This could have been really great! The potential for greatness is off the charts, the idea of someone yanked from time, a person assigned to help them adjust, a mystery and murders tossed in for fun—it all sounds so great! But unfortunately, it just did not come together for me. 

I’m very interested in the doomed final voyage of the Terror, so I was tickled to learn that our main character was plucked from that time, but even with that thrown in, I just couldn’t care. His character felt complex and compelling, and I loved seeing his interactions with the other “expats” from time, but that felt more “slice of life” vs the whole “spy thriller” book I wanted and expected. 

I think the issue was our heroine—she wasn’t likable, and her little insights into her own past felt awkward and out of place. The writing style felt especially clunky around those scenes too, and really drew attention to the choppiness of the story. I feel like nothing important happened until the final third, and by that point it just felt thrown together and random.

I think this would have been better if it was clearly a thriller from the start, with the slice of life moments cut back to be side-scenes, or just been a little “coming of age” type story for our heroine, where she comes to know herself through interacting with people from another era. The weird combo just didn’t work for me.