Book Review- Crossing in Time by D. Orton

Title- Crossing in Time

Author- D. Orton

Publisher- Rocky Mountain Press

Publication date- March 2015 end print

Comments- I was given a free copy of this in exchange for an honest review. Thanks to @the_writereads and the author.

Blog Tour- 12-26 June @the_writereads

Synopsis

When offered a one-way trip to the past, Isabel sacrifices everything for a chance to change the rapidly deteriorating present–and see her murdered lover one last time. When she arrives twenty years in the past, buck naked and mortally wounded, she has 24 hours to convince a stunned but enraptured nineteen-year-old to change their future. Definitely easier said than done, as success means losing him to a brainy, smart-mouthed bombshell (her younger self), and that’s a heart breaker, save the world or not.

This offbeat tale is about falling madly in love when one is too cynical for such things, letting go of pessimism when it’s the last life jacket on a sinking ship, and racing against the clock when one doesn’t have the proper footwear. It’s a coming-of-age story for old fogeys, a how-to-make-love guide for diehard celibates, and a laugh-out-loud tragedy with a hopeful twist.

Review

Leaving the office after finalising her divorce, Isabel runs into an old flame. Diego and Isabel have a painful history steeped in misunderstandings and old habits that wouldn’t die. There is still that spark between them but Isabel has been too badly hurt to trust and runs away from their serendipitous meeting.

But Diego isn’t going to let her go as easily this time, probably a good thing as just as she leaves a huge explosion hits a nearby tower causing the entire area to collapse.

Of course, after his rescue, she can’t help but say yes to being with him again.

Convenient, since the item that instigated the impact turns out to be not of this Universe. And has Diego’s name on it, in Isabel’s handwriting.

Diego absconds with Isabel to a remote location to begin their lives together anew but the world is breaking down and no one is truly safe anywhere.

The two of them are sucked into a complicated web of government ineptitude, corporate espionage, and a ticking clock counting down to the end of, not just this universe, but all of them.

The only way to possibly save all of mankind rests on Isabel and Diego travelling through time in another Universe to make it work between their younger selves so that this universe can be saved.

Yeah.

Ok.

After being given the audiobook version of this (due to eyestrain) I ended up having to get the Kindle book because I was so confused. Despite the same narrators I was convinced I had fallen asleep and they had started reading a new story.

What I had thought was a post-apocalyptic survival novel turned into a romance story partway then twisted into a time travel story and back to romance. Each part was well done but the effect was a bit jarring. It felt as if someone had an idea for three great stories and then decided to mix them into one. Some parts almost seemed shoehorned together in order to work.

I wasn’t fond of Isabel. I found her annoying and simultaneously over-confident and co-dependent. She put her issues and her beliefs in front of what seemed to be a great relationship with Diego. I totally believe that she is the reason they didn’t work in the first place.

When she was explaining to his younger self how to deal with a younger her, I was mentally telling Tego to run away. She totally wasn’t worth all the drama she was going to put him through.

Telling him to, basically, be a doormat and ignore her ‘greatest betrayal’ because of whatever childhood trauma she had gone through was a crappy thing to do.

Diego, however, was sweet, kind and thoughtful. Often going above and beyond to take care of her and her (narcissistic) needs. I loved his addiction to cheesy puns as this is something I’m into myself. He was charming and such a compelling character that it was hard not to love him.

Matt, too, was thoroughly likeable. His character was not around as much and had few interactions outside his team, but what little we did see of him really made us sympathetic to his plight.

The flow was quite jerky and I did have trouble, at first, convincing myself to read it. By halfway through, though, I was invested enough in the characters to want to see what happened.

I believe that this is the first in a series of 5 books so I imagine the loose ends will be explained, further tangled and untwisted in later instalments.

Summary

While the concept is certainly interesting and the writing was stylistically very nice, I did feel like I was reading several short stories from different genres linked together.

The global pandemic would have made a great story by itself. The Time-travel romance would have made a great story in of itself. Even the muti-verse’s all collapsisng due to one couple not working out would have made a great story by itself.

But together it felt too disjointed. Sorry.