Timeless and Timekeeper by Alexandra Monir

Timeless and Timekeeper are two books that tell the story of Michelle Windsor, a teen who discovers that she has the ability to travel through time. The first book, Timeless, is when Michelle discovers her ability while the second book, Timekeeper, reveals a sinister plot to take everything away from her.

It all begins after Michelle's mother dies and she's reunited with her grandparents that she's never known about. Within her mother's belongings, she discovers a mysterious key. When she holds the key and the diary of her one ancestor, she finds herself suddenly transported in time to that of her ancestor. In this new time, she discovers that only certain people can see her, including a young man named Phillip. She and Phillip for an instant connection, but the fact that she's from a completely different time and can't control her time travels puts a huge damper on their relationship. Worried that their unattainable romance might destroy Phillip, Michelle races against time to make things right.

In Timekeeper, Michelle's world shifts when a new boys appears in school looking exactly like Phillip from the past - he even has the same name and signet ring. If he is the Phillip she'd fallen in love with, why doesn't he remember her? Helping Phillip remember their connection, though, is only half of her battle as she discovers that a woman from her father's past (Rebecca) is determined to destroy her. She now has seven days to make sense of her time traveling abilities and figure out how to stop Rebecca. 

In the realm of sequels, sometimes you can get away without reading the first book. In some ways you can with this book, but things will make a lot more sense if you read the first book. Personally I thought Timeless was a stronger book than Timekeeper. Given that both books are about time travel, there is a lot of shifting between the years. The first novel does a better job of making the timeline clear. There were a number of times in the second book that I became confused about which time and what happened in this time. There were characters overlapping because she's visiting Phillip but sometimes he young and then he's an adult but there's also her father and he's around at the same time as Phillip. Years might be mentioned and I couldn't figure out who was at what age at what point in that year. At times it made my head hurt. I almost wanted an actual time line of the character's past to visually see it all work out. But that might just have been me. The second novel also spent a ton of time explaining the logistics of time traveling, all of the rules and explanations as to how this happened. This is another thing that became very confusing, but again I might have just grown too frustrated to put in the brainpower to sort through it all. Both novels have a good plot, but I felt something was lost in the second book that didn't make it as enjoyable as the first novel.

If you're looking for a romance that is not by-the-books but doesn't involve paranormal crossovers (vampires, zombies, etc) this book is worth a shot. The author cares about the history she's recreating and thoroughly researched each era to vividly describe the past. So if you'd like a little taste of history without being stuck in the past, give these books a shot.
MMK

All Our Yesterdays - Cristin Terrill

Em and Finn are being held captive in a military facility run by their former friend James.   Em uses a spoon to dig around the drain in her cell.  She finds a piece of paper written in her handwriting telling her "you have to kill him".  One night Connor, a guard at the facility, helps Em and Finn escape.  They head to the control room for Cassandra, the time travel machine built by James.  Em and Finn travel back four years to January 4th.  Marina, Em's past self, has been waiting for James and his brother Congressman Nate to get back from Connecticut.  After they are back home Nate asks Marina to keep an eye on James.  He asks her to look out for anything out of the ordinary.  Marina agrees but doesn't understand why.  Not to far away Em and Finn appear where the military facility will be.  They convince a younger version of Connor, the guard who helped them escape in the future, they aren't crazy and the future needs to be changed. Connor helps get Em and Finn to where the banquet Nate is speaking at is taking place.  When they get ready to find and kill James shots ring out as Nate has been shot.  Nate is taken to the hospital and James rides with him.  Finn and Marina head to the hospital to be with James.  When James wants to be alone he heads outside and Em attempts to kill him.  Everyone regroups as Finn, James, and Marina head to Finn's house since James and Marina's are swarmed with reporters.  Em and Finn follow them and Em has a another chance to take out James, but she can't do it.  Finn, James, and Marina head back to the hospital the next morning where Nate briefly regains consciousness.  He uses sign language to tell Marina they should head to Connecticut to find answers about why he was shot.  In Connecticut they find evidence of the government experimenting in time travel.  They also find evidence the government is also interested in James.  As they leave the house James gets the news that Nate has died.  Em and Finn decide that even though James is at his weakest now, this is the best time to kill him.  They are hopeful with the death of James the horrible future they come from will be prevented. 

I really enjoyed this book.  It was a good time travel book that didn't confuse you when the future Em and Finn came back to the past to try and kill James.  The ending played out differently in my mind, but I liked the way the story ended.

T.B.
11/18/13