A thoroughly enjoyable and fun YA time travel story, in which our protagonist must right the timeline in order to bring her world back to order (think disappearing family members a la Back to the Future). Sixteen-year-old Kate’s long lost grandmother appears with a medallion that glows with a blue light only Kate and her grandmother can see. As soon as grandmother reveals her genetic time-traveling abilities, Kate barely has time to argue before a time-shift rips her parents’ existence away from her. With the protection of the medallion, Kate must time travel to Chicago’s World Fair to prevent the formation of a religious cult that has it’s own designs of manipulating the time line.
Characters, dialogue, and pacing were all well-executed in that I was able to let myself be carried through the story without any distraction of the plot by personal annoyance at YA simplicity. The stakes were set high for Kate as soon as the book opened, and the story continued to move well, save for a few romance scenes in act two. Kate is a relatively strong female lead, impulsive and reckless, with enough martial arts skills that she does a fair amount of face kicking, while also being a teenager who does not like wearing uncomfortable 19th century shoes.
While Kate is learning the art of time-travel in a timeline not her own, she falls in love with a normal non-time-traveling boy, Trey, who falls for her during her panic to find her father that doesn’t know her. The other side of the obligatory love triangle is an 8 year old boy she meets in 1898. His older self saves her from the big bad, and then proceeds to tell her about the year they spent together in a different timeline. A year she doesn’t remember. Using time travel as a means to create forbidden love was effective in both cases. Although the romance was a large part, it does not dominate the overall plot.
Recommended as a light and fun YA romance adventure that excels in parallel time loops.