2013;
242 pages. Book 3 (out of 11) in the “Out of Time” series. New Author? : No. Genres : Time Travel; Romance. Overall Rating : 7*/10.
It’s kind of neat to see a coworker’s picture
in the newspaper. In this case, it’s
Evan Eldridge one of Elizabeth West’s and Professor Simon Cross’s colleagues.
The
picture is from September 18, 1942. You
can’t really call it “old” because Evan, Elizabeth, and Simon all are time
travelers, and members of something called "The Council for Temporal Studies". Indeed, Evan’s wife Lillian is waiting for him to "return home" to San Francisco in 1906.
Well,
it’s good to see Evan’s alive and well.
Except that he isn’t. The caption
that accompanies his photograph reads “Some men lose more than their homes. For some, their identities are stolen by
shell shock induced amnesia.”
Hmm. Evan was undoubtedly on a
mission for the Council at the time, and apparently something went horribly wrong. His amnesia explains why he’s late in getting
back to Lillian, and why he’s a
patient at Guy’s Hospital in London, England, a city which, in September 1942, was subject to nightly bombings by the German Luftwaffe.
Someone should go rescue him.
Someone like Simon and Elizabeth.
What’s To Like...
Fragments
is the third novel in Monique Martin’s time-travel/romance series titled “Out
of Time”. I’ve been reading
the tales in order so far, partly because I bought Books 1 through 3 as a bundle. The two earlier novels were set in 1929 New York and 1906
San Francisco; now for the first time our protagonists are going to experience living in a war zone.
There
are three main plot threads to follow. Simon
and Elizabeth need to figure out what Evan's mission was in 1942 London, and since
they’re “freelancing”, they can’t expect the Council for Temporal Studies to provide any
information. If/When they figure out what his assignment was,
they need to complete it for him, and after that, somehow spring him from
Guy’s Hospital and reunite him with Lillian.
His amnesia seems just a bit too coincidental, so it’s reasonable to expect that there will be some baddies to contend with.
This
is my favorite setting so far in the series.
I liked the realistic "feel" of being in London with its nightly bombings, barrage
balloons, strictly-enforced blackouts, and all sorts of foreign secret agents
scampering around spying on each other and engaging in skullduggery. I also liked that there was an “is it natural
or supernatural” aspect to the quest. There’s only about a dozen or so major
characters to follow, and the most noteworthy one of them, Jack, will soon be “promoted” by Monique
Martin into having his very own series.
I
learned a new way to apologize in French: “Il s’aggissait d’un accident. Sa chaussure.
Erreur.” You also get
to learn smidgens of Latvian and what I presume is Albanian. When’s the last time you saw those two
languages worked into a story? The
inclusion of a couple of German expressions, (Wunderhubsch and Scheisse)
was not surprising since you know full well some German spies will be skulking around in
London.
Rudolf Hess gets a brief mention, so does Glenn Miller and Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. If you're not reading this series in
order, that's okay, there’s a brief backstory giving the highlights of the first two books in the series early on. Since I was reading them from a bundle, the book location references are given relative to the 3-book bundling.
The
ending is decent, with some excitement and the main thread (freeing Evan) completely resolved. The baddies get their just deserts, although
I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of them resurface in later books. Jack gets to initiated into the art of time-traveling, which
of course is a prerequisite for jumping into his own series. The Epilogue left a lump in my throat.
Kewlest New Word ...
Bedsits (n.,
plural.) : one-room apartments typically consisting of a combined bedroom
and sitting room with cooking facilities.
(a
Britishism)
Excerpts...
“This is
different,” she said.
Simon narrowed
his eyes.
“It is. First of all, we didn’t leave him in the
past. He was part of the future when we
were in the past and now that we’re in the future, he’s part of our past, but
it isn’t the same past, so it doesn’t count.”
“Elizabeth.”
“Don’t
‘Elizabeth’ me right now.” (loc. 8130)
A few more
regulars came in and joined the old man.
One of them leaned over to their table and said, “These dirty of sods
want to know if you’re married.”
“I am,” Elizabeth
said, wiggling her ring finger and eliciting groans from the men. She giggled.
“You all are so handsome, surely you’ve been snatched up.”
The old man
raised his glass. “Lost me wife in ’38.”
“I’m sorry,”
Elizabeth said.
“Every night,” he said, “I be praying the old
bat don’t find me.” (loc.
9829)
Kindle Details…
Fragments presently sells for $2.99 at Amazon. Book 1, Out of
Time, is free, and Book 2, When The Walls
Fell, is also $2.99. The rest of the
books in the series are $3.99 apiece. Alternatively, you can get Books 1-3 in a
bundle for $4.99.
Things that sound dirty but aren’t…
“It wasn’t every
day she got to fork a Nazi spy.”
“You know, for a comedy, The Divine Comedy is not a lot of laughs.” (loc. 7894 )
The
quibbles are negligible. I never did figure
out how the Germans knew Simon was a professor.
If this wasn’t an oversight on my part, then the Council for Temporal Studies has a
leak. Also, the fact that two penumbral
eclipses (aka "lunar eclipses") occur within a couple days of each other seems to me unlikely from an astronomy point of view, although
I’m not motivated to check this out to confirm things.
Some
of the plot threads, including the “natural
or supernatural” question, are not fully tied up, but commenting further on this would
involve spoilers. Let’s just say that
Evan’s mission may or may not have been completely resolved. But perhaps this is addressed again at some later point in the
series.
There’s
a bit of cussing, but not much, and seems mostly limited to variations of
“hell” and “damn”. I think it says
something about the author’s writing skills that she doesn’t have to resort to
“shock talk” much to tell a fascinating tale.
I
think Fragments is my favorite book in the series so far. Maybe it was
because of the wartime setting. Maybe it
was because the time-travel aspect took precedence over the romance. Maybe Monique Martin’s writing is just getting better with each book. All I know is that it was fun to read.
7 Stars. I chuckled at the brief mention of the difference between the “London Bridge” and the “Tower Bridge”. The image most people think when they hear the first term actually applies to the second one. I know this because I lived for a short time in Lake Havasu City, Arizona way back when it was first getting started. Its developer, Robert McCulloch, went to London and spent a bunch of money buying the London Bridge. He thought he was getting the one was those fabulous towers and drawbridge. Instead he got the plain-jane one, which you can see if you ever visit Lake Havasu.
