Welcome to Litsy!

I enjoyed this novel for its super interesting concept (time travel tested by bringing a handful of people from the past into the present) and its depth of characterisation. It has been described as a combination of romance & sci fi mystery/thriller. For me the romance/introspection portion got a bit bogged down and the thriller plot happened too quickly with not enough detail. But there is such good material here ⬇️

A time travel-romance, a spy thriller and a look into workplace dynamic.

I was really enjoying this novel until the last 60-50p and then she lost me. Still a pick, but not as strong as it could have been.

Meh. First 1/2 was a super slow burn for me, setting up characters, back stories. About the halfway mark, the plot picks up a little. Someone gets killed, but the response is lackluster.

The last 1/4 of the book was more what I was expecting, but just too little too late for my tastes. Shame because the themes Bradley explored in that last 1/4 were definitely thought-provoking. Wanted more of that, less ponderous back stories.

#10BeforeTheEnd

😂 Not going to argue with this observation.

🙋🏻‍♀️Yep. Done this.

I don‘t feel this so much in my 50s, but I definitely felt this way often in my 20s and 30s. Now if time travel were introduced to my life, I‘m guessing I‘d start feeling this door slamming again. Makes me think time travel might be a pass at this point in my life🤔

November was a strong reading month (13 total books, my record so far in 2024), but the quality was only average. Hoping to continue this momentum in December; I am currently on track to hit 100 books for the year, so I hope I can still hit that!

The best book I read in November also happened to be my #Doublespin! I had a strong reading month, but did not finish too many off of my owned TBR, which are the books I use for #BookspinBingo.

This book was, honestly, not what I expected. However, overall, that was a good thing. I liked exploration of the characters through time and the impacts of climate change and time travel.

10-3 Nov 24 (audiobook)
In some near future the British government‘s Ministry of Time somehow finds a door to time travel and use it to rescue a handful of people from past eras to train them to live in our time. It sounds even sillier when I write it down!
The premise didn‘t make much sense to me but there were aspects of the book I enjoyed, particularly the difficulties the historical characters have adjusting to modern life, which were amusing.

The futuristic British Ministry of Time discovers time travel and brings expats from the past into the present.

Assimilation ✨ Complicity ✨ Alienation

For fans of Loki

I‘m excited for this month‘s TBR. I am trying in November and December to catch up on my BOTM backlog (which is very long lol). Really looking forward to to both my #Bookspin (Thistlefoot) and #Doublespin (tagged). I hope I can ride my reading momentum in October through the rest of the year!

I found this romance/science fiction novel both confusing and dull. It did not work for me. 2 🌟

Loved! Such a good romance story! Great combo of intrigue and history and love and drama. The true historical elements were fascinating.

Meh

DNFing this one. The entire premise makes no sense, why would anyone bring people from the past to the future and attempt to integrate them into society? It just seems cruel and I can‘t get behind the book‘s story. Also the audiobook narration is strange and stilted.
#hailthebail!

I was recommended this book because it was supposed to be similar in vibes to Natasha Pulley's The Kingdoms, which it's NOT.
I reckon there are two types of target audience: The Terror girlies and time travel fans. I'm the latter, and was disappointed, as it's 75% romance, 15% government thriller and 10% time travel nerdery, and I was firmly uninvested in the romance. There were about three really interesting sentences about diverging timelines.

Overall, this one‘s decent, yet the stages of reading went something like:
1) Ah yes, this is very good and will surely be engaging 2) Margaret is a feminist icon 3) Perhaps a bit heavy on the “filler episodes” in the middle here, boss 4) WILFRED OWEN 5) You really should‘ve told me this sooner… 6) The lady is the lady. Swell.

I love time travel and this book is great! Let‘s bring people from the past and maybe the future to fix what we have goofed up all ready in our time…everyone in every timeline is flawed. Love story in a time travel book.. I‘m here for it. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A nameless young woman gets a job at the Ministry minding "expats" from other times and helping them assimilate. Hers is Lt. Graham Gore, lost during Franklin's lost expedition seeking the Northwest Passage.
The narrative touches on colonialism, bureaucracy, climate change. But then we got sex scenes which didn't work for me, and I went from very invested to having lost almost all interest.
And Why did we have the scenes from the Terror at all?

Someone in the book world referred to this as “the book of her career,” so naturally I had really high hopes. This just… wasn‘t very good. I agree with @jlhammar that the writing itself was clunky, and the characters didn‘t feel genuine in their emotions. Then the last 10% became outrageously sci fi, but not in a “that‘s so clever I never saw it coming” way. More like “that‘s impossible and I don‘t buy it, this is stupid” way. Bummer!

I wanted to love this. I read 30%. I have a difficult time knowing when I'm not really enjoying a book. When I start to avoid reading is about the only indicator. This was super funny in spots, but not often enough to hold my interest. #DNF

My family lived inside proof of ourselves like crabs in shells. It could be suffocating - literally: the dust, the dry rustle in the summer heat. But no one was going to tell us what we weren't entitled to or had failed to file. Not with duplicates, 'your supervisor in copy'.

Mixed feelings. Probably between so-so and a pick for me. I wonder if I‘ll lean more one way or the other after our book club discussion this evening. I was mostly enjoying the first half (the fish out of water stuff was fun), but the romance not so much. And the writing was a bit off-putting—lots of odd/clunky similes and metaphors.

I‘m hoping it was worth reading just for the fact that it led me to these two other books! #BOTM

Great simile. Fits the plot line.

I enjoyed this…until it became more romantic suspense with a sci-fi twist. For me, the romance elements came out of nowhere and didn‘t flow well. There‘s a good idea of a novel here, but not well executed imo.

The British government has discovered a time machine. They bring people who would‘ve died in the past to them and assign officers to watch over them and help with their assimilation. However, some officials are hiding even more secrets!

The premise was better than the execution. The time travel didn‘t quite make sense, the romance wasn‘t that romantic, and the spy stuff was not particularly thrilling. I found the lead character too dull and gullible to be believable at the center of the drama. Interesting elements - race, sexuality, the change of social norms - were winked at but left mostly unexplored. The writing was beautiful at times, but the book bored me a bit.

Perhaps he‘ll die this time.

#firstlinefridays
#currentlyreading
@ShyBookOwl

In a near future London plagued by devastating heatwaves and floods, an unnamed narrator accepts a position as a "bridge," tasked with monitoring a person abducted from their own time by way of a mysterious time door. The narrator, increasingly obsessed with 19th century Arctic explorer Graham Gore, is willfully obtuse in a way that really bothered me. I have mixed feelings about this one mainly because I disliked her so much. Still, worth reading

Entertaining and even though it spanned many genres, it didn‘t feel messy or not fleshed out. It‘s definitely sci-fi light, but that works well for me. Great characters, and I especially loved Graham.

3.25 ⭐️

#botm

I ended up liking this more than I expected. I thought the time travel presented in this book was unique. I really liked the expats and wanted them to succeed and be happy. Other things in this book really made me think about things to come.

Described as “A time travel romance, a spy thriller, a workplace comedy,” this was all three, but unevenly so. I still enjoyed it.

The pacing was uneven, with a slow build in the first 75%, then fast-paced action at the end. Similarly the genre elements were uneven. It began as a fairly realistic depiction of individuals from the past attempting to understand & integrate into the modern world, with coworker/roommate drama & humor along the way⤵️

Unique and creative time travel story. Took me places I didn‘t expect to go. Greatly enjoyed.

Time for #5JoysFriday! Things that brought me joy this week:

1. Time with family! (On the left: my sister with her grandbaby, who is smiling at my dad)
2. Big band jazz concert on Saturday—that‘s my husband on the right, playing sax
3. Successfully figuring out the streaming setup at church to broadcast my husband‘s piano service on Tuesday
4. Finishing the last book from my most recent too-large library haul (tagged) ⤵️

I‘ve had a bit of a marinate on this one and I think it falls firmly into the wanted to like it more than I did like it camp. It‘s an immensely compelling conceptually, and tickled a lot of my niche interests. But unfortunately for me the way that I was executed neglected or underdeveloped some of the more compelling facets of the concept in favour of a romance I wasn‘t convinced by (or convinced that the story needed).

I really enjoyed this! It is a unique time travel book, our narrator (do we ever get her name?) is a civil servant who is assigned a very charming man from 1845. There is a group of time travelers, some we get to know well, each of the ones we get to know are charming and fun characters. I liked the references to cats throughout the author must love them 🐱
There is action, drama, intrigue, some sadness and a bit of romance a well balanced story.

Grabbed this from my library on a quick 7-day loan special so tore through it fast—which was easy! It is what it says: across genres it is spy thriller, scifi time travel, romance, workplace comedy. It is a lot, but it works. High point: the 3 primary time travelers to modern day are The BEST! I love them SO much. And their reactions to modern life! Awesome. The time travel elements can be a bit wibbly-wobbly, per usual. Well worth the read.

This is an interesting genre-busting book - sometimes funny, other times melancholy. It‘s not a poetic tale but contains some beautiful writing. The last third went in a direction I neither anticipated nor fully understood. It helped when I reread the last 3 chapters. Because of my confusion I headed to GR comments and read this is being developed as a BBC limited series.

I enjoyed this book and felt connected to the characters, but admit that at times I was confused about what exactly was happening. I really feel this is the type of book that would benefit from a second reading. All that being said, the romance was lovely, the humour fun and the writing quite beautiful and very deep and thought provoking at times. Also the forward time travel made a nice change. Thanks to NetGalley for the digital ARC. 4/5 stars!

“Forgiveness, which takes you back to the person you were and lets you reset them. Hope, which exists in a future in which you are new. Forgiveness and hope are miracles. They let you change your life. They are time-travel.”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Enjoyed this book, not my typical genre of choice, but very thought provoking and interesting.

I had high hopes for this one. It checked so many boxes of things I love. But in the end the characters left me cold. I felt like it couldn‘t decide if it was trying to be whimsical love story via the movie Kate & Leopold or a more serious time travel novel like Dark Matter. It kept switching gears, and so neither story felt as compelling as I wanted it to. Not awful, just disappointing because of my high expectations.

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

I feel conflicted rating this. It‘s excitingly unique. Thought-provoking. The characters are vividly portrayed. I enjoyed the twist and the ending. But I can‘t get past that it was hard for me personally to get into and get through at times. It‘s one I definitely want to continue to think about and process, though, (rather than forget about it and move on), which I think counts for a lot. #BOTM

The good news is I finished a book. May has been so busy, I haven't had much time for reading.

The bad news is I struggled to get through this one.

It's always risky when I choose a science fiction book.

Intriguing concept, charismatic characters, thought-provoking explorations on different eras all packaged in a sort of loose structure. This book was witty, charming, and written with fresh prose. While I was entertained and generally wooed, certain plot lines felt too slippery and unclear to me.

Excited to start this one! I‘m behind on library holds so i have to get moving on the reading!