Monday, March 17, 2014

A Time Travel Story With a Budding Teenage Romance

Ethan is fishing alone when the air seems to become more liquid. He closes his eyes feeling that something strange is happening. When he opens them, he sees a naked girl walking along the river bank. Worried about her, he gives her his sweatshirt and watches her walk away toward town.

The girl is Prenna, a visitor from a future time. The world in which she lived is dying. Her brothers and many others have been killed by a plague. Their world is filled with social and economic unrest. They have some to be saved, blend in with the world of 2010, and try to discover whether there is some way they can change the course of history.

The group from the future lives under a stringent set of rules that includes no intimate contact with members of the 2010 generation. The elders spy on them and punish them to make sure they obey these rules, but the attraction between Ethan and Prenna is strong. They become friends and soon they are trying to solve the mystery of how to change history.

The story moves rather slowly. It takes time for Ethan and Prenna to get together and then more time slowly unraveling the mystery of why the world went so terribly wrong. It takes a long time because the romance becomes paramount. The teenagers go to the beach, drink, play cards, and generally get to know each other. This slows the action since their interactions are awkward and without real emotion.

I wasn't impressed with the characters. Ethan is too perfect. He's ready and able to do anything to save Prenna. She is very introverted and afraid when the story opens, but she overcomes it to try to save the future. In fact, she becomes quite assertive making decisions that sometimes appear quite stupid.

I enjoyed the book and would recommend it if you enjoy time travel stories. It appears to be set up as part of a series, so perhaps in the other books the pace will be faster.

I reviewed this book for Net Galley.


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