Time Knot, by M.C. Morison, for Timeslip Tuesday

Yay!  The power just back on after being knocked out in the fierce storm Sunday night, so I can do a Timeslip Tuesday post!  I have been meaning to write about this one for several weeks, so I'm glad to finally be doing it.  Time Knot, by M.C. Morison (Lodestone Books, June 2017), is the second in the Time Pathway series, the first being Time Sphere (my review)

There's a lot of plot going on in these two books, so I'm not going to try to summarize the whole thing.  The basic premise is that there is a group on the good side of the time continuum who want humanity to improve, and a group on the bad side who are working to promote chaos.  An English teenager, Rhory, finds in the first book that he has the gift of time travel (though he can't actually control it).  He has a pivotal role to play in the age old struggle, and the second book sends him first to 17th century Sweden, and then to Alexandria, in time to see the Great Library burn, and to help rescue some of its treasures. Along side Rhory's point of view are the stories of other characters, primarily a girl from Egypt and a Swedish boy, both of whom stand with Rhory on the side of good.

The fact there are multiple points of view, coupled with a plot that includes much magical stuff alongside the time travel, and a very generous cast of both supporting characters and antagonistic ones, means that the reader is somewhat challenged viz keeping everything straight.  I decided halfway through that I wouldn't worry about that too much, and just enjoy the particular moments of the story I was in.  Which I did, whether it was escaping from religious zealots through the snows of Sweden or exploring the labyrinth of the Great Library...Because we see a lot of the past from characters who are native to it, at times it reads more like historical fiction/fantasy than time travel, but that is fine with me!

Teens who like magical destinies with an anchor in the real world and history will enjoy this one; teens looking for romance tortured by temporal complications, as happens in so many YA time travel stories, will not find enough here to satisfy them (which makes this a fine pick for 11 or 12 year olds as well as teens).  Adult readers who enjoy richly detailed historical fiction might also find this more YA centered story a fun change of pace.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher