Author: Amanda Gray
Pages: 384
Publisher: Month9Books, LLC
Goodreads rating: 3.58
Published: September 10, 2013
Source: eBook/NetGalley for review
Description:
Jenny Kramer knows she isn't normal. After all, not everybody can see the past lives of people around them.
When she befriends Ben Daulton, resident new boy, the pair stumble on an old music box with instructions for “mesmerization” and discover they may have more in common than they thought. Like a past life.
Using the instructions in the music box, Ben and Jenny share a dream that transports them to Romanov Russia and leads them to believe they have been there together before. But they weren't alone. Nikolai, the mysterious young man Jenny has been seeing in her own dreams was there, too. When Nikolai appears next door, Jenny is forced to acknowledge that he has travelled through time and space to find her. Doing so means he has defied the laws of time, and the Order, an ominous organization tasked with keeping people in the correct time, is determined to send him back.
While Ben, Jenny and Nikolai race against the clock - and the Order - Jenny and Nikolai discover a link that joins them in life - and beyond death
I am a sucker for most anything Romanov, especially fiction revolving around the last royal family of Imperial Russia. That combined with the paranormal had me wanting to read this! {Plus, did you take a good look at that cover? So pretty!} I feel awful that its taken me so long to read this! It was a little difficult to get into, and I'll admit the whole Ouija board thing in the beginning kind of freaked me out. There are certain paranormal things that give me chills up and down my spine, and that is one of them.
The characters were interesting, but I feel like the author was trying to convince me as a reader too much in the genuineness of the main character Jenny's interest in/and timeless love for a man who is essentially a complete stranger whom she's had visions about for a couple weeks. Also, I think she tried to do a love triangle... but I can't be certain. It seemed like the makings were there, but it just fizzled out before anything came of it.
Quite a few things in this book kind if just fizzled out before being made into something. Or they were presented in a way that the reader just had to accept {the whole soul mates thing and Jenny being madly, deeply in love with Nikolai after just meeting him and having a couple dreams with him in them}. It just did not seem genuine - it felt very forced upon the reader.
The other thing that bugged me about this book was Jenny's fickle attitude. This is one of those YA books that are definitely written for young adults. As an adult reading a YA book, her attitude was seriously annoying. How she blamed her mother's friend for lying and hiding information about her mother, when that information was clearly something she didn't need to know as a child, or possibly ever. But, again, I know that's the adult in me seeing that and getting frustrated.
The world building was okay, but kinda lacking. There was quite a bit of dialogue, especially towards the end. Most of the story {especially the last half of the book} was just Jenny talking to various secondary characters, with a little descriptive narration.
Altogether, I think this would be a decent read for someone who actually is a young adult. While I wasn't the biggest fan of this book, I think someone younger might be.
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