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A review by liesljrowe
Time Was by Ian McDonald
4.0
Popsugar Challenge #23 - A book about time travel
Oh wow. Any book about someone trying to solve a historical mystery is going to have my attention. Ditto with digging through archives and using books as dead-drops. So I was hooked very early on. The main character of the bookseller is an engaging narrator and I loved the interchanging between his attempts to get to the bottom of who Tom and Ben were and Tom writing about falling in love with Ben. Plus it captured the sheer joy of pursuing an academic mystery perfectly, with some fun English eccentricities thrown in for good measure. I will definitely have to check out some more of this author's books now.
However, no matter how much I loved this book, the blurb set several false expectations which decreased my enjoyment. First, it revealed that Tom and Ben were time-travellers and what era they came from. Bit of a bummer considering how much of the book is about trying to figure out who they are and where they came from: I'd have enjoyed the mystery elements far more if I hadn't known their resolution and would have had fun trying to work out what was going on. Secondly, the blurb focuses on the love story between the two men. Yeah, that's present in the story and I became far too invested in the couple considering how short this book was, but the story isn't focused on that. When I recommend this to people, it might just be a case of shoving it at them and making them not read the blurb, because I think it'll spoil it for them.
Thank you Netgalley for giving me an ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.
Oh wow. Any book about someone trying to solve a historical mystery is going to have my attention. Ditto with digging through archives and using books as dead-drops. So I was hooked very early on. The main character of the bookseller is an engaging narrator and I loved the interchanging between his attempts to get to the bottom of who Tom and Ben were and Tom writing about falling in love with Ben. Plus it captured the sheer joy of pursuing an academic mystery perfectly, with some fun English eccentricities thrown in for good measure. I will definitely have to check out some more of this author's books now.
However, no matter how much I loved this book, the blurb set several false expectations which decreased my enjoyment. First, it revealed that Tom and Ben were time-travellers and what era they came from. Bit of a bummer considering how much of the book is about trying to figure out who they are and where they came from: I'd have enjoyed the mystery elements far more if I hadn't known their resolution and would have had fun trying to work out what was going on. Secondly, the blurb focuses on the love story between the two men. Yeah, that's present in the story and I became far too invested in the couple considering how short this book was, but the story isn't focused on that. When I recommend this to people, it might just be a case of shoving it at them and making them not read the blurb, because I think it'll spoil it for them.
Thank you Netgalley for giving me an ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.