In a book about time travel with four female scientists as protagonists and the novel approach of examining the psychology of traveling through time, this should have been a book that delighted me, and there were a number of things I enjoyed. I definitely appreciated the spotlighting of women scientists and the fact that these women were very much human, with all the good and bad that comes with it. They weren't four lovely, cooperative women who got along swimmingly; at least one is truly awful, and all have their substantial faults. The fifth protagonist is similarly a smart woman with faults, and I appreciate any book where one or more main characters is homosexual and that fact is not a central aspect of the plot.

All that said, I struggled to push through the book at times and mainly finished it just because I felt I should and kinda wanted to know what happened. But I didn't really enjoy it. The book starts so much in media res that I was immediately confused about the plot and struggling to keep up with who was who. Some of this is inevitable in a book about time travel, but I've read plenty others and didn't feel as jarred and confused as I did in this one. There are a lot of characters to keep up with from pretty early on, and that made it difficult to figure how where the narrative was going, why I should care about the characters, what the overarching problem of the story was, and what any of the protagonists' goals were. Even at the end, I'm not sure I could easily articulate the specific goal of all the major characters, and none of the characters felt fleshed out and complex enough for me to believe and care about. The dialogue therefore felt forced because I didn't really understand who the characters *were* yet. I wasn't invested in any of them, and even by the end, I didn't care much about what happened to any of them. None of them are particularly likeable, but characters don't need to be likeable. They do need to be individuals I can connect with and care about (or care about hating), even if they're horrible people. I didn't feel any of that.

What I enjoyed most was discussion of, literally, the psychology of time travel. Presumably that's why the author, Kate Mascarenhas, wrote the book, and she does address concerns and issues I haven't seen brought up in any previous book involving time travel. The problem is that the plot is too thin and the characters too flat to hold those big ideas adequately. Mascarenhas jumps so quickly into time travel existing that she doesn’t seem to acknowledge, much less reckon with, the philosophical challenges of time travel. For example, the question of paradoxes is brought up very early on, which is reasonable, but then the reader is left hanging as to what the answer is (do they exist or not? what happens?). This question is answered later... over 100 pages later. If the answer is going to be that far off, then the question shouldn't be brought up so early.

I also appreciated piecing together what was happening, had happened, and would happen like a puzzle. That's an enjoyable experience in general with most books involving time travel. But that experience is far more fun when you understand the big picture and care about the individuals involved. Still, one nice aspect of this book is the way it makes the reader a coconspirator, someone who also experiences the narrative the way the time travelers in the book experience their lives--out of time, knowing parts of future info but not all. It’s not about solving a mystery (since the reader knows what happens) but about seeing how the mystery gets solved.

Some people will really enjoy this book, and that's fine. There were aspects I enjoyed, but overall, it didn't leave me with a strong good impression, and it's not a book I would necessarily recommend to others.

I received an advanced digital copy of this book from Netgalley.com and the publisher Crooked Lane. Thanks to both for the opportunity to read and review.

Ms. Mascarenhas has written a novel with an all female cast that blurs the lines between genres. Part women's fiction, part speculative, science fiction, part crime and mystery.

It's a strong debut, but I found the story lacking in places. The idea that time travel is possible is a good one, but the author gets bogged down in unnecessary details that detract from the story.

3 out of 5 stars.

Plot: 4 brilliant women develop the ability for people to travel through time, creating a "better world" and a slew of psychological paradoxes for travelers and non-travelers alike. When someone connected to time travel is seemingly murdered, time must be unraveled to uncover the murderer and motive.

I thought this was a very original novel with incredibly complex characters and rich storytelling. Time travel is approached uniquely, with characters' lives intersecting in a non-linear way and raises interesting questions on how time travel could affect a human physically and emotionally. Each character has real-life issues they're struggling with and I loved seeing how each addresses their individual issues.

Although it can be a little tricky at first to keep track of who is where and when, you'll get the hang of the changing timeline and everything is tied up nicely at the end.

Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to preview this excellent read!

I really enjoyed this book for the ideas as much as the characters. I connected with the three main characters but the side plot with the doctor while important seemed like an unnecessary perspective. It was a fascinating look at how time travel reinforced its own bad ideas and culture but I think it could have looked at race and gender more especially considering the time frame given.

The Psychology of Time Travel is most engaging story of a murder.
In 1967 by a four-strong women group known as the Pioneers invented Time Travel. But one of them has a nervous breakdown and she is kept out of the circle whereas others go ahead and creates an organization that controls Time Travelling, known as Conclave.

In 2018, Odette discovers a corpse in a toy museum on her first day of work which keeps her disturbed. In 2017, Ruby Rebello, grand daughter of Frozen out Pioneer wants to know more about her granny and Conclave.

There are 3 time periods that are narrated one after the other telling us what happened/ is happening/ is going to happen. At first it's a pure harassment to keep up with characters and the story but as you move forward, it becomes a craving. To know about the murder.

I liked the story very much but what I hated was there were too many women. A few handpicked men, i think there are only 4 !! which felt weird...

Totally a good story :)

Happy Reading!!!
ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

This book creates a world where time travel is an accepted fact of life and looks at how it can (or can't) impact a person's life.
It was refreshing to pick up a book with so many strong female leads.

Females create time travel, females run the Conclave that controls time travel. The story deals with a multitude of subjects: friendship, family, love, mental illness, betrayal, science, death, anxiety, and a murder mystery that is investigated in the past, present and future.

At times the differing perspectives and timelines are confusing, but not enough to detract from the story. This is an amazing debut novel, and I can't wait to read more from this author. 3.5/5

I admit to not usually liking stories of time travel. There are too many holes to fill and it's not always done well. Something in the description of this book made me think it would be different. And it was. We start with four women in 1967 who invent time travel. We are introduced to Margaret, Lucille, Grace, and Barbara. After short time traveling trips and meeting themselves, the women decide to have an interview with the BBC. On television, Barbara, an expert on nuclear fission, has a mental breakdown. She is quickly ousted from the group. Flash forward to 2017 and we know that time travel is completely controlled by the original scientists through The Conclave and Barbara has lived a mostly anonymous life, left out of the history of time travel.

Barbara has no contact with the others until one day she gets a mysterious message from Grace, a death that will occur. Who it is and how she will die are not included. Solving the mystery of this death is the focus of the rest of the book, though not what keeps you reading. We travel back and forth through time, mostly the lat 60s early 80s and the present, and observe people wrestling with the demands of time travel and what it does to those chosen to experience it.

Sure, there are things you can definitely learn from the past and future (which, for reasons unknown, only goes 300 year into the future and, for reasons known, back to the first use of the time machine.) You are left asking so many questions: How would time travel affect memory? How would you react to events? How would you view yourself? How you view death? How much would you really want to know? How could you interact with non-time travelers? How do you trust your own actions without knowing what the people around you know that you don't know? So many others.

Also of note is the prominence of women throughout the book. Most characters are female and most interaction is between women. This gives it a different point of view, seeing the characters through mostly female lenses. I'm going to be recommending this book to everyone who asks me for something good to read.

This is different from most time travel stories. The timeline is unchangeable. You can meet yourself (and even have sex with yourself) as there are no paradoxes. This eliminates some of the problems with standard time travel, but of course creates others. As someone who reads a fair amount of TT sagas, I had some trouble getting my mind around this new form.

It also provides some windows into how a strong CEO will create a company that reflects themselves in large and small ways. That change can come only after that person departs the scene, though here someone is still interacting with them on a daily basis.

Lots to think about. It really should appeal to other TT fans and I highly recommend it.

The Psychology of Time Travel is a fascinating read. One that is hard to describe, even more difficult to put down. Four women develop a way to travel through time. The book’s chapters fluctuate back and forth through time with Mar-Dec 1967(when they first traveled) quickly followed by July 2017, then January 2018 and so on as characters are followed through the flow of time. Driving the story is the death of an unidentified woman in a locked room and the investigation to discover who she is and how and why she was murdered.

Kate Mascarenhas has created interesting and believable characters, an intricate storyline and a uniquely feminine perspective. And the way the author switches the dates of each chapter offers a sense of what it might be like to experience the shifts through time, just as her characters do. A fascinating read, but a challenging read as well.

I finished this book in a day - its that compelling.

Kate Mascarenhas is not only adept at writing about time travel, but keeps the reader enraptured the entire time. The genre combination of sci-fi and mystery kept me even more glued to the page.

I'll give a more detailed review as it gets closer to the publication date.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

A beautiful novel about women, technology, death, morality and psychology. It begins with a locked-room mystery and spirals backwards and forwards through time. I love the complexities of the relationships between the women and the relationships of the time travellers to themselves. I highly recommend this book.

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I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. I was not paid for this review.

interesting read with unique and interesting writing. this book really made me think and question things but kept me into the story.

I have heard lots of great things about The Psychology Of Time Travel in the last couple of months, so I was excited to be finally reading it myself. The first thing that stood out for me was the fact that the most important characters are all female. This doesn't happen too often in the sci-fi genre (that I'm aware of) and it's good to see female scientifics in the spotlight. This story present time travel in a very interesting way. It was fascinating to see how they first developed the machine and how the company has grown over time, making time travelers into an elite group with their own slang and views on life. The psychological aspect behind time travel is intriguing and The Psychology Of Time Travel will definitely leave its mark and make you wonder how you would react to the effects of time travel. It's interesting that they cannot go to the distant past; only to when machine was invented onwards. The whole seeing past and future selves does sound a little disturbing though... I think I would go mad myself even though I would probably be aware time travel exists in that situation. This is partly where I had some doubts: the way that so-called 'one-way travelers' accept the sudden appearance of time travelers that easily without going crazy. The plot is intricate and constructed in quite a complex way, making sure you will have to pay attention to the different characters and timelines to be able to put together the full puzzle. The mystery around the death in the toy museum and the different characters and their futures are intertwined, and you will slowly learn how everything fits together. The Psychology Of Time Travel is a fascinating debut that left me wondering about how I would react to such situations. Surprisingly low on the sci-fi and high on the psychology, this story is perfect even for those who are not really into the sci-fi genre.

This story is part sci-fi, part psychology, part murder mystery, part family drama and part romantic fiction. There are a lot of different elements involved in The Psychology Of Time Travel, and somehow they all manage to work together and create a very fascinating debut. The complex plot will have you on your toes as you try to fit everything together, but only in the most positive way. It was interesting to see the different characters evolve over time and the psychology behind time travel is simply intriguing. I loved the details of the time traveler's slang as well! This book definitely left a mark and will stay with me for quite some time.

In 1967, four women built the very first time machine. During its unveiling to the world, Barbara suffers a bit of a break and is diagnosed with what is now bipolar disorder. Fifty-years later, the body of a woman is found in the basement of a toy museum. Who is she? Who killed her? Through time travel, can her death be prevented?Barbara’s granddaughter, Ruby Rebello is among those desperate to solve the murder.

Before we go any further, can I just say how much I loved this book? I wasn’t expecting too much when I picked it up. I just knew I love time travel and female-driven stories. This had both, so why not?

There is so much to love about this book. As soon as I got the characters straight (there are a lot), I was fully engrossed. The book is told in 3rd person but from alternating perspectives and timelines. There are the four lady time travelers, members of their families, and those with whom they become entangled across time. The author does a great job with acquainting the audience with them pretty quickly, so it becomes easy to get lost in the story and not be bogged down in too many details. The chapters are super short, but I never seemed to find a solid stopping point, because I just wanted to keep going.

Aside from some minor exposition and narration issues, this book was gold. I did feel occasionally that I was being told things rather than shown them, but I completely get it. When you try to get into complex physics across space and time, it’s probably not the best idea to spend too much time and energy getting the reader bogged down in the details, particularly when the story needs to keep moving.

Also. Also. ALSO. I was not expecting queer representation in this book, so that was a nice surprise. There is a lesbian character (or two), at least one bi character as well, and as I always appreciate, their sexuality isn’t the most interesting thing about them. It’s part of the romance plot line, but these characters’ involvements in the murder investigation are far more compelling than who they are sleeping with, and I appreciated that wholeheartedly.

If you’re into sci-fi, definitely check this one out. I’m hardly ever a mystery person, but it’s weaved so expertly through this story, I was desperate to solve it, too.

That cover, the title, the publisher’s description, all drew me completely in. And the book did, somewhat, live up to what was triply promised. The time travel elements were interesting, with the lack of a butterfly effect but imposition of other constraints and the potential of important personal occasions being attended by multiple “green-self” and “silver-self” versions of a time traveler. Also of great interest was the Conclave, the agency of sorts that grew up around the discovery of time travel by the pioneering team of four women. Controlled by the richest of them, and excluding Barbara, the one who had a mental health episode on camera and shamed the rest of the team.

Beyond the mystery of who a dead woman was and how she came to be discovered in the locked back room of a toy factory having died in a brutal way, the really interesting part of the story was that of the aged group of time travel pioneers and 82 year old Barbara’s attempt to be accepted back into their ranks. But instead of focusing on this, much of the story revolved around two younger women affected by members of the Conclave in different ways and their romances with various other women.

This story had potential, and it does have many interesting elements. The author did a great job with the occasional interweaving of characters and generations but where it falls a bit flat is in characterization, and in not leaving a lasting impression on the reader. Decently plotted, a satisfying resolution of the mystery aspect, but overall just a bit forgettable.

This review refers to an advanced digital copy read through NetGalley, courtesy of the publisher. All opinions expressed are my own.

I'm always looking forward to reading a good story about time travel. This book is an homage to all women. All important characters are women, and they are the ones who make the time machine in 1967. This book is also a story of how human psyche could be affected by all the information gathered from the future. The date of death or who you marry etc. Not everyone can handle that. And then, why would you even want to. Isn't life supposed to be an adventure to the unknown future?
There is a murder mystery to solve. Who was murdered and who did it? The story moves between several time levels and is told by multiple POV's. At first I did not know what was what, but gradually you get to know the characters and their motivations. Writing style was a little flat, but the story itself was good.
Thank you NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for a copy of this book.

This was a fantastic and well-crafted book, which easily mixed a variety of genres in such an interesting manner. Mystery, Science Fiction and Thriller.. oh my.

I adored the characters, particularly Barbara. And later on in the book - Lucille.

Although the book jumped forward into the future and back into the past, it was easy to follow and allowed one to get to know the main characters a lot better. I would have like to have heard more from Fay, to fill in some of the blanks between the green-Fay and the silver-Fay. However I realize that it is than a referral to the happenings within the Conclave.

I haven’t read very many time travel books, and thus cannot make a good comparison of the bits of theories touched on within the contents of the story. However it did insight some deep discussions with the hubby - if knowing parts of one’s future would it than solidified the knowledge to be as is (thus not fate but destiny), or does it allow for a different path to be taken and change the direction in which one’s life was headed. To which his response was: “As per Doc Brown: Your future is whatever you make it, so make it a good one.”

** I received a copy of The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. (Review on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2680460079

#ThePsychologyOfTimeTravel #NetGalley

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I loved the characters and the era-hopping was well done. I'm not usually one for stories about time travel but this was well written and a great read.

The Psychology of Time Travel is almost part science fiction, part murder mystery. It is intensely story driven and I think my main complaint would be that we don't get a deep enough picture of each of the characters. But besides that, I found myself immersed in the plot line, trying to figure out what happened, and how each of these women's decisions are influence by love and ambition.

While it does revolve around a group of pioneer scientists, the bulk of the story revolves around Granny Bee, one of the pioneers that is pushed out of their group, her grand daughter, and a witness to the discovery of a body. We get to know these women the most and there's a ton of diversity with a bisexual, lesbian, and black character as well within the story. All three of these characters uncover various parts of not only the murder mystery element, but also the invention of time travel.

Is it ironic that the creators of time travel never seem to know what will come of their discovery? Could the four women who create time travel in England in the 1960s have known that their invention would lead to a byzantine, temporally tangled, terrifyingly shadowy bureaucracy? They definitely couldn’t have predicted what time travel itself could do the psyches of people who undertake it. In Kate Mascarenhas’ fascinating novel, The Psychology of Time Travel, we dive deeply into these questions, especially that last one.

Barbara was one of the original four women who created time travel but, after an incident captured live by the BBC, she was pushed out of the quartet and forever banned from even working for the Conclave. Decades later, when another time travel starts to send warnings? hints? to Barbara’s granddaughter, Ruby, a spectacularly complex plot kicks off that will take the rest of the book, several investigators, and a lot of head-scratching to figure out. I loved every page of it.

The title of the book–and many events therein–force us to think about the consequences of skipping through time. A lot of the time travelers employed by the Conclave (including all of the original inventors except Barbara) “cheat” by looking ahead to see what happens to themselves. On the one hand, they are very confident. They know they will accomplish what they set out to do, because they already know what the outcome is. On the other, knowing when they’ll die and how, who their spouses will be, and so on, seems to leach their emotions of their intensity; they just don’t feel as much after a few trips. The only way to feel anything is to haze the new recruits or play chilling psychological games with civilians. For a few recruits, time traveling leads to debilitating maladaptive coping behavior or triggers latent mental illnesses. On top of a wonderfully complicated plot, The Psychology of Time Travel is one of the best “set up a scenario and let’s see what happens” books I’ve read in a long time.

The more I read The Psychology of Time Travel, the more I enjoyed it. The characters are fascinatingly warped and the moving parts of the plot slide around before satisfactorily clicking into place. It’s the kind of book where, at the end, you see that everything up to that point was perfectly placed, necessary, even fated. It’s the kind of plot mastery that I absolutely adore; I got a story that was utterly gripping, but only saw the author’s pen at work at the very end. Reading The Psychology of Time Travel is like watching an elaborate magic trick and getting to learn how it worked afterwards.