Lost in Time

AG Riddle

Control the Past. Save the Future. One morning, Dr. Sam Anderson wakes up to discover that the woman he loves has been murdered. For Sam, the horror is only beginning. He and his daughter are accused of the crime. The evidence is ironclad. They will be convicted. And so, Sam does what he must: he confesses to the crime. But in the future, murderers aren't sent to prison. They're sent to the past. Two hundred million years into the past – to the age of the dinosaurs – to live out their lives alone, in exile from the human race. Sam accepts his fate. But his daughter doesn't. Adeline Anderson has already lost her mother to a deadly and unfair disease. She can't bear to lose her father. She sets out on a quest to prove him innocent. And get him back. People around her insist that both are impossible tasks. But Adeline doesn't give up. She only works harder. She soon learns that impossible tasks are her speciality. And that she is made of tougher stuff than she ever imagined. As she peels back the layers of the mystery that ripped her father from this world, Adeline finds more questions than answers. Everyone around her is hiding a secret. But which ones are connected to the murder that exiled her father? That mystery stretches across the past, present, and future – and leads to a revelation that will change everything.

Sometimes you are totally surprised by a book. It can be a bad surprise, Atlas Six anyone, or be blown away by how much you enjoyed a book you expected to be run of the mill. Well Lost in Time was that such book. I expected an OK sort of book, but got a twisty wisty, timey wimmey book that was so much more than either the title or the blurb suggested.

Adeline's father is convicted of murder and is sentenced to exile in the Jurassic by the time machine that he helped build and design. She vows to prove he was innocent and bring him back. The only problem is the time machine only works one way. Can she find a way of not only proving his innocence, but also bringing him back before dinosaurs devour her father?

The plot at first, a device that works one way to send a person back in time isn't a new idea. One of my favourite sci-fi authors, Julian May, used one as the basis for her brilliant Pliocene trilogy. At first, I thought this might be a rehash. Oh, boy was I wrong. It's totally different. An easy book to read, the words flow, and you're soon embroiled in intrigue where nothing seems to be true. It doesn't let up until the end. I may also add a very satisfying end.

This is a brilliant book. If you're into sci-fi or Michael Crichton style books, then this one is for you. I can see it being a very likeable film, not that I think it's being made into one. An excellent, twisty sci-fi tale that'll keep me going. 5 stars all the way.

Thanks to Netgallery and Head of Zeus for allowing me an advance eARC of this book is exchange for a full and honest review.