Synopsis:
CAN YOU STOP A MURDER AFTER IT’S ALREADY HAPPENED? . . . THE BOOK THAT EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT
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It’s every parent’s nightmare.
Your happy, funny, innocent son commits a terrible crime: murdering a complete stranger.
You don’t know who.
You don’t know why.
You only know your teenage boy is in custody – and his future lost.
Somewhere in the past lie the answers, and you don’t have a choice but to find them . . .
My reading experience:
Not just another time travel novel, this incredible story from Gillian McAllister is a foray into the multiverse, melting time into layers of intrigue and subversion. Undoubtedly a psychological thriller but in reverse, which brings a whole new dimension to the detective story – things you missed the first time around.
This is such compelling reading. The immediacy of each moment captured by the structuring of the story.
Jen, Kelly and Todd are ordinary people, Jen with her maternal guilt, fears and foibles, Kelly the annoying husband, Todd the teenager becoming a young adult. And then a catastrophic event propels Jen into a time loop which she grasps to take control of. By noticing the smallest details as she relives her life, emotions are brought to the surface alongside fear and frustration. As the main protagonist she represents all modern mothers of teenagers – the ones who get to do it all – be a wife, mother and have a career, although as Jen discovers reliving it backwards, this only means she misses a lot.
As a female reader I found this undercurrent interesting. The positioning of a society where if women want to be equal to men, they have to multitask like it’s an Olympic sport.
Another theme alongside equality, is justice. In this story, the author demonstrates the fine lines of policing and criminality where in order to protect society, sometimes police have to be on the very borders of the law.
No page is missable. and each one plunges you into the next. Before you know it and just when you think you have all the information, you get goosebumps, proper uncanny goosebumps.
Overall this is not one to be missed. I highly recommend the new book from Gillian McAllister.
Appletree Books 