This was a weird one for me. It has an interesting premise, and it sets up the beginning so well, but then I am not entirely sure where the author was going with it. On the one hand, she sets up quite a few things that are never resolved so I assume she may have wanted to use this novel as starting off point for a series but it is almost to boring to be a series. You can’t hint at a lot of interesting and intriguing things, and not make the novel interesting on its own. Sure, there are quite a few conspiracy theories, but as far as action? I can’t think of much that happened. Lots of talking and introspection but not something that would keep me reading – I struggled enough to stay engaged with this one.
There are two main characters, both whom have natural time travel abilities but Julia is basically in the wild and has no training. The other person, Nick, accidentally traveled from the 19th century to the 20th century when he was in a life or death situation, and has been taken care of by a society of people with similar stories. Now, ten years after he started life in the present, the Guild has come to collect. They need him to return to the 19th century to flush out an enemy group of time travelers. This is also the point where he discovers they have been keeping a lot about how time travel works from the majority of his peers, but he feels he has no choice but to assist in the secret mission.
The thing is while I initially found Nick interesting and generally likable, as the novel progresses he seems to develop some split personality, and becomes rather unlikable. The novel tries to explain it as the past trying to pull him back to his former self so that one minute he sounds like a normal 20th/21st century modern person and the next, he sounds like any other 19th century noble concerned with his place in the world as far as gender and class are concerned. It didn’t find a good balance, and rather than being an intriguing aspect of time travel, it turned one of the main characters into an asshole. Julia and Nick were neighbors in the past, and due to circumstances, she is staying with his family. They have a mutual attraction to each other as they both try to hide their abilities from the other.
I also had a bit of a problem with the romance between Nick and Julia because Nick should have known better given that there is no way it could end well, and he should known very well what it would mean for a woman in the 19th century. It was hard to be in favor of their romance when the knowledge/power dynamic between them seemed so far off, unlike in the historical romances I enjoy.
Overall, intriguing ideas that were hampered by pacing that was too slow and one main character that just never seemed to quite have a set personality, changing his actions based on what the plot needed.