Title: A Murder in Time
Author: Julie McElwain
Genre: Time Travel, Murder Mystery, Historical
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
This is more of a 2.5 stars book. And what I'm about to say is going to be very contradictory...
I enjoyed this book, but it also drove me crazy. The overall concept of a FBI agent time travelling to the past and solving crime is amusing, clever and unique. Also the time period of the 1800s is a personal favourite.
And yet there were so many things I had to look over in my enjoyment of this book:
science or myth/lore, and your character trying to return... Kendra puts ZERO thought put into returning to her own time. And while she may not want to in the end, the reality is that she should have tried something for a day or two... or just been more frantic.
- It rambled on and on, often. It could be 200 pages shorter and you'd sacrifice no story or character development; instead you just loose some extremely detailed autopsy info, details about maids and servants that are irrelevant.
- A lot of our lead gal, Kendra thinking (also easily cut out) includes stupid one liners (think Caruso in Miami Vice bad comments) that are just unnecessary and frankly is a cheap trick that an inexperienced author uses at chapter ends.
- If you are going to do a book on time travel you had better be ready to deal with a few things... your character desperately trying to return, some actual
- Accents. I get it servants have accents and nobels/aristocrats don't. But I do not need an apostrophe in place of every single 'H' muttered by a servant. There were entire lines I couldn't read even after three tries. Ridiculous over emphasis of accent.
- Speaking of not understanding things; while it was only done once it as almost an entire page of actual conversation in French. No translations. Now for me this is fine as I'm bilingual but had it been any other language I'd have been screwed. This is a rude disservice to readers in my opinion.
- Id have liked to see more effort put into researching the time period for historical issues. Many, many small things drove me crazy... but I love historical fiction that is well researched. So maybe I just expect too much of a fun book like this.
And yet I really LIKED this book. Confused yet? LOL
A Murder in Time is like Outlander meets J.D.Robb. I'm not a big murder mystery person per say but I enjoy a bold, break all the rules female that kicks ass every once in awhile.
I also really enjoyed how Julie McElwain demonstrated the intelligence of our 1800s characters even though they didn't have our current technology. I think we often think people in the past were dumb which is just not true as they got us to where we are today.
I will read the second book as I now want to know about the romance that was just getting started, more about the time travel aspect and how Kendra continues to manage her situation(s).
And because this was a decent read, even if it wasn't amazing.
It would make for a fun beach read or lazy Sunday afternoon. Just don't over think it.
1 comment:
Time travel is always a difficult subject, and I think I have yet to find an instance of it being described (be it a book, a movie, or something else) that doesn't have any flaws (although some come pretty close). And just like you, I find myself enjoying a lot of those despite the flaws, although I can't, in good conscience, say it was a 'good' book or movie or whatever (sometime I can, but not always). So I guess I get what you're getting at. Still, glad to hear you enjoyed it :)
Post a Comment