I received a free copy of this ebook from NetGalley, on behalf of the publisher. It will be published April 23, 2013.
Bee Ridgway’s The River of No Return is a highly entertaining read. I had my doubts at the beginning, because the premise seems a little wobbly. But Ridgway pulls it off. I was completely hooked before too many chapters passed. I really hope that this book really is the start of a series, because I really, really want to know what happens next.
In the prologue, we meet Julia Percy, granddaughter of a dying earl. It doesn’t take long to realize that there is something odd about this family when it appears that the earl can play around with time. Before we can learn too much, Ridgway introduces us to the main protagonist in the first chapter. Nick is a British soldier, fighting in the Duke of Wellington’s army in Spain in 1812. Just as it appears that he’s going to be skewered by a French soldier, Nick somehow manages to jump 200 years into the future. The time travel in this book is the wobbly part. The characters explain (mostly) how it works, but it sounds pretty flimsy. You just have to roll with it. Fortunately, Nick and Julia are great characters. I would have put up with a lot more just to see what would happen with them.
When Nick jumps, he falls into the hands of the Guild, an organization that tries to maintain order in the time stream. They set Nick up and let him live a new life for ten years before they recall him to duty. He has to go back to 1815 to search for an unexplained Talisman. Accompanied by a Russian Guild member, Nick heads home and pretty much immediately falls for Julia when they reconnect. The Russian, Arkady, sets off looking for the McGuffin–sorry, the Talisman–while Nick settles back into his life and tries to figure out if the Guild really are the good guys they claim to be. The Guild is so secretive, and their members behave so suspiciously, that you have to wonder about them. At first, Nick believes them, because the Guild has the chance to get their story in first. They make out their opposition, the Ofan, as deranged and dangerous. Before long, Nick has a chance to meet with a card-carrying member and starts to seriously wonder about where his loyalties should lie.
The River of No Return was a lot of fun to read. I enjoy the world that Ridgway has set up.