Twists in Time

SCI-FI:  When Ava moves to Las Cruces, New Mexico, she begins hearing voices in her head and in her dreams telling her she’s the only one who can help.  At eighteen and starting her senior year in high school, she ignores the voices, hoping they’ll just go away.  When she joins the Family History club at school she discovers the source of the voices.  All the members are the adopted kids of Spencer, the teacher, and from the future.  They own the voices and need her help.  Ava is attracted to tall, dark and handsome Grant from the future, but how can he talk in her head? And how did he and his siblings get to the past?  With the answers come dark, dangerous secrets that threaten Ava, Grant and the rest of the Family History group.

From the beginning, “Twists in Time” grabs the reader’s attention!  Ava’s character is wonderfully sympathetic, and as the story unfolds and the suspense builds, the reader feels drawn into the plight of the characters.  The story is told with shifting perspectives, first person for Ava in one chapter, and then third person for Grant and the others in the next.  At first unsettling, these shifts quickly fade into the background, though the contrast makes the third person chapters sometimes feel like footnotes to Ava’s main story.  The complex plot is enjoyable if at times a little opaque.  Ms. Taylor is adept at building suspense brick by brick, and if Ava seems naïve and immature for an eighteen-year-old at times, it’s forgivable because her voice is so rich and her character so likeable.

Marc Joseph