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Friday, March 1, 2013

Time's Twisted Arrow Blog Tour + Giveaway!



Time's Twisted Arrow by Rysa Walker 
Publication date: October 1st 2012
Genre: YA Science Fiction
"Sharp writing, a flair for dialogue and a big, twisting imagination." - Kirkus Reviews.

They weren't panic attacks. Of that, seventeen year old Kate is certain, no matter what the shrink told her parents. But it's even harder to accept the explanation offered by her terminally ill grandmother - that Kate has inherited designer DNA from the time-traveling historians of CHRONOS, who were stranded in the past by a saboteur. Kate knows that her grandmother's story could easily be the brain tumor talking, but that doesn't explain the odd medallion or the two young men - one of them hauntingly familiar -- who simply vanish before her eyes on the subway. It doesn't explain Trey, the handsome stranger who now occupies Kate's assigned seat in trig class. And it definitely doesn't explain why Kate is now in an alternate timeline, where leaders of a previously unknown cult hold great power and are planning a rather drastic form of environmental defense.

In this new reality, Kate's grandmother was murdered at age twenty-two on a research trip to the past, which means that Kate's mother was never born, her father doesn't know her and, for all intents and purposes, she doesn't exist. The only thing keeping her from disappearing entirely is the strange blue medallion around her neck, and the only thing keeping her sane is her burgeoning relationship with Trey. To restore the time line, Kate must travel back to 1893 and keep herself and her grandmother clear of H.H. Holmes, the serial killer who is stalking young women at the Chicago World's Fair. But that choice comes at a price - she'll remember the past few months with Trey, but when he looks at her, he'll see a total stranger.



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AUTHOR BIO
RYSA WALKER grew up on a cattle ranch in the South. Her options for entertainment were talking to cows and reading books. (Occasionally, she would mix things up a bit and read books to cows.) On the rare occasion that she gained control of the television, she watched Star Trek and imagined living in the future, on distant planets, or at least in a town big enough to have a stop light.

When not writing, she teaches history and government in North Carolina, where she shares an office with her husband, who heroically pays the mortgage each month, and a golden retriever named Lucy. She still doesn't get control of the TV very often, thanks to two sports-obsessed kids. 

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My 2 cents
My Rating: 4 stars

I really wasn't expecting to like this book as much as I did!  Time's Twisted Arrow is smart, intense, and very deep.  This is a time travel story that is well thought out with adventure and romance.  The romance did not sideline the story; in fact, it raised the stakes.

So we start out with Kate getting a chance to meet her estranged grandmother.  She has this beautiful medallion on her that glows a bright blue, but Kate soon realizes that no one else can see it glowing.   She then learns that she has a time travel gene that has been carried down from her grandmother.  Her grandmother is actually from the future, but got stranded back in the 1970s, and has been leading a normal life since then.  But the timeline has been skewed (remember the movie, Back to the Future II?) and now Kate and her grandmother are living in an alternate timeline.  And Kate is the only one who has the gene who can go back and fix everything.

I loved all the historical aspects to the story.  We learn about civil rights, women suffragists, the Chicago's World Fair, and Woodstock all in one story.  But I also loved that the story still felt very modern, mostly due to Kate, who refused to get bogged down in all the details.  She didn't mind taking a bright pink toothbrush to the World Fair in 1893!  Kate is very smart, brave, but definitely not perfect.  She is also a brown belt in Taekwondo, so she has some kick butt moments!

She also meets Trey, whom has taken her place in her school, since for all intents and purposes, Kate no longer exists.  She is totally freaking out when she meets him, and realizes her mom has disappeared and her father has no idea who she is.  Trey helps her out, at first thinking she must be a little crazy, but soon believes her after certain things around her that don't exist start disappearing.  The romance between them is bittersweet, because after Kate hopefully fixes the timeline, Trey won't remember her at all.  The other reality is she fails and disappears herself. 

The characters in the story were very well developed, even the side characters.  We also get to meet a lot of different characters at different ages, but sometimes they end up all in the same time.  The story line itself does get confusing at times, but I was mostly able to keep up. It was kind of scary how much harm can be done on our planet by just one power hungry time traveler!

The ending was amazing, but it did have a bit of a cliffhanger.  I would have liked a few more pages to find out what happens with Trey and Kate!  I guess I'll just have to wait for the next book!

The publisher has given me an eBook of Time's Twisted Arrow to give away!  Enter on the Rafflecopter below, and good luck!


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