Title: Endless
Author: Amanda Gray
Release Date: September 10th 2013
Publisher: Month9Books
Age Group: Young Adult
Source: eARC for blog tour
IN A RACE AGAINST TIME, HOW DO YOU KEEP THOSE YOU LOVE SAFE?
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 stumbles on an old music box with instructions for “mesmerization” and discover they may have more in common than they thought.
Like a past life.
Endless is probably the most dramatic time travel book I've read. To me, it felt like more 'romance' than 'sci-fi', and that's usually a good thing with me because I love me some romance, but not in this case.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 traveled 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 -- the trio discovers a link that joins them in life -- and beyond death.
This book starts off with a Ouija board game—creepy, yes? Our main character, Jenny, is spooked enough but not totally thrown off. Why? Because that's not her first encounter with weird. That's where the mystery kicks off and I have no idea why but that's also where Endless rides the downhill train. After that night, the book just had a hard time keeping my attention. I'd say it was because I'd been busy but, honestly, I'm not so sure.
What turned me off even more was the romance and no, it had nothing to do with the romance being a love triangle because I actually don't hate love triangles. It's because of insta-freaking-love. Jenny and Ben has this slow-burning, dislike-turned-like thing going on, but then Nikolai struts into the scene and Jenny just leaps off into the sunset with him. Well, not exactly, but you get the picture. Don't get me wrong, I usually go for the epic, timeless love like theirs, but not when it leaves someone like Ben as a casualty.
But all that said, I feel like Endless just wasn't for me because I did love the constant mysterious feel that the book had, Amanda Gray's gorgeous writing, and, oh god, Romanov Russia—there needs to be more fiction about the Romanovs. So don't take my word for it and give this unique book a try!
MY FAVORITE PART was the first Maria/Nikolai scene because it actually made me swoon :3
RATING:
About the author:
Amanda Gray believes in magic and fantasy and possibilities. She is a team of two bestselling authors who live only miles apart but have never met in person. They talk on the phone and are the best of friends and between them have written more than a dozen novels and novellas and have had their work appear on television.
The cover is gorgeous enough to make me give the book a second glance, but like you I'm also in favor of more Romanov based books!
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