REVIEWED by Jay V.
TITLE: Amos Ridge
AUTHOR: BL Maxwell
SERIES: Beyond the Realm: Remember #5
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 193 pages
RELEASE DATE: October 20, 2020
BLURB:
“There’s no time. Remember, I love you.”
It all started with a discovery. A cave beneath a waterfall that held a crystal. Two boys—best friends—embark on a journey they’re told will help all mankind. As the years go by, their friendship turns to love, and their adventure turns into a battle.
Drew Langly is the keeper of the crystal. With his contact, the crystal allows them to jump to different timestreams and help, if they can, to further that society or fix anything that improves their lives. When he’s ripped from the timestream, it’s the beginning of what will change everything they’ve come to know about how the different timestreams function.
Colby Adams is Drew’s boyfriend, fellow traveler, and jump partner. When Drew is left vulnerable after a failed jump, he’s there to help and try to figure out what went wrong. They soon discover another team of travelers is in trouble, but they’ve been warned against trusting them. The more they learn, the more they realize everything has been a lie. To rewrite a history that’s been full of deceit, they’ll need to put their trust, once again, in strangers. Can they rewind it all and begin again? Experience the history they were always meant to? With some unconventional help, maybe…
REVIEW:
Drew and Colby have been living their destiny – after discovering a crystal in a cave as children, they’ve been called to travel through time to fix discrepancies. Not just travel partners, they have developed deep feelings for each other. When things go awry, can they trust others or only themselves?
I’m a fan of Sci Fi, and when it can involve queer characters, I’m generally interested. It’s not my main genre but I’ve read enough of the major sci books over the years that it’s not foreign. I was excited to read this book from reading the blurb as I love time travel stories. There’s so much interesting that can happen and how an author deals with paradoxes is always intriguing. With all that said, I do have to say I struggled with this book. It’s not as much action as it is tons of explaining the premise of their situation and what our couple must do to keep the world in order. Getting us into the world building and laws of the story lead to long dialogs between characters that bogs down the book. After contemplating why I felt this way, I realized that it lacked emotional motivation. The couple is already established at the beginning of the book, and going back to their youth didn’t paint a picture of halcyon days that should have grounded the characters and rounded them out as people, it just was more a narration of what happened. The general genesis of the story is really interesting and kept me reading just to find out their solutions.
It’s the disconnection with any of the characters, including the main couple that made me feel a discord. Frankly, it was a bit difficult to care about them and what happened, I just wasn’t emotionally invested. The premise is entirely intriguing but the book’s structure does not lend itself to unfolding organically; it uses the trend of flashbacks and other characters narrating what is going on in this world. The romance of the couple seems lacking and if you’re looking for on page sex, there’s really not much there but one scene to hold you over. I’m fascinated by the series itself as it gives a really fun premise to leap in to interesting stories. The book could have had a real impact but didn’t quite live up to its grandiose ideas.
RATING:
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