Nocturnal Book Reviews

4.5/5
Marking Time caught me completely by surprise. Not only this is an excellent time travel story, it's a wonderful paranormal YA, and I'm not reading many of them these days because frankly I keep getting disappointed in young adult genre in general.

But never fear, my deals. Marking Time will deliver a spunky, serious and very sensible young heroine, a lot of adventures and a pretty believable story of attraction.

Saira is a tough 17-year old, practicing free-running and tagging when she gets into trouble while her mom does her usual disappearing act, and to avoid social services Saira gets shipped to her grandmother to England.

She is pursued by mysterious villains, saved by a slick young man and accidentally tumbles back in time of Victorian London right into a path of Jack The Ripper where she meets the same young man, Archer.

So this is how this complex and convoluted story starts. Like with all time travel stories, every step back in past will change your present and augment everyone's feelings and memories. Add to it that Saira finds out that she is a descendant of Time and is stuck in a school for all Descendants, she meets seers, warmongers, shifters and vampires... friends and enemies in past and present, she also needs to unravel old secrets and find her mother who is stuck in Victorian London and for some reason can't return... and your head will start to go dizzy.

Marking Time is a pretty non-stop action story with a formidable heroine and a fab host of secondary characters. The attraction between Saira and Archer is believable, and what really made me enjoy this book is that nothing is over the top dramatic, and that Saira is a very sensible rational heroine who keeps saving everyone not because she is super talented and super special but because of her very quick thinking and an ability to work as a part of a team of loyal friends.

I greatly enjoyed this book and very much recommend it!