena is a neuroscientist who is dedicated to creating a technology that will save our memories. Her mother is losing a battle with dementia and all Helena wants to do is help her before it is too late.

She gets recruited to work for a private company, but when her work goes too well, she’s afraid of the repercussions if the technology should fall into the wrong hands.

And, oh baby, is she ever right!

Barry is a New York City cop, who, when he can no longer ignore its significance, begins to investigate a phenomenon known as False Memory Syndrome, or FMS.

FMS is so powerful, it is causing a significant number of people to take their own lives. It is a mystery as to what the cause of the syndrome is, but Barry is hoping he will be able to uncover it.

When we begin following Barry and Helena, they are in different timelines, but eventually, those converge and a partnership develops.

Helena essentially helps Barry, by filling in a lot of missing pieces to his investigation.

This was such a wild ride. No one does temporal stories like Blake Crouch. The shifting timelines, the examination of time as a construct, dimension, however you want to describe it, it’s amazing to read.

Recursion left me reeling. A Neuroscientific Thriller for the record books. I am so glad I finally made the time for this one. It was hella fun!

I did get confused a bit as it starts racing to the conclusion. There were a lot of jumps and perspectives to try to remember and recall.

I think partly, that may have been because, it got so intense, I was reading really quickly. I needed to know what the heck was going to happen.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, it just makes it hard to let every detail sink in and I think this is a very detail-oriented story.

If you liked Dark Matter like I did, you should definitely check this one out. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Write on, Crouch! I can’t wait to see what he whips up next!!

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Review: The Last Magician by Lisa Maxwell

~ megs14malloy

The Last Magician (The Last Magician, #1)The Last Magician by Lisa Maxwell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

**3.5-stars**

Did I enjoy this book?
Great question.

I finished this over 10-days ago and although I remember reading it, I cannot actually recall too many specifics in regards to the plot.

From my limited recollections, there’s this girl, Esta, she lives in modern times but has the ability to time travel. She works for a mysterious Professor sort of figure who gives her an assignment to travel back to 1902-Manhattan and steal an ancient book that holds some magical secrets.

She is told that she also needs to stop the magician, who is apparently after this book as well. The magician is an actual performing magician named Harte Darrigan. They are both trying to steal the book from the mysterious and sinister ‘Order’.

This Order has worked to try to squash magic and those with it…or something. They created something called ‘the Brink’ which is a force around the island of Manhattan that traps those with magic inside…or something.

There is a lot of action, some fight scenes, some romance, a gang of magical peoples and some other things I can’t quite remember. I did listen to the audiobook for this and I am questioning whether or not that was the correct medium for me to take in this story.

It does jump around quite a bit in time, setting and perspectives, particularly in the beginning and I’ll admit, I was pretty much lost for the first 300-pages.

Overall, this didn’t leave much of an impression on me either way. There were some things about the story I like, Esta and Harte specifically, and I thought the concept behind it was super intriguing but I think it did too much to quickly. I could totally see this being broken up into two separate books.

While I am happy I read it, I am not even sure I am going to continue on with the series. I might because I already own the second book but I would seriously need a refresher course on what this is even about.

There was quite a good plot twist at the end but that left me pondering how logistically that was even possible. Then you are calculating time jumps, trying to figure how something could have actually worked. It was a lot. I give it three and a half shrugs up.

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Review: Passenger by Alexandra Bracken

~ megs14malloy

Publication Date: April 7, 2016    |    Rating: 4-action packed STARS!

‘You cannot fathom the distance I would travel for you.’

Swoon! This high stakes adventure really took me by surprise. I expected it to be good but not this good. I really, really enjoyed this and subsequently picked up the second book already. I started this one mainly because I hadn’t read a good time travel story for almost a year and it is one of my favorite sci-fi subgenres. This book had nonstop action and a scavenger hunt feel as our main characters, Etta & Nicholas, follow clues searching for an object left for Etta to find by her mother, Rose. Sound confusing? At times, I’ll admit, I felt a little lost but I think that was more due to my mind wandering due to LIFE than to an actual issue with the book.

This is the first Alexandra Bracken novel I have ever read and I am happy she has so many other books for me to choose from! Her writing style is very fast-paced and that action kept me flipping pages at a speed that even for me, seemed impressive. I finished this so quickly and am just itching to get farther in Wayfarer. Passenger left off on such a cliffhanger I can’t imagine the people who read it when it first came out having to wait for the 2nd book to be released! Literal torture and this is why I am years behind on my duologies, trilogies and series.

If you are looking for a super fast, engaging and lively adventure this could be the perfect book for you. There is some romance which although no necessarily my favorite plot element was pretty okay. I didn’t cringe once so that’s huge for me. I love Nicholas, a time traveling sailor with a heart of gold -he may actually be my first book crush this year- so cheers to that!

I really enjoyed Etta as well. She is a violin prodigy who when we meet her is under a lot of pressure to perform and live up to expectations. Once she is swept up into the unexpected reality of time travel, we really see her blossom. I thought her character was really strong and took everything in stride. At one point, she thought to herself, if my mother could do this, than so can I. I loved that self-assurance and just taking things as they come. She had no idea this whole underground world was part of her mother’s life, or part of hers, and she was able to adapt and assert herself and I thought it was great to see as opposed to a heroine who just needs to be saved!

Have you read this book? Do you have any other time travel recommendations for me? If so, please leave a comment below – I want to be sure I am not missing out on any other gems like this one!

Review: The Outcasts of Time by Ian Mortimer

~ megs14malloy

Pegasus Books expected publication date: January 2, 2018

*I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Wow – what a book! I know I will be mentally processing this one for a while – thank heavens for Kindle highlighting. I did a lot of highlighting during the course of reading this book, not because the concepts were difficult to understand or follow but because they were so meaningful. Ian Mortimer, as many know, is a wonderful historian, and he doesn’t disappoint with this work. The Outcasts of Time is indeed a work of fiction but is replete with very specific historical details; it runs through every element of the story.

Although there is a ‘time travel’ in this story, I wouldn’t classify it is science-fiction or fantasy. The only ‘magical’ element is the fact that the main character is, as he puts it, ‘skipping across time like a stone across water’; all other elements of the story are realistic. The time travel element allows the author to delve into a cultural examination of place through the passing of time that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. In a way, this reminds me of the format of Octavia Butler’s, Kindred; where time travel is similarly used to examine cultural changes over time.

Mortimer truly digs deep into society and how the workings of that change over time due to things like increased wealth, better living conditions, changes to transportation and the invention of more powerful and devastating weaponry. A phrase repeated throughout the work, ‘homo homini daemon’ – man is devil to man, speaks to the heart of some of the issues taken up in this work, that seems just as much a philosophical treatise as a work of fiction. A couple of my favorite lines being, “The man who has no knowledge of the past has no wisdom” and “…you must see what you mean to others to know your true worth.” The last paragraph practically made my heart explode as the narrative came to its resounding conclusion.

I am so glad that I had the opportunity to read this book – thank you to Pegasus Books for providing me with a copy. I would definitely recommend this book to history lovers of all kinds!