Timebound by Rysa Walker

            Kate had never really had a relationship with her grandmother. It wasn’t really her fault, but

ever since her Aunt Prudence went missing years ago the family dynamics had been strained. Which is why Kate was so shocked to get word from Grandmother Katherine. Despite her mother’s warning Kate started to develop a relationship with her grandmother, she was dying of cancer and Kate didn’t want her to feel like she was alone. Of course, there was more to Katherine’s visit than simply waned to reconnect before her death.

            Turns out that their family has a history of time travel, and Grandma Katherine is from hundreds of years in the future. She got stuck as a young woman in the 1950s after a scysm in the time travel department, CHRONOS. A group lead by Katherine’s ex-boyfriend had convinced many members that they should start altering history for their own personal gain. Time travelers were stranded throughout history, starting families and mixing genetics from time, creating new time travelers like Kate. Kate doesn’t need man of the technologies of the future to time travel, she is born with abilities no one ever though possible.

            She isn’t the only one though. Children from the time travelers are picking sides, and an all out time manipulation war is at hand. Different memories collide every time something is changed, even many of Kate’s. She has to decide what she is willing to give up, and what memories should be changed and forgotten for good.

I thought this book was… okay. I went back and forth about it to be honest. There were times I wanted to just put it down and never pick it up again. I has some good ideas, but the main characters who are trying to preserve the current timeline are hypocritical. It isn’t the original timeline after all, things have been changed before Kate got involved. Rather than deal with that, the author just glosses over hypocrisy and inconsistency of the story.

The False Prince (The Ascendance Trilogy #1)

Civil War is brewing in the kingdom. Rival nobles are out for blood and the threat from outside kingdoms grows ever stronger. What most people don’t know is that the royal family is dead, a secret that one of the King’s low ranking regents and advisors has been keeping a secret.

Four years ago, the King’s youngest son disappeared. Rumored to have been murdered by pirates, with his body never found some still hold out hope that the young prince will one day return and unite the kingdom. That is at the root of Connor’s plan. He has searched every orphanage in the kingdom, looking for boys he thinks might fit who the prince would look like now. He has chosen four boys, all of the age and with similar facial and body structures to the king and queen, Sage is one off those boys.

Sage, while young, is head strong and a fairly clever thief. While the other boys look at the possibility of ruling with pleasure and want, Sage scoffs at the idea of being a puppet king for Lord Connor and his agenda. Fighting the training Connor and those in his camp are forcing on the boys, Sage continues to be defiant and headstrong, often at danger to himself and the few people he has come to know and care about.

There is also something that Connor isn’t telling the boys, Sage knows what people look like when they are lying and avoiding the truth, and when one of the other boys gets killed Sage realizes there is much more to Connor’s plan than trying to protect and unify the kingdom.

What Connor and his men don’t know is that Sage has a secret too, a boy living on the street learns tricks, and hears rumors and secrets that people try to keep hidden. Trying to turn Sage into the long lost prince might be the worst thing Connor has ever done.

I loved this novel. I liked the twists and turns the author wrote, some of which I figured out or at least mused on, while others came out of no where and wasn’t until I really thought about it did I realize the hints that Jennifer Nielsen left throughout the novel. It has a historical fiction feel without is being based on a specific event. This is a novel that can stand on its own, but I cannot wait to read the sequel when it comes out!