Gwenyth Monterose is a normal sixteen year old. Her cousin, Charlotte is the one who is destined for great things. Born a day before, she is the chosen girl that has the time traveler gene, something that is passed and skipped through each generation. Gwenyth is fine with the fact, she wouldn’t want to spend her entire life preparing to be a time traveler with ridiculous lessons on violin playing, fencing and the like.

Besides unexepectedly dropping into the eighteenth century at random moments, any time of the day or night sounds like a nightmare.

She does wish she could be in the know of the “mysteries” and secrets of the time travelers instead of being seen as an annoying bystander cousin.

Well, you’ll probably guess that while Charlotte is anxiously awaiting for her first jump in time, it is Gwenyth who ends up in the eighteen century, then the nineteenth, then the seventeenth. Three times in two days! And that’s when Gwenyth’s mother reveals the truth, she lied about Gwenyth’s birthday to protect her and in hopes that the gene did skip her and went to Charlotte instead.

So totally unprepared and overwhelmed, Gwenyth is introduced to the Lodge of St. Germain and their shadowy, vague goals of completing the Circle; the sabotoge her mother committed and the runaway romance of her cousin, Lucy with Paul de Villiars. All while partnered with the arrogant Gideon de Villiars, her time traveling counterpart that makes it clear he wishes Charlotte was still chosen.

With no real answers, time travel migraines and conflicting agendas, learning how to curtsy in a hoop skirt may be the least of Gwenyth’s problems.

Honestly, this felt like a middle grade book and Gwenyth read to me more like a thirteen year old than a sixteen year old. Same with her classmates. She says her preoccupation with movies, celebrities and gossip are just the signs of a normal upbringing compared to Charlotte and Gideon, but she still seemed young to me. Yes, there were mentions of clevage and the word, “dammit” but very mild for what is a high school book.

Also the pacing was off in that I sped through reading it. A lot of it was exposition and Gwenyth wondering what the hell was happening. It really could have been condensed into a 100 pages instead of 320. Like 50 dedicated to her first three time jumps, 10 or so on her introduction to the Lodge of St. Germain and another 50 on her first mission and the twist ending. This felt more like the first half of a longer book than the first book in a trilogy.

But it is not all bad. The concept is interesting and the compeating agendas set the stage for Gwenyth to question the motivations of everyone around her. Gwenyth’s mom says that no one in the Lodge is to be trusted, the Lodge says her mother is under the misconception of their true goals; the Lodge believes Gwenyth’s cousin Lucy stole the chronograph to get power for herself, Lucy says St. Germain is the real villain?

There’s a lot of interpretations to grapple with and a lot of distrust as Gwenyth’s isn’t given all the information because they distrust her mother. Speaking of distrust, I don’t believe Gideon’s sudden infatuation with Gwenyth after one day and one spontaneous rescue attempt. If he’s as brainwashed as Lucy believes, he may be playing Gwenyth. But he is the male lead so YA tropes state they’re going to end up together for real and I already dislike it.

So yeah, my feelings are mixed but I’m eager to see what happens next.

3 stars.