Author: C.B. Lewis
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: April 27, 2020
Genre(s): Time Travel, Science Fiction
Page Count: 393
Rating: 3 stars out of 5
Read book blurb here
We are dropped right into the action as the Temporal Research Institution inadvertently brings Janos Nagy - a seriously injured WWII-era Hungarian - back to their headquarters in Manchester, England, in the year 2041. Historian /linguist Dieter Schmidt survives having a gun held in his head by a delirious Janos Nagy and persists in helping Janos assimilate to his new life.
While I really like the premise of the time travel - the TRI goes back in time to clandestinely clarify historic events - the implementation seems a bit .... shoddy. For example, while Dieter may be an excellent historian, he fails to understand why "a runaway Hungarian solider might be wary of a well-dressed, blond-haired German in a military facility" who "could have been a poster boy for a eugenics campaign."
Also, later on in the book, Janos works with TRI to help prepare the team for their missions and makes them aware their hands should be calloused, their nails dirty and their clothes worn to mess with their cover story of being a farmer. Seems pretty obvious. Finally, Dieter spends a lot of time in his head constructing angsty internal monologues, and with plenty of "tell" vs. "show," the pace of the book feels very slow, in my opinion.
I suspect if the overall plot had been gripping or the relationship intense and poignant, it would have been easier to overlook the pace and/or the plot inconsistencies, but I struggled to finish the book and personally cannot recommend it. Of course, your mileage may vary! 3 stars.
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