Oh, wow!

I picked this up on NetGalley because I love time travel and the blurb sounded interesting, the blurb on NetGalley kind of jumps the gun a bit because those things don't happen until near the end,

Diego Nadales and Isabel were lovers years ago, they haven't seen each other for years, until Diego rescues her when she catches her heel in a grating on her way from meeting her ex-husband and his lawyers to finalise their divorce. Although the circumstances of their parting were not good, they both realise that they have never stopped loving each other and that, together with the disturbing events around them, catapults them into a serious relationship almost immediately.

This book bounces between Isabel's POV and Diego's POV and that of Matt, a physicist who gets drafted in to investigate a mysterious metal ball which ploughed through several buildings in downtown Detroit and destroyed an historic hotel. When they manage to open the sphere it contains a variety of strange new technology and more mundane items, including a piece of paper with Diego's name on it. As dormant volcanoes around the world start to erupt and the polar ice caps melt the world is driven into a Mad Max-esque dystopia - can Diego somehow be involved?

This book was intriguing right from the start where we see Isabel buying a handgun at an openair market AFTER the world has sunk into a dystopian nightmare. Straight away we are then sent back 10 months to see Isabel and Diego meet after her divorce is finalised and before the nightmare began.

What I found more problematic was the bouncing around from one POV to the other without any indication of whether the next POV was at the same time, one month earlier or one month later. Maybe that was deliberate to make the reader disorientated about the date and time, but I would have preferred some indication of date/day/month or even calibration to/from the apocalypse - just something to indicate how long between chapters. Often the chapter referred to the past two weeks or being busy for the past month but some concrete dates would be useful. 

Beware it ends on a cliffhanger, which I kind of liked because I couldn't see how everything was going to be resolved. Also, the author promises to send readers the next book IF they leave a review, so guess who I'm going to email in am minute?

So, if you like post-apocalyptic novels with a soupcon of time travel in which you are being sent back in your own lifetime mixed with a secret government city under a mountain (and lets face it who didn't love Stargate?) and a second chance romance - well step right up!