Tag: julie-mcelwain • BookLikes

show activity (+)

4

review 2018-08-06 13:03

A Murder in Time (Kendra Donovan #1) by Julie McElwain

A Murder in Time: A Novel - Julie McElwain

“She shook off her sense of amazement, and tried to pretend she was watching a period play. There was a lot of flirting going on, plenty of fluttering of ivory fans and eyelashes. It was weird to think that in another two hundred years people would flirt by pole dancing, twerking, and sexting.”

*** ABOUT THE BOOK ***

Title: A Murder in Time (Kendra Donovan #1)

Author: Julie McElwain

Genre: Historical | Time Travel | Mystery

Goodreads Amazon

*** BOOK BLURB ***

Beautiful and brilliant, Kendra Donovan is a rising star at the FBI. Yet her path to professional success hits a speed bump during a disastrous raid where half her team is murdered, a mole in the FBI is uncovered and she herself is severely wounded. As soon as she recovers, she goes rogue and travels to England to assassinate the man responsible for the deaths of her teammates.

While fleeing from an unexpected assassin herself, Kendra escapes into a stairwell that promises sanctuary but when she stumbles out again, she is in the same place - Aldrich Castle - but in a different time: 1815, to be exact.

Mistaken for a lady's maid hired to help with weekend guests, Kendra is forced to quickly adapt to the time period until she can figure out how she got there; and, more importantly, how to get back home. However, after the body of a girl is found on the extensive grounds of the county estate, she starts to feel there's some purpose to her bizarre circumstances. Stripped of her twenty-first century tools, Kendra must use her wits alone in order to unmask a cunning madman.

*** REVIEW ***

I started reading this book just for entertainment rather than a literary challenge, but I was still disappointed. Firstly, I was annoyed at how long it took for Kendra to actually time travel. Maybe it would have worked out for me if the events and bad guys she was chasing in nowadays would have related to the story in the past, but it had no connection whatsoever.

While the parts of the novel set 200 hundred years prior was considerably more interesting, it still had flaws. POV changing in mid-paragraphs annoyed me.

Negatives aside, I really enjoyed the mystery of this book. If you like good mystery with time travel aspects and kick ass heroine hunting down serial killer in Victorian era, read the book and just for yourself.

Like Reblog Comment

review 2016-07-13 00:00

A Murder in Time: A Novel

Fangirl Moments and My Two Cents

I’m not an agent for one of the government alphabet agencies, but this woman’s knowledge and behavior feel realistic to me. Often in stories with these types of leads, the protagonist is a little too amazing, but that’s not the case here. Also, not all time travel stories flow so easily. I did notice the killer’s word slip and figure out some in the mystery of the murders, but so much of the mystery did keep me on edge. I plan to continue the series.

Like Reblog Comment

show activity (+)

1

text 2016-07-06 14:14

Trashy, and not in a good way

spinsterfun

This book was offered through my library's Overdrive app as some sort of Big Read, so I decided to give it a try. It has all of the ingredients for a fun summer book: FBI profiler Kendra Donovan accidentally travels back in time and has to catch a serial killer. If you like trashy books at all then you probably think that premise sounds pretty fun.

Sadly, the execution is lacking and I quit on this one after 5 chapters.

1. There are major POV problems. There is a huge difference between an omniscient narrator and an inept writer who constantly head-hops.

2. Kendra isn't just *any* FBI profiler, because that wouldn't be interesting enough. No, she's the product of two scientists who believe in eugenics and created her in a lab. She's therefore the smartest and most specialist FBI profiler who ever was--indeed, so special that the FBI waived their age requirements and let her join up early. Dear author: no1currr.

3. Everyone is fucking stupid, including Kendra. She drones on and on about the deadly ricin in the warehouse she and her colleagues are busting into in the first part of the story. Better keep those masks on, right guys? Nope--almost the first thing they do when they breach the warehouse is rip their masks off because the bad guys have flash bombs. Fortunately the ricin they've been so worried about is not Chekhov's ricin, so it ends up not mattering.

4. The author seems to have only a vague idea of how computers work. Kendra leads her team to the bad guy by "tracking his signal," and writing a magic computer program that guesses where he'll go to next, whatever that means. Maybe she's using the Find my Phone app on his iPhone.

5. The pacing sucks. I got through five chapters of a time travel story--guess how much time traveling is done to that point? If you guessed zero then, sadly, you're correct. The author strands us in what is essentially Kendra's backstory for what feels like an eternity. I now understand why this book is 500 pages long.

This one wasn't for me, and I'm a bit envious of people who liked it. I really wanted to be one of those people.

DNF

Like Reblog Comment

show activity (+)

15

text 2016-05-12 00:11

May (e) book haul

As the page turns..

The Star-Touched Queen - Roshani Chokshi

The Square Root of Summer - Harriet Reuter Hapgood

The First Time She Drowned - Kerry Kletter

The Man in the High Castle - -Brilliance Audio on CD Unabridged-,Jeff Cummings,Philip K. Dick

Lots of new purchases this month guys!

A Murder in Time: A Novel - Julie McElwain

Sleeping Giants - Sylvain Neuvel

The Star-Touched Queen - Roshani Chokshi

The Square Root of Summer - Harriet Reuter Hapgood

The First Time She Drowned - Kerry Kletter

And a couple of netgalley titles:

Don't You Cry - Mary Kubica

And I Darken - Kiersten White

Currently Reading Updates:

I finally watched the series "The man in the high castle" and it was really good. Naturally, I got both the book and the audio. I'm at the beginning but there are so many differences already.

Kiersten White book haul The Man in the High Castle Mary Kubica sleeping giants sylvain neuvel and i darken 2016 posts the star-touched queen don t you cry julie mcelwain a murder in time a novel ebook haul roshani chokshi the square root of summer harriet reuter hapgood the first time she drowned kerry kletter asthepageturns

Like Reblog Comment

show activity (+)

7

review 2016-04-07 10:20

A Murder in Time by Julie McElwain

It's a Mad Mad World

My review of A Murder in Time is now up on Fresh Fiction!

"Slipping back in time 200 years to catch a serial killer"

Read the whole review here!

mystery Historical fiction historical mystery crime read 2016