TimeBomb – TimeBomb #1 – Scott K. Andrews
Release date: October 9th, 2014
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Age Group: (Young) Adult
Pages: 336
Format: Paperback
Source: Gift
New York City, 2141: Yojana Patel throws herself off a skyscraper, but never hits the ground.
Cornwall, 1640: gentle young Dora Predennick, newly come to Sweetclover Hall to work, discovers a badly-burnt woman at the bottom of a flight of stairs. When she reaches out to comfort the dying woman, she’s knocked unconscious, only to wake, centuries later, in empty laboratory room.
On a rainy night in present-day Cornwall, seventeen-year-old Kaz Cecka sneaks into the long-abandoned Sweetclover Hall, determined to secure a dry place to sleep. Instead he finds a frightened housemaid who believes Charles I is king and an angry girl who claims to come from the future.
Thrust into the centre of an adventure that spans millennia, Dora, Kaz and Jana must learn to harness powers they barely understand to escape not only villainous Lord Sweetclover but the forces of a fanatical army… all the while staying one step ahead of a mysterious woman known only as Quil.
Review:
The first time I heard about TimeBomb was when Hodder revealed the cover. I thought it looked amazing and the synopsis sounded really good. It took me another year to actually get my hands on it though, but when I finally had it, I couldn’t wait and started it right away.
The book definitely doesn’t miss its start. The first few pages are fast-paced, not wasting any time on fluff but throwing the reader right in the middle of all the action.
The protagonists in this book are three very distinct characters that are just as clueless about what is going on as the reader is. Not only do they all have very different personalities, they are also from different time periods. Kaz is from the present (2014), Dora from the past (1640) and Jana is from the future (2141). They have to overcome all their differences and figure out how to work together to survive. Even though they don’t really know what is happening to them, or what they are supposed to do. I really enjoyed reading about all three of them, they all brought something different to the story. Dora, the sweet girl who has a tough side that comes to the forefront more and more as the story progresses. Kaz, the oldest, but also the most gentle. And then there’s Jana, smart and bossy, equipped with advanced technology, but loyal and deep down also quite lonely. They form an amazing dynamic trio that made this book an absolute joy to read.
The ‘villains’ in the book, Sweetclover and Quil, pop up in different time periods in the book trying to capture the three teenagers. Their motives aren’t always that clear, but they sure make an interesting pair and a force to be reckoned with.
Of all three, the shock is the biggest for Dora who seems the most confused about the whole situation. Being born in the 17th Century doesn’t give her a lot to work with where technology and time travel are concerned.
Every other page there’s always some unexpected twist that turns the whole story upside down again. As a reader you go through a rollercoaster of emotions as horrible violence seem to follow the characters everywhere they go. It’s very hard to make out why all of this was set in motion in the first place, something that remains a bit of mystery at the end.
Because of the many jumps in time by different characters, things that have happened for one of them might not have happened for anyone else. You’re thrown back and forth wondering what the hell is going on and if everyone will make it or not. I definitely experienced this as a good thing, it kept me on the edge of my seat, eagerly flipping pages to find out more. Because of the time travel and the many paradoxes, the story might get complicated, but it wasn’t confusing. Everything is explained in such a way that the whole situation somehow still makes sense. This not by overloading the reader with dry information, but woven through the story to not slow the pace.
TimeBomb was a real treat for me. It’s a fluent read with lots of action from the very beginning. The pace doesn’t slow down even once and drags you along in a whirlwind of time travel, paradoxes and different time periods. Everything is very vague in the beginning which really had me glued to the pages: I wanted to know what was happening just as much as the characters did. I’d definitely recommend this book, it’s different, it’s fun, it’s fast-paced and it has all the action to keep you flipping the pages all the way to the end.
