Thank you NetGalley and Imbrifex Books for this ARC Audio copy!

I do not really know where to start with this review. The premise seemed so interesting and all the genre tags had me hooked on just how this book could possibly play out.

I would not call this a historical fiction, and I would have like to have more flash backs with Caesar in his own time, to really get a sense for him as a person outside of this bizarre situation that he finds himself in. I also thing his attitude and actions are a bit unbelievable, though should they be since he was literally plucked out of his time and suddenly appeared in the current world. Regardless, I would have expected him to go a completely different direction after his arrival.

I think this book had a lot of opportunity to be great, but I just could not connect with any of the characters. Listening to the audio I kept forgetting who certain people were or what part they played in the story, and that is usually not an issue for me.

I am also not a big fan of how the women are portrayed in this book. Even though these are supposed to be some of the smartest women who were invited to be part of this team because of their skillsets, it seems that it focused way too much on their looks and what benefit that would be while just glazing over the reasons that they were invited to be part of the project to begin with.

All in all I think it was a good story, but it maybe just was not for me.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

First off, I really enjoyed the concept of this book a lot! I have always enjoyed Roman history so the idea of a time-traveling Julius Caesar immediately piqued my interest! The Ides lab was interesting and I did enjoy the way time travel was done in this book.

One thing that got a bit old to me was the constant attention to Cassandra’s looks. I understand that she can be attractive but it just ended up being a bit much that it was mentioned way too often and felt like it undercut her intelligence and gift for language.

While I do wish we got to meet Caesar just a bit earlier in the story, I did really enjoy getting to see Caesar’s perspective.

Overall I thought the story was fun! I thought the time limitations created a nice tension.

I did think the audiobook narrator was a bit monotone but that didn’t bother me too much.

Well this was... Something.

Upon reading the synopsis of the story, I was excited. Julius Caesar and Time Travel and hints of mythology? It was perfect. 'Disappointed' would be an understatement of how the story left me feeling, however. Upon starting to listen to the story, my first problem was with the dialogue. At first, I thought it was simply the way the narrator spoke and how the lines were being delivered, but after backing up to listen to the start of the story again, that's not the case. The dialogue is stilted, unnatural, and tells little of the relationship between the characters speaking. The plot threads seemed completely wild, even for a story that is supposed to be science fiction meets history, and even after the initial setup - which ought to be slow in a science fiction story (to allow for world-building, etc.) - the story moved at a snail's pace. Albeit with some moments where it moved almost too fast for me to follow. The focus of the story seemed to be on the most mundane things that had little relevance, and dialogue seemed to go around in circles. I felt absolutely no investment in the characters or this story, not difficult given they had little in the way of development as the story progressed.

I do not know what more to say about this story except that I only continued to listen to it because I received a review copy; it was way too long for what it was and likely would have been a DNF under other circumstances. As it was, I did not bother listening to the "notes" and "closing credits" at the end of the story. It was a let down on so many levels, and could have done with more time in development. And I certainly did not appreciate the way that Faith was characterised - she almost felt as if she were a caricature of a woman and not a woman written by, well, a woman.

(My opinion of the narrator specifically has been kept from this review).

This book has been a great listening experience. Thanks to the author and the publisher for bringing this book to life.

I really wanted to love this book. Modern day twist on Julius Ceaser seemed like an amazing idea. However at times the book threw so much at me that I was lost. Character development seemed to contradict itself several times throughout the book.

DNF'd. The story didn't grab me in the way I wanted it to, despite having a very promising and interesting premise. I might try it again just to see if I wasn't in the right headspace on my first read through

This was just a big no for me. I thought the premise was interesting, but it was just too long. The writing wasn’t very captivating and nor was the audio.

This was mid, the story really wasn’t bad but the whole time travel aspect was a bit too much for me. I had my hopes up for a twisty Greek mythology story, this was just not what I expected.

Interesting story, I loved the classical influence mixed with SCI-Fi elements.
At times the story was a bit too detail heavy which kept drawing me out of the story

I wanted to read A Coin for the Ferryman as soon as I read the synopsis. I love odd books with very specific details, I was ready!

So we start off with Philippa finding a coin in ancient strata that ALSO dates twenty five years in the future. Fascinating! Welp, turns out she's not actually very important to the story, so we skip over to Faith, our intrepid scientist who immediately begins an affair with her boss, who is several decades older than her. ... Only to find out that she is also, actually, not particularly important to this story. She gets sidelined and is just repeatedly referred to as a cranky bitch for the rest of the book. Huh, oooookay.

Onto the third genius female, our main star, Cassandra! She is gorgeous. Knock out. Amazingly beautiful. You will know this because the book will remind you. CONSTANTLY. In addition to being so gorgeous she's literally mistaken for the goddess Venus, she is also brilliant (as a college student, she speaks multiple languages, including Latin that is even better than her professors). She's even a champion driver (did we mention the cranky bitch gets a whole scene about how she can't drive the stick shift that Cassandra can? It's in there only to showcase how cool Cassandra is).

Everything works out perfectly for Cassandra. Immediately. It's... honestly pretty ridiculous, but as stated above, she is GORGEOUS so, y'know.

Honestly, overall this was a fun romp that read quickly, and I'm glad they didn't get bogged down too much in the time travel details. Caesar is an interesting character (although he shows up late and is quiet for longer than I'd like), and despite being the most perfect person to ever exist, Cassandra is fairly interesting as well. I would say the story was predictable but fun. Like an action movie.

I guess that's my review - this would be a good action movie.

I enjoyed some aspects of this book. The time travel element was intriguing and I enjoyed the scientific aspects.

However the plot is were this story really feel short or rather long. The story really started to drag especially around the middle with tangent plot lines. The characters seemed to do anything the scene required regardless of if it remained in character from the previous scene. Side characters became confusing, introduced and then mentioned chapters later, such as her landlord and her neighbour.

I also found myself many times questioning that this book was written by a WOMEN as some of the descriptions and even the perspectives of women were highly sexualised in such a sexist fashion that I found it quite unbelievable.

I was impressed however with the Latin used within the book, the audiobook made this even more accessible and a unique aspect to the read.

I really wanted to enjoy this book more as the idea of Caesar in the modern world sounded so interesting but from the prologue I immediately guessed? the twist? ending.

I wish the ending had been kept as more of a twist as the ‘reveal’ at the end was rather lackluster as it just confirmed what I had known for almost 600 pages.

While I am happy I finished it - the ending didn’t feel like much pay off.

However I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for gifting me this ARC.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this Audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

The idea of the book which is a group of scientists creating a time machine in order to tranport from the past to the present (1999) Julius Caeser before the moment when he was going to be assassinated by his senators. I was curious to see what the author will do with such an idea. Can you imagine meeting Caeser now?!

However, I have to say that it ended up not being really what I was expecting. I had to ask for the audiobook in order not to DNF this book and it still remained not being an enjoyable experience. The last chapters were the worst for me, how could I believe such a thing?! Did the author wanted to copy Dan Brown or something like that!

It was bad, that's it, I have to be honest. The author could have only wrote an historical romance with Caeser and Cassandra à la Outlander without all those superfluous details that just made this book so long and confusing. I really was hoping for something more exceptional.

Thank you for allowing me to listen to this book. Unfortunately, life got in the way and I was unable to listen to it before the expiration period. I will look for it at my local library. Because the review requires a star rating, I will give a 4 because the name and description intrigued me. My apologies, and thanks for the opportunity.

Narrator was monotonous and this made the book completely unreadable. DNF. Very disappointed as I was looking forward to the premise

This was a good book and I enjoyed the audio version and thought the narrator did a great job. I loved the idea of time travel which is why I asked for this book specifically. I did think it was a little long and there were so many details that I didn’t think were needed, but overall an enjoyable book!

A very clever and innovative plot line. I enjoy the idea of time travel, but often times stories can get bogged down in the details. This story managed to avoid the overwhelming feeling. It works logically and artistically. I felt myself focusing so much on the plot and the characters that I didn’t even give much mind to the time travel “hows.” It all seemed so plausible! This book shows the relationship between people, and personal connections are more important than the events of the past. Caesar's entrance into modern times is not easy, nor following the plan of the scientist who brings him here. It's a great adventure, and a remarkable humanistic story.
Additionally, the audio book is well read. The characters had interesting backgrounds/individual storylines that weave together well. Special kudos to the fun tie-in at the very beginning and end of the book.

Thank you NetGalley for my advanced audio copy.

I enjoyed this! I think I definitely prefer listening to the audiobook of this over reading a physical copy. I found it more approachable and enjoyable.

Well, that was disappointing. A book about Roman history, women in the arts and science, and time travel. What isn't to love? Then I started the book. While this book has great potential, it falls victim to three major problems: pacing, sexism, and unnecessary plot points.

First, pacing. While sci-fi books often take a slower start to ensure that the reader understands the technology being utilized, the plot of this book didn't actually start until you are 40% into the book. Yes, you understand the concept and some experiments, but for other books of the same genre, we would have reached this point by maybe the 10% mark. From there it seems like someone is playing with the speed dial; speeding up, slowing down, changing channels. It is far from a cohesive timeline.

Second is sexism. For a book written by a woman, this book is surprisingly sexist. At first, I thought it was an analogy that would be moved along: the view of the male colleagues on the females, the need for a very sexy woman to interest potential gay Cesaer. But never do we go deeper than discussing "I am arm candy and brain candy." Comments are made about being happy that the new colleague has a feminine fashion sense compared to the other female who wears sensible sneakers, the events the women attend wearing designer gowns, and bosses asking if women are married before hiring. And it never goes deeper, never is corrected, just exists.

Finally, unnecessary plot points. There is plenty of meat on this book's bone. Lots you can dig your teeth into with a book discussing kidnapping a famous historic leader from his timeline to ask him some questions before returning him to die. Then you throw in subplots like antiquity ownership and an unexpected mafia visit and it gets wild. Not every book needs to be an easy walk down a well-groomed trail, but whacking my way through the weeds of this book was frustrating. This book could have benefited from a second opinion from the editing staff.

For the first time, I would honestly suggest you read a different book. It isn't worth the frustration.

Thank you NetGalley for the audio arc in exchange for my honest opinion.

You would think that something amazing like time travel, Roman emperors and sci fi would be freaking fantastic.

Sadly, thats no the case with this book. There were so many freaking plot holes I could barely understand what was going on. The idea that this author didnt even think about the thought that sending Caesar back to be killed is possibly morally messed up is baffling to me. Thats all I could think about- and it seems like such a lost opportunity to me not to explore that. I thought I was going to love this, but sadly it just fell flat.

That being said, the audio narrator was great. So theres that.

Dear A Coin for the Ferryman,
You had such an interesting concept. I loved the theory of time travel that you had in your world, and the concepts you had behind it all. Each of your characters were so unique with their life experiences and how they approached the IDES project. Cassandra was so strong and I loved her life and how she came to find Latin. While I am not always the biggest fan of action packed books, you were so well paced. The action was balanced with story and character development. I did find some of Julius Caesar's interactions and reactions to the modern world really far fetched, they also brought a sense of humor to your overall story. You reminded me of the most recent Blake Crouch books in some of the best ways.