RATING: 🌕🌕🌑🌑🌑
Published: January 05, 2016
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 496
“… they had forgotten the most crucial point of life – that it wasn’t meant to be lived for the past, or even the future, but for each present moment.”
SYNOPSIS:
In one devastating night, violin prodigy Etta Spencer loses everything she knows and loves. Thrust into an unfamiliar world by a stranger with a dangerous agenda, Etta is certain of only one thing: she has traveled not just miles but years from home. And she’s inherited a legacy she knows nothing about from a family whose existence she’s never heard of. Until now.
Nicholas Carter is content with his life at sea, free from the Ironwoods—a powerful family in the colonies—and the servitude he’s known at their hands. But with the arrival of an unusual passenger on his ship comes the insistent pull of the past that he can’t escape and the family that won’t let him go so easily. Now the Ironwoods are searching for a stolen object of untold value, one they believe only Etta, Nicholas’ passenger, can find. In order to protect her, he must ensure she brings it back to them—whether she wants to or not.
Together, Etta and Nicholas embark on a perilous journey across centuries and continents, piecing together clues left behind by the traveler who will do anything to keep the object out of the Ironwoods’ grasp. But as they get closer to the truth of their search, and the deadly game the Ironwoods are playing, treacherous forces threaten to separate Etta not only from Nicholas but from her path home… forever.
THOUGHTS:
Time travel is a concept that I would love to read but I haven’t gotten around to picking up a book about. And back in the days when this book just came out, I’ve been hearing a lot of hype about it and it captures my interest because it is about time travel. I pick this book up and I am hoping that I would love it, I did not.
In this book, there are passages that you could locate by a certain notes on a musical instrument or just by having a knowledge of it. However, not everyone can travel, there are only families who have the capacity to jump from passages to passages. And the two main characters in this book are one of those people who could time travel. But unlike Nicholas, Etta did not know that she could time travel until she was dragged to a passage and gain consciousness in a new era.
The whole plot of the story revolves around an astrolabe. Though none of them really knew what it was really capable of other than it has something to do with the passages, the two main characters were forced to embark on a journey to find it in a limited time.
Explaining the whole book this vague surely makes it look interesting. But the whole journey is very frustrating. The first time that I read this book I almost hated it, almost gave it a 1-star rating on Goodreads because it was a struggle for me to push through. The only thing that’s stopping me to rate it that low is the time travelling plot which looks like a subplot in the story if you asked me. The second time I reread this book, I just focus on the crumbs of information about the time travelling and the places that they go to and anything related to the astrolabe and it is quite a good book. I wanted to bump up my rating but the romance in this book is stopping me.
I know that romance would pop-up here in there in every book, even in a fantasy book, it is inevitable. But the romance in this book was overpowering to the whole plot. This is the type of romance that I hated in books. They just met and yet they are so drawn to each other that they felt the electric current with just a simple touch. And the character’s action and the whole romance thing are a combination of what I hate the most about romance novel. And romance novel feels more tolerable than the romance in this book now that I think about it.
To be honest, I did not like both of the characters. I could not see them individually because it’s all about their romance. I would have unhauled this book if the cover is not that pretty. And I think that this book was one of those over-hyped books.
All in all, this book is something. There is time travel but you don’t get to know more about the world, just that there are time travelers and some laws about time travelling. But the world building in this book is lacking, you did not get to know the deepest and darkest part of time travelling and all that. So just read it if you are into cringy romance and a bit of fantasy here and there.
Do I recommend this book? Uhm. No. But the second book is 10 times better, that I can assure you.
This book review is long overdue. I have read it before and thought that I have already posted the book review but I was wrong! And I was stupid enough to post the review of the second book but did not notice that I have not posted the review for the first. So here I am making amends.
Anyway, that’s all for this review. You can check out my non-spoiler review of Wayfarer, the sequel to this book, here.
Until next time guys!
Maria❤
A Daughter of Parchment and Paper 
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