Rating: 4/5 stars
Series: The Islevale Cycle
Pages: 528
Genre: fantasy, epic fantasy, time travel
Publisher: Angry Robot
Pub Date: October 2, 2018
When Tobias Djolan is called to work at the court of Daerjen, he can hardly know what he’s gotten himself into. Only 15, and fresh out of school, he’s not very experience at using his abilities as a walker - as someone who can travel through time. But when the King asks him to travel 14 years back in time to prevent a war that has been devastating the country, he’s faced with his greatest challenge yet. Nothing is simple, and when the entire court is assassinated, save for the infant princess, he must sacrifice all to save her and find a way home.
Note: I received an ARC of this book through netgalley.
This book mixes time travel and fantasy seamlessly in a secondary world, and presents it in an impossible to put down package. The time travel in this book is top notch, never losing the fantasy feel, while still adding all the best time travel elements. My favourite twist is how when the walkers travel through time, they age the number of years they’ve travelled. This really ups the stakes for the characters, as they have a lot of lose by travelling so far into the past. The world-building is spot-on, and the strength of it really comes through in the alternate timeline, where the reader gets to experience the changes that occur when Tobias changes the past. Add in time demons and it’s brilliant how the time travel magic is so entwined with the world-building.
As far as characters go, I wasn’t much of a fan of Tobias, I just found him to be too much of your classic hero (not saying there’s anything wrong with that, but it just doesn’t do it for me as a reader). I did really enjoy Dröe and Mara, who I thought were really interesting characters (I’m not sure I completely buy some of Mara’s motives, but I found her to be a great character regardless).
Overall, this is a great book, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who loves fantasy and loves time travel and wants to experience both at once.
To learn more about the author:
http://www.dbjackson-author.com/
To buy this book:
http://www.dbjackson-author.com/the-islevale-cycle/times-children/