A review by alisonalisonalison
Time Turns by C.B. Lewis
5.0
4.5 stars. This is awesome! I love this Manchester-based time travel adventure romance series so much. It's smart, diverse, and exciting. This volume features: Time travel disasters! Cooking! Sabotage! Betrayal! Thrills! Cuddling! Earl Grey tea in times of crisis! I'm not sure this book stands alone and I definitely recommend reading this series from the beginning--there's a big story arc and recurring characters, plus there's a lot of stuff from earlier books that's very significant in this story.
I was looking forward to Lysander's story and I was not disappointed. As is usual in this series, two smart people fall in love while things go really wrong at the Temporal Research Institute. This is the penultimate book in the series and I will note that this book feels a bit like part one of the big climax. The ending is more like a pause in the ongoing action and the grande finale is still underway. Seriously bad stuff is happening and they haven't figured it all out yet. It's not a cliffhanger exactly, but the story isn't over yet (though there is an HFN for the romance fans), so people who don't like incomplete endings may wish to wait for the last book, which is due out in January 2020 (which is very soon--yay!).
Lysander's always been a bit of a badass mystery and I loved getting to know him better. He's the aloof, tough-as-nails, supersmart Director of the TRI, who's also a Canadian trans man of colour. I loved how Lysander's transness is a complete non-issue. It's mentioned very briefly and Danny doesn't even bat an eye. It's a wonderful scene. Books about trans people where their transness is a big part of the story are important, but books about trans people where their transness is completely unremarkable are also important. Danny's also a great character. He's a down-to-earth Scottish computer coding genius and a bit of a rascal who woos Lysander through cooking nice meals for him. I loved catching up with favourite characters from the previous books, as quite a few years have passed since the beginning. Janos and Jacob, both going grey, are proper secondary characters in this story, not just cameos.
The plot is exciting and smart and the writing is so snappy. This series has some of the best everyday, real-world diversity that I've come across in any series I've read so far. I am excited for the end of the series! I'm also sad that it's ending, because this is series is special and I love it dearly. Bring on the finale!
I was looking forward to Lysander's story and I was not disappointed. As is usual in this series, two smart people fall in love while things go really wrong at the Temporal Research Institute. This is the penultimate book in the series and I will note that this book feels a bit like part one of the big climax. The ending is more like a pause in the ongoing action and the grande finale is still underway. Seriously bad stuff is happening and they haven't figured it all out yet. It's not a cliffhanger exactly, but the story isn't over yet (though there is an HFN for the romance fans), so people who don't like incomplete endings may wish to wait for the last book, which is due out in January 2020 (which is very soon--yay!).
Lysander's always been a bit of a badass mystery and I loved getting to know him better. He's the aloof, tough-as-nails, supersmart Director of the TRI, who's also a Canadian trans man of colour. I loved how Lysander's transness is a complete non-issue. It's mentioned very briefly and Danny doesn't even bat an eye. It's a wonderful scene. Books about trans people where their transness is a big part of the story are important, but books about trans people where their transness is completely unremarkable are also important. Danny's also a great character. He's a down-to-earth Scottish computer coding genius and a bit of a rascal who woos Lysander through cooking nice meals for him. I loved catching up with favourite characters from the previous books, as quite a few years have passed since the beginning. Janos and Jacob, both going grey, are proper secondary characters in this story, not just cameos.
The plot is exciting and smart and the writing is so snappy. This series has some of the best everyday, real-world diversity that I've come across in any series I've read so far. I am excited for the end of the series! I'm also sad that it's ending, because this is series is special and I love it dearly. Bring on the finale!