-- I received a free eARC via NetGalley. Many thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher! --

I'm not sure what to make of this book. I've been pushing out writing the review for a few days, but have not found more clarity. I think the main issue I have with it, is that it's concept of time travel is so incredibly far removed from my own ideas about how time travel would work and affect society. It is an interesting concept, but more dystopian than anything else, in my opinion.

What I really enjoyed were the various female characters - there weren't really any noteworthy male characters with a stake in the story - and their relationships ranging from family, to friends and coworkers, to lovers. Interesting dynamics were developed in this way, pushing the story forward.

I really enjoyed this refreshing, original novel. All the best of time travel in a compelling mystery. For fans of Elan Masterai and "The Calculating Stars". I loved the relationships between all of the women across time. My only regret? I would have liked a little more science, and more of the early days of the invention of time travel. Perhaps a prequel where we learn how this disparate group of women ended up together? Thank you

This book was amazing. It had twist and turns I didn't expect and it went RIGHT into my favorites list when I finished. I am not sure what I expected, but I didn't expect this to happen. I loved seeing the different women and how they were all portrayed and how time travel affected them all. It was all in all a good book, and the author has done an AMAZING job on this. I would consider this to be a feminist novel, and I regard it as such - and I am so thankful for the opportunity to be able to read it. It was so much more than I expected and it was wonderful.

This is a great novel about an imaginary future. It’s a modern-day mystery novel. It was quite interesting. I didn’t want to put it down. It’s an intriguing mixture of science fiction, romance, mystery, and thriller. I loved this book. It is about four strong, independent ladies who designed and created an incredible time machine. After many tests performed on the machine one of the women, Barbara, seems to have gone unhinged and is put in a mental hospital. She openly disgraces the other women and is never allowed to return. The novel jumps to the future where Barbara, is now a grandmother. Her granddaughter Ruby is interested in her grandmother’s past. One day a warning note is received from the future. From there the book goes back and forth between characters and timelines. You really have to pay attention to keep up.
I would like to thank Netgalley, the publisher and the author for providing me with a review copy in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion of it.

This book was good! A lovely character study of smart, capable, yet vunerable women, and it's almost as if the time travel is the Cherry on top. I greatly enjoyed the lingo, the mystery, the feminism. Solid 3.5 stars from me.

The title of this book intrigued me. The author, Kate Mascarenhas, is a first-time novelist. I entered the book with meager expectations. Most authors error in attempting to do time travel fiction; even those with numerous works behind them. This work appeared to take a completely different approach to the oft-attempted plot device of time travel; Ms. Mascarenhas did and didn't disappoint.

When reading time travel fiction, I'm expecting the author to fall into the trap of paradoxes and plot holes. Mascarenhas avoided creating any glaring ones that I caught and "black boxed" the inevitably created ones when doing science fiction. I enjoyed her nonlinear time in writing and the beautiful symbolism to the plot. I found myself in a time fog jumping from time to time attempting to follow the characters. This is not bad writing IMHO, but the excellent and unexpected use of the craft of writing. The effect that time travel could have on the psyche is an epistemological unknown. Attempting to have a reader experience the result was creative and genius.

Well done Ms. Mascarenhas. I look forward to your follow on novels.

God, I loved this. Easily my favourite book I've read this year.

The blurb mentioned it being for fans of Emily St. John Mandel, and I can easily see why. Multiple narratives from different characters at different points in time, slowly converging and tying into each other. I know of lots of people who loved Station Eleven and I urge them to read this.

The world that Kate Mascarenhas has created feels so real - it blends in so naturally to our real one. She has thought of so many issues that could occur from the reality of time travel that I couldn't have even begun to think of addressing, and covered them well.

One recommendation I have is that you don't leave many days in between reading sessions - I did and due to the growing number of characters mentioned (who are often, due to the nature of time travel, in a different point in their - or other characters' - timeline to where you last heard from them) it took me a while to remember all of the connecting threads at times. This isn't a criticism of the book, this is a criticism of my multi-day periods of not reading it!

Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for the copy to review!

The Psychology Of Time Travel Is Kate Mascarenhas Debut Novel.

What Got Me To Pick It Up? Not Gonna Lie It Was The Cover I LOVE PRETTY BOOK COVERS. Don't Judge Me!!

So I Basically Went In Without Knowing Absolutely Nothing About This Book.

What Drew Me In?
Time Travel Storyline
Women Empowerment YES Women Get A Front Row Seat In This One Ladies
And It Is Incredibly Well Written.

I Loved The Book And Can't Wait To Read More From Kate.

WOULD DEFINITELY RECOMMEND

This was a strange little book. The best part of it was the murder mystery which lies at its heart, and the careful plotting that pulls all the threads and all the relationships and time-strands together. What was also intriguing was the titular psychology of time travel, or more specifically time travellers, and the effect such a power might have on someone's mental state. It was completely believable the way the author portrayed the way being a time traveller would affect someone's ability to have meaningful relationships (and this is in a _completely_ different way than in The Time Traveller's Wife, with which this book is being inevitably compared).

Issues I had with it were, first of all, the SF-nal aspect of the time travel itself. It is not well explained (as per, say Connie Willis, with all the settings and risk of mishap). The laws, as they are explained, are counter to most well-establish science fiction tropes, and lend a certain fatalism to the universe that I would suspect goes against actual quantum physics, for all the author's use of some scientific jargon.

Second, the number of characters and different timelines was extremely confusing. I felt the need to make a chart of who was who and related to whom. Also, the different points of view were not sufficiently differentiated to help with that. The only character I connected with and always knew who she was was Odette. I liked the diversity of the different women, and although sometimes I had the feeling that the author was ticking boxes - lesbian? check. person of colour? check - at least it's in a good cause.

This is a first novel, and as such is certainly promising. I think the author has a lot of potential (that's the English prof talking, sorry).

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.

The main characters are strong, brilliant, independent women. While I can't say that I absolutely loved the book the story was intriguing. It is uniquely different from the cliched time travel stories,
I found myself coming back to the story frequently to see what would happen next. It was a totally unexpected experience in time travel stories and a fantastic tip of the hat to feminist fiction. The morals and ethics around time travel that are explored were quite thought-provoking and a bit controversial. That being said I am not certain that it is a book that I could I recommend to everyone in my personal circle,

*** 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.

The premise of this story is unique and fascinating: four women in the 60s discover time-travelling and fifty years later they, their relatives and lots of other wonderful women still have to deal with the repercussions of what went down around the time of the discovery.

The Psychology of Time Travel is a really interesting book from start to finish. I find the concept so unique and it was just so enjoyable to try and piece together what happened or what is going to happen. This book asks questions I have never read a book about: What effects does time-travel have on the travellers? How can you solve a crime without changing history?

While I loved the concept a lot I, however, didn't quite love the execution as much. I never felt particularly connected to the story and the plot was interesting but not really gripping and lacked in drive and stakes. I also had some problems with how time-travel works in this novel. It never got explained how certain things work or how the Conclave is able to have such a huge unquestioned authority and I really missed these explanations.

Also, while all women in this novel are fascinating and diverse and I loved reading about their different roles and reactions, many times I couldn't understand their reasoning and choices at all. I felt like the characters have such a huge potential but this potential isn't turned into actual development too often.

Still, I had a good time reading this novel and it certainly offered a very interesting perspective on time-travel and its effects.

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.