I liked this book, but I didn’t love it. I heard a hard time following the narrative timeline wise and also the formatting was off which I know shouldn’t affect me too much but it was very difficult to read. Thanks to netgalley and the publisher!

This is a brilliant dystopian future; modern-day mystery novel and I couldn’t put it down. It is a great mixture of mystery, thriller, romance and science fiction and I absolutely loved the story.

Barbara, Margaret, Lucille and Grace are four friends who have designed and created a fully functioning time machine. However, after testing the machine a few times Barbara seems to have gone mad and is shipped away to a mental hospital, she publicly humiliates the pioneers and is never allowed to return. The novel skips to the future where Barbara is now a grandmother, her dreams of being a famous scientist/inventor are over and so is her friendship with the others. Her granddaughter Ruby has a keen interest in her grandmother’s past, but Barbara won’t talk. Until one day a note from the future turns up. It is from Grace her old friend and shows a newspaper clipping of an inquest into a death of an elderly lady which will happen in 5 months’ time. A warning from an old friend from the future, but who is this old lady and why does she get murdered?

The novel is told through a multitude of perspectives across different time zones. It was a very modern-day murder mystery… how can you catch the killer that could be anywhere in any time? Who is the elderly lady that got killed? Is it one of the original pioneers? The body is unrecognisable and there is no way to identify her. Everyone is a suspect because you may have killed someone in the future and not even know. Not knowing who did this kept me reading and wanting to know who not only the murder was but also the dead lady. There were so many unanswered questions throughout the book that I needed to know the answers to just like the characters did too. At times the novel was slightly mind boggling, more character’s perspectives were added, and the multitude of time zones and characters made it tricky to keep up with. Though Mascarenhas does a good job to keep it as easy as possible making sure each chapter has a character name and year they are situated in, I feel like other authors may have turned this into a tangled web of confusion and chaos. The fact it was slightly confusing I felt helped the novel as it reflected the mystery of the story and confusion of the characters.

As the title of the novel suggests the main themes across the novel was mental health and how time travel effects how people think. At the beginning of the novel Barbara has a breakdown so when Margaret continues to build up the time travel company she makes it very clear that new employees must go through vigorous testing to make sure they are “mentally stable”. It seems that time travel messes with people’s minds, especially when it comes to knowing their own deaths and relative’s deaths. Some characters ended up suffering from anxiety, eating disorders, depression and OCD, if this was shown in any way they were fired immediately. The way they shipped Barbara off when she had a breakdown was so sad, she got no help or support and that really upset me. Mental health is such an important thing these days and the fact that this book let people suffer and didn’t help them was very frustrating and sometimes hard to read. There are a lot of characters throughout that seem mentally unstable but as the novel unfolds you can see that Margaret plays a lot of mind games and tricks to toy with people’s emotions. When the job is already high risk for mental health Margaret really does not help her staff, and you can see what kind of person she becomes.

Another thing I loved about this novel was that it focussed solely on female characters. The pioneers were all women and there were hardly any male parts in it at all. I am not a feminist, but it was nice to read a novel where women were the leaders of a scientific invention/breakthrough and the book had lots of strong, independent women. Such as Odette, although she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder she wanted a job at the Conclave to see if she could solve the murder alone, her father was against this and thought it would give her another breakdown. But Odette carries on and doesn’t let the past faze her in her passionate journey to solving the murder.

I highly recommend The Psychology of Time Travel, it is engaging, unique, thrilling and clever. It provokes a lot of ideas and debates which I always love in a fictional novel. This is Kate Mascarenhas’ debut novel and I think it is fantastic, I will definitely be reading move of her work in the future I feel like she is and author to watch out for!

I love time travel books which is the main reason I picked this book. However I just didn’t love or even like this book. I thought it was hard to follow, it was confusing. It just didn’t work for me

DNF.

Sorry to say that I just couldn't get into this book. I really wanted to like it, especially with such varied female characters. Unfortunately, I found it kind of hard to follow (or hard enough that, in the moments I was getting some reading in), and not particularly compelling. There wasn't anything to make me feel like I had to keep reading.

It still gets some stars, however, as this type of book is needed in the sci-fi genre.

I've read a lot of time travel novels. Funny ones, chaotic ones, good ones, bad ones. Almost always, there are rules within each little universe about time travel. One of the most common is that you can't exist in the same time twice. But what if you could? In PTT, you can. So "silver" versions of yourself can have lunch with "greener" versions. You might attend your own birthday parties, repeatedly. You know when you're going to die. There is only one rule, that you can't tell earlier selves about the future, and it's defined as treason and punishable by death. However, you might get out of it if you get a judge from the 24th century, when the rule of law had become subsumed by superstition and religion and if you're lucky, you'll get an easy "trial by ordeal" and survive.

After time travel is invented by four women, and one goes mad, time travel becomes a hugely powerful institution, the Conclave, where time travelers live by their own set of rules. It's a little sketchy on what all of these time travelers do, but at least many are detectives, going back in time to observe and record crimes. The crime that is the center of the book is intertwined with the time travel corporation.

I found the book very engaging, although I can't say that I really empathized or connected with any of the characters. You do have to pay attention to when each chapter takes place, though, or you'll get confused, but the crisp writing makes it very unmuddled and clear. The book is a mystery and science fiction. Also, it wasn't until after I finished the book that I realized almost all the characters were female. Feminist fiction at its best.

#ThePsychologyOfTimeTravel #NetGalley

I liked the story. Very light and funny. This is a good book to read during the weekend or during a travel. I wished to see more leadership of certain characters and more details of the scientific process.

*** I was given a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review***


I feel obliged to start off this review with an admission. Anyone who has read my background or even some of my reviews will know straight away that I am a HUGE sucker for Time Travel stories, I just love them!! This one was unique and did not disappoint. The Psychology of Time Travel is many things but it is glaring a mixed bag of genres that will resonate with many demographics. These include: Mystery, Science Fiction, Feminist Fiction, LGBT friendly, and of course Timey Wimey bits. Warning: This book might not be for you if you are using it as a sleep aid or to zone out. There are some potential sticky spots like the chapters jumping around eras/dates and POVs which can get a bit muddled with who is connected to whom and when major events take place BUT in the end it is pretty easy to suss out if you're paying attention.

This book is most decidedly pro female with almost no male characters in sight. The women depicted are not only interesting but absolutely brilliant! The plot is rife with hot topics like various mental health issues and hope to deal with them in extremely high stress situations, Love relationships of all forms, Death, Time Travel and its unlimited possibilities/ messy bag of entanglements. How are paradoxes avoided? How are Time Traveler crimes overseen, investigated and persecuted? How are various relationships navigated when two people are from two different era? Etc...

The world development was unique and extremely interesting. The relationships were written quite well and felt genuine, so much so I shed a non allergy related tear near the end at Grace's gift to Ruby... the last reveal was sweet as well. The antagonist was robotic yet dastardly and vile and the Protagonist? Well, there were a few but all the different voices joined together nicely which is a tricky thing to pull off with so many differing POVs. I will say that there was A LOT crammed into this Who-Done-It which, being overly complex may or may not have worked to its advantage. Personally, I enjoyed it.

First, I would not class this as a thriller. It's got a bit of intrigue, and it's definitely scifi/fantasy, but there weren't many moments when I found myself in any sort of suspense. That said, this is a really well written and engaging novel, and I don't think I've ever read a book that so aptly matched its title. Yes, this is about the psychology of time travel, in a different version of our world, where it's done so regularly that it's not uncommon to run into multiple versions of yourself revisiting milestones in your own life. There is a mystery, but it's examined like everything else, as though it were in a lab, being discussed, and walked through, and it develops and comes to closure in a very calm way. I liked it, quite a lot, and I loved how she went into the ways time travel can affect people - from Bee, one of the founding developers, to her family and those around her. Glad I read it, and would recommend, if you're looking for a relaxing, yet interesting, book.

Thank you to Crooked Lane for allowing me to read this book early in exchange for an honest review.

This book has the perfect title as so much of the story deals with how different people cope with the realities of time travel. Does time travel 'cause' mental health issues or just enhance underlying issues already present? Not many people think about what it would do to someone's thinking to move forward and backward in time, knowing information (good or bad) about those we love.

Margaret, Grace, Lucille and Barbara are the four scientists who invent time travel. The affects of time travel are different on each of them, both good and bad. When a woman is murdered in mysterious circumstances we learn more details about these four women and those they love. This story is very challenging as there are times when multiple versions of the four women are present, and there is a multitude of characters, timelines, and nicknames, last names, as well as first names used interchangeably. This makes for a very challenging read. The author does a good job of interconnecting the characters in unexpected ways. That being said, there is not a huge amount of scientific jargon to drag you down in trying to understand the specifics behind the time travel device.

The surprising part of this story line is that the women make this discovery in the late 60s (!) and the device becomes a common entity within society requiring detectives, currency, litigation courts, spin off products, etc.

I loved the appendix showing the psychology test used to score potential time traveller employees. I loved the addition of a glossary defining some of the time travel words. Both were additions the author did not need to include but made for a richer story.

This is a (real) tough one for me.

Four women of science, the pioneers of time travel. Whats not to love,
I really like back and forth chapters. Chapters that flip between characters or timelines. In this case the book goes back and forth between characters and timelines, so you need to pay attention to that. Among the four pioneers is Barbara, right away I felt almost protective of Barbara, (which is unexplainable because she is not a weak character. ) In the future timelines you will meet Barbaras granddaughter Ruby. I guess you could consider her the protagonist in this story. There is a clear mystery to be solved, and fighting crime is tough in a seemingly endless number of timelines.

Right off the bat, I love the cover, it is what initially drew me to this book, and once you get into the book you see how the cover ties into the story.

The book started out really strong, it grabbed me. I thought for sure this was going to be a 5 star book.
It was fast moving, it kept my interest, I loved the characters, I cared about the characters ... and then, it was over.
There was no big climax, no shocking twist. It was just done, I think because the book had such a strong beginning, I raised my expectations, started holding the book to a higher standard, maybe thats not fair, not all great books need a twist. but I felt it was just missing something.

This book had the potential to be great... no amazing, I saw myself talking about it to my friends, I was already writing a glowing review in my head, at the risk of sounding dramatic, this book broke my heart.
Had it been just "ok" throughout, this would not be such a tough review to write, but like I said, it started so strong, so I expected more. The fact that it fell short at the end is a real disappointment. I just wish there had been more, I wanted so much more from this book.

This was an interesting take on time travel with some mystery/thriller thrown in. I enjoyed the book, but was confused in some parts. It only took flipping back a couple of pages to remedy that.

Overall, a well written book with excellently detailed characters. I totally recommend it.

"I would like to thank the author/publisher/Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for a fair and honest review"

The Psychology of Time Travel appeared (due to the letter from the author) a story about strong women in physics and how their contributions have been constantly side-lined. That this story was to help acknowledge real role models for women in science.

The story follows the time - travelling life of four women; Barbara, Grace, Margaret and Lucille. These fantastically deep woven characters develop the first time travelling device with the help of their lab mascot (aka, first animal test subject) Patrick the Rabbit. At started off as a light, at points funny read un-winded into a dark, murderous story which flashes back from future to past to present.

This story was a great read, although I found that it was less to do with female empowerment within a scientific field to a group of women trying to fight for fairness under the narrsasistic Conclave president Margaret while trying to uncover the identity of a murder victim and murderer. I found it become very complicated towards the end with multiple character back stories and future stories etc. And I felt the story then just finished? Although I enjoyed a majority of the story, I felt that it just lacked something personal?

This book is something rarely seen in the literary world, The title itself was enough to intrigue me and the synopsis sold me on the story. I didn't have too high of an expectation though, so it totally blew me away.

This is a delightful exploration of the power of the female intellect, the achievements of female scientists and a great mystery to boot. It tells the intertwining stories of Barbara, one of the four pioneers of time travel, her grand daughter, Ruby who finds herself entangled with a time traveller and Odette, the museum volunteer who finds a body and must investigate the crime. What I really enjoyed about the prose was the matter of fact quality to the story telling. Time travel is a fact, it was invented in the 1960s by these four pioneering women and the world has progressed with these facts since that time. So the world of the book is just like our own, with a little tweak. I thought that the characters were compelling and that their interactions were authentic, although I did feel that of the pioneers, Lucille was given a little bit of short shrift. The unravelling of the mystery plot was really well done and although it was a little predictable, the nature of the narrative meant that this wasn't an issue - in fact, I'm not altogether sure that we weren't meant to know who done it from the start! All in all, I found this to be a very enjoyable read and would recommend it to anyone who knows how boss women really are.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Didn't care for this book, the science very vague, the characterizations not well presented. and the different plot lines were not well handled.

Thankyou to NetGalley, Crooked Lane Books and Kate Mascarenhas for the opportunity to read an advanced readers copy of The Psychology of Time Travel.
I found the book to be an enjoyable read. The storyline was woven together beautifully and the central characters were well developed and engaging. The description promised a lot and I thought it certainly delivered.
Definitely well worth a read.

MY REVIEW:

"We need fictional and real role models for women in science."

The year is 1967. Margaret, Barbara, Grace and Lucille are all very different women, but they have one massive commonality - together they discovered time travel.

"Margaret was a baroness turned cosmologist. Lucille had come from the Toxteth slums to make radio waves travel faster than light. Grace - who never gave the same account of her history twice - was an expert in the behaviour of matter. And the last was Barbara: the baby of the group.. She specialized in nuclear fission. All four women were combining their knowledge in a new, and unique, project."

When they were ready to debut their time machine to the Press, one of the women has a breakdown on national television. The others force her off the team to protect what they see as the integrity of their invention. Of course, this means that despite her contributions, one woman is left in obscurity while the other three team members go on to become famous.

Fast forward fifty years. Time travel has become BIG business.

Someone leaves a mysterious newspaper clipping for Ruby Rubello's "Grandma Bee," (Barbara who was the woman forced off the original team) Ruby becomes obsessed with the information contained in that article. This leads to fascinating and sometimes sinister events. 

Because this is a time travel novel, it skips between multiple people and multiple years. It could easily have become confusing and difficult to follow for the reader, but author Kate Mascarenhas has somehow kept that from happening.

What I love the most about THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TIME TRAVEL is the fact that all the lead characters are female and, not only that, but they are from varying races and of diverse sexuality.

Despite the fact that this is her debut novel, the author is able to keep the story flowing perfectly despite multiple characters and multiple timelines which would be a challenge for even a seasoned author. This bodes well for her future projects and I can't wait to discover what she comes up with next.

I rate this book as 4 OUT OF 5 STARS ⭐⭐⭐⭐ and I recommend it to readers who love a good mystery as well as those who are interested in time travel and in books containing strong female characters

3.5 stars

This was an ambitious and interesting book. There are a lot of characters and different timelines and it sometimes got confusing but it was still an enjoyable read.

Thank you to NetGalley & the publisher for the ARC.

The Psychology of Time Travel represents a fascinating thought experiment in how the use of time travel technology would effect the personalities and personal relationships of time travelers. A complex, non-linear narrative rich in interesting characters facing difficult choices is woven around a linear chain of events involving the protagonist. Along the way, the author portrays some pretty intricate details regarding the practical implications of time travel for such aspects of modern life such as money and law. Underneath an unfolding murder mystery and related plot twists that consume the reader, the author provides a profound exploration of the fragility of life and the power of love.

In her debut novel, Kate Mascarenhas tells a beautifully woven story with an all female cast. In the late 1960's four women scientists create a time travel machine, and their lives are completely changed in an instant. They're given government funding to build the same thing only bigger, and it really changes how the whole world operates around them. One scientist in particular though, has a hard time dealing with the difference, and suffers a mental breakdown on television while being interviewed. Barbara is then taken into a mental hospital, diagnosed with manic depression, and forgotten about, and never even given any credit in the project. That is, until her granddaughter Ruby takes it upon herself to understand more of what happened. In this intricate book, the viewpoints not only switch between many generations of characters, but also different years, decades in between the last.

I just want to say how much I absolutely loved reading this book, I was drawn in by how different the cover was compared to other books, and the description just leapt out at me. If you loved the Time Traveler's Wife, you're going to love this book. Not only is it a time travel tale, but it's also a murder mystery, and I couldn't put it down for a second. I loved how much the world changed around them because of their invention, not only did it allow people to go back and forth in time to visit past and future loved ones, but it created jobs around it as well. Could you imagine if your career had a time travel aspect to it? Instead of commuting to work, you would be going maybe twenty years into the future to do your job.

My favourite quote in the book would have to be when Ruby is watching old videos of a time travelling lawyer named Fay, and in the last video she says, "When you're a time traveler, the people you love die, and you carry on seeing them, so their death stops making a difference to you. The only death that will change things is your own." It's just so interesting to me, being indifferent to death enough that going to a loved ones funeral is just another thing on your to-do list for the day. The book is very easy to read, and easy to follow, even with all the characters switching around so much. I definitely recommend you checking it out if you get the chance.

Thanks for reading!
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