Author: Emily Colin
Narrator: Roger Wayne, Emily Woo Zeller
Publisher: Random House Publishing – Ballantine Books
Publication Date: July 2017
Genre: Contemporary Romance / Women’s Fiction
Buy the Book: Amazon | BN | Audible
Description: An archaeologist discovers her presumed-missing boyfriend is trapped more than a hundred years in the past—a love story that transcends time and place, from the author of the New York Times bestseller The Memory Thief.
Eight years after the unsolved disappearance of her boyfriend Max Adair, archaeologist Isabel Griffin has managed to move on and rebuild her life with her young daughter, Finn, her last tie to Max. But after a series of strange incidents, Isabel begins to wonder if Max might still be alive somewhere, trying to communicate with her. She has no idea that the where isn’t the problem—it’s the when. Max has slipped through time and place, landing on his ancestral family plantation in 1816 Barbados, on the eve of a historic slave uprising. As Isabel searches for answers, Max must figure out not only how to survive the violence to come, but how to get back to his own century, the woman he loves, and the daughter he has only ever met in his dreams.
My Thoughts: Shortly after learning his girlfriend is pregnant, Max disappears from Isabel’s life without any warning or explanation. Is he dead? Did he get scared about impending fatherhood and take off? Isabel is used to being abandoned because her mother did the same thing six years prior.
Now, eight years later, having raised a daughter practically on her own, working on her relationship with her father and the prospect of a new romance on the horizon, Isabel is on an archaeological dig in Barbados when she gets a phone call…from Max. At least the caller ID says it’s Max, but when she tries to call him back, as she has done many times over the years, the phone number has been disconnected and is no longer in service. Strangely enough, Isabel’s daughter, Finn, is claiming to have seen her father and has talked to him.
After following what appears to be the ghost of his ancestor into the woods behind his home, Max finds himself in Barbados in the year 1816 mere days before a slave rebellion breaks out. Max is appalled at the treatment he witnesses the slaves receiving and has enough knowledge of this crucial event to want to try to stop it, but he risks drawing the wrong kind of attention from both the slaves and the plantation owners.
I really enjoyed the historical background of the Bussa Rebellion as a backdrop for this story and felt a lot of anxiety for Max and the characters on both sides of the rebellion. I was also in high anticipation of whether Max would make it home and if so, what kind of reception he would receive.
I paired the reading of this book with the audiobook format narrated by Roger Wayne and Emily Woo Zeller. I found their performances to be realistic, portraying the character’s personalities accurately. The characters were believable and their actions were appropriate for the situations they were in. I liked all of the characters, but especially Max’s daughter, Finn. I also liked how the author illustrates the time paradigm in this story. When Max first left, Isabel was pregnant and now Finn is eight, but for Max, he has only been gone several weeks.
My Final Verdict: Overall, this was a very good story with a moderate pace that is told in both Isabel and Max’s points of view. There were some unexpected twists in the story that I didn’t anticipate that left me unsettled and though it didn’t alter my enjoyment of the story, I would very much enjoy seeing a sequel to see how Max, Isabel and Finn move forward.
I recommend this book to readers who like time travel, real historical events woven into the story and romance.
Thank you to the publisher, Random House Publishing – Ballantine Books, who provided an advance reader copy of this book via NetGalley.
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