Review: Waking In Time

Waking In Time
Rating: 4/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy 
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher! 

Still mourning the loss of her beloved grandmother and shaken by her mysterious, dying request to “find the baby,” Abbi has just arrived at UW Madison for her freshman year. But on her second day, she wakes up to a different world: 1983. That is just the first stop on Abbi’s journey backward through time. Will is a charming college freshman from 1927 who travels forward through time. When Abbi and Will meet in the middle, love adds another complication to their lives. Communicating across time through a buried time capsule, they try to decode the mystery of their travel, find the lost baby, and plead with their champion, a kindly physics professor, to help them find each other again ... even though the professor gets younger each time Abbi meets him. 

Okaaaayy I haven't read many time travel books, but this one is SO good. So good. I really enjoyed this, it was light, it was cute, it was fun, and it was a great read. It didn't necessarily blow me away, and if you're a huge sci-fi/time travel lover, and you go in to this expecting some hugely complicated time travel explanations and time paradoxes or just complex time travel in general, you may be a smidge disappointed! 

Personally, I wasn't at all sure what to expect when going in to this, but I certainly had a good time reading! The rest of my review is going to be very vague, because I don't want to spoil things for you guys, because it'll take away from your experience reading the book! 

So. I loved jumping back in time with Abbi, I wasn't sure how far back she'd go next, or when she'd end up and it was a lot of fun. The book is very authentic, and it's very  historically accurate. It was interesting to see how college life differed over the different time periods! But all the little details kept you in the time with Abbi! After reading Angie's post for my blog for the blog tour, which was all about her research, I'd been expecting to see a lot of it used in this and I wasn't disappointed! There where some cool little tidbits that I knew nothing about too! 

I was drawn in to this book more and more as I read, and I was putting things together, or trying to. I mean I managed to put together someones identity but not every little thing, so the reveals where still fun. Although I was kinda shouting at Abbi at one point because someone's identity was SO obvious and I was like "Am I the only person that remembers this characters name, and the character saying this?!". I loved how everything came together and I LOVED the ending! I loved how Will and Abbi travelled and the explanations for it. We have a little family mystery of a similar nature, and I'd love for this to happen to me so I could solve it! 

I really enjoyed the romance it was cute and sweet and hit you with warm and fuzzies. I loved reading about it, it was slightly unusual, as was Abbi's experience and interactions with other people, but I loved it, it made it interesting and fresh. But I loved the romance. So cute. So adorable. I can't even. Will was fantastic, I felt for the poor guy although his time travel reason was a bit suspect, it was still cute. I'm not gonna lie, I really liked Will and bless him...I got so irritated at those students for the pocket watch at the end like..hello. Put things back where you find them. How rude. Poor Will, I mean...he didn't seem to care all that much BUT STILL. 

I also really love that this is based on a true family story, and that the author couldn't solve it and so wrote this. Like I said before, we have a similar family mystery that involves my grandfather and ever since finishing this book, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it! I was really in to ancestry not long after he died, and I found a cool little thing with some ancestors that would make a good or you know...sad/dramatic story, (my brain saw it and was like "oohhhh suspicious") but I still haven't solved my grandfathers mystery. So this book really resonated with me. I'd kind of given up on solving it, but now I'm feeling motivated about it again, so I'm gonna have to work out how to get hold of his birth certificate and various other things! 

Anyway. Waking in Time is a fun, light and heartwarming read, filled with a cute romance and family. It's authentic, and so easy to sit and read in one go as the mystery draws you in more and more and you get more excited to see where Abbi ends up next! 

BLOG TOUR: Waking In Time

Hey guys! 
It's blog tour time again and today's another exciting one! 
I was most intrigued by this book as it's based on a family mystery that couldn't be solved 'unless you go back in time' and Angie has filled it in, as it where! Now, I have this thing, where I hate unsolved historical mysteries because I have SUCH a burning need to know...but you never will unless time travel. And my family has a mystery that can't be solved as well, so I felt drawn to this book and I'm really excited to get to be a part of this blog tour! 

For today's stop on the blog tour, Angie's telling us aaaalll about her research! I had planned to have my review to go with this, but everything went wrong. SO. My review will be coming next week, keep an eye out for iiiitt! 

Who said Research has to be Boring? 

By Angie Stanton, Author of Waking in Time 

Growing up I always thought research meant digging through dusty outdated books searching historical facts for term papers. Not until I became a writer did I discover that research can be fun. It’s not boring or dry like the dates of a centuries-past battle but instead opens up new worlds I’d never otherwise know about. 

When I’m writing, research questions pop up constantly. For example, in my new book, Waking in Time, something as simple as how to make a payphone call in 1930 became a difficult question? How much was a call back then? Or for my book Royally Lost, when my character from Europe goes swimming in his underwear, is he wearing boxers or briefs? You see where it gets fun? 

I do a lot of research regarding logistics such as how long it takes to fly from New York to LA, what major highways run through Ohio, how to make Scottish eggs, or how to sneak over the US border into Canada? For some books I need to learn the terminology of the new world I’m working in. For example, in a story that takes place on Broadway, I learned about odd terms and phrases including: sides (an audition script), ghost light (a single light placed on stage after every show so no one falls in the pit after hours, or to keep ghosts company at night), sitzprobe (first rehearsal with the orchestra), and trap (the trap door in the floor for sneak entrances and exits). 

Waking in Time did include a lot of historical research, but I always found the topics interesting. How did girls style their hair decades ago when they didn’t have all the styling products of today? How did they get those finger waves in their hair? It must have taken hours. And did girls wear panty hose in the 1950s? Did panty hose even exist then? And how about makeup in the 1930s? These were just a few of the questions I needed answers to. 

And while internet searches usually work, sometimes reaching out to actual people is the trick to learning the unusual facts of a situation. For example, what does it feel like to survive a house fire? What kind of crime has to happen to warrant a SWAT team? What happens during a Broadway audition? What are the effects of inhaling pepper spray? Talking to people can be fascinating and add more layers of information than I ever thought possible. When interviewing a woman about the Sterling Hall bombing that took place on the University of Wisconsin campus back in 1970, she described how students were thrown from their beds and onto the floor. That discussion had me rewriting the scene. 

A big part of why I write is because I’m curious and wonder about the world outside of my own mundane life. I can’t wait to see what bizarre topics my next book brings up. 

An utterly captivating time-travel romance, this sweep-you-off-your-feet story is inspired by a real life story of adoption and love from the author’s past. 

The story follows the central character, Abbi, who has just arrived at university for her first year, though her arrival is tainted by the deep loss she feels for her beloved grandmother. But on Abbi’s second day, she wakes up to a different world: 1983. That is just the first stop on Abbi’s journey backward through time. 

Will is a charming college freshman from 1927 who travels forward through time. When Abbi and Will meet in the middle, love adds another complication to their lives. 

A heady mix of romance, grabbed moments in time to fall in love, a nostalgic look at University life, a mystery to unravel - Waking in Time has everything a reader could want from a truly touching romance story. 

Author Angie Stanton explains the real life events behind the story and how she came to unearth them: “While working on family genealogy I discovered a family mystery that couldn’t be solved. I realized the only way to learn the truth was to travel back in time. Because that isn’t possible, I wrote this book and came up with my own solution to the mystery. Two of the characters in Waking in Time are based on actual people who took their secrets to their graves more than seventy years ago.” 

Waking In Time by Angie Stanton publishes:

·       In the UK by Curious Fox on 9^th March 2017, priced £7.99, ISBN: 978-1-78202-593-1

·       In the US by Switch Press on 1^st March 2017, priced $17.95, ISBN: 978-1630790707

·       Age: 13+

    

·       Author twitter: @angie_stanton

·       Publisher twitter: @CuriousFoxBooks

·       Author website: www.angiestanton.com