I am typically not a fan of science fiction, but there honestly wasn't so much science fiction in this book that it threw me off. I actually rather enjoyed it, which kind of surprised me!

The idea of time travel is really cool and I think that Nick Jones took this in a really good direction. What man that literally felt like he lost his kid sister as a child, wouldn't want to? I think this story was beautifully crafted and written and really kept my interest. I also definitely didn't see that ending coming!

As I said before, this book is not typically up my alley, but it intrigued me enough to make me want to continue on with the series, and I'm actually pretty excited to see where it goes from here! I may just be able to handle A LITTLE sci fi after all.

Overall, I was impressed with this little jewel and look forward to diving into this series to see what's it's all about. Nick Jones may have just opened my perspective on genres that I typically steer away from with this book!

**I would like to offer a HUGE thank you to Nick Jones, Blackstone Publishing, and Netgalley for providing me with a copy of And Then She Vanished which allowed me to contribute this honest and unbiased review!**

I LOVE stories about time travel! This one was a little slow to start but it built the foundation for a fantastic second half of the book! I was hooked, I didn’t see the twists coming. I thought I had it all figured out but I was wrong!

I will definitely be continuing this series, I see the first two audiobooks are part of the plus catalogue, is I will be jumping in to book 2!

Thank you to Blackstone publishing and netgalley for my copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This one turned out to be completely different from what I expected. I was thinking more thriller than it turned out to be. I really enjoyed the sci fi genre and the time travel aspects

I would rate this 3.25 out of 5 stars.

This story had such an interesting time traveling concept and I really enjoyed how all of that worked within the story. Having said that, I found the writing just okay, the ending with regards to the sister storyline kind of anti-climatic.

I also didn't love the way the ending was tacked on in a way that felt like it was just to add potential for a sequel.

Definitely a book with a synopsis that instantly catches you and makes you want to read just to see what happens.
I enjoyed the writing in this book, it urges you to read.
I don’t read time travel books so seeing it set in a mystery book was very interesting and compelling.
I was instantly sucked into the book and put in the shoes of Joe, navigating through life with grief on my shoulders and a desire to seek the truth.
I got emotional and shed a tear or two whilst reading.
When joe discovers he can time travel, hope kindles and he wonders what he can do to change the past. What he could do differently to save his sister. We learn like all magical set books the price and rules of magic and we discover this with Joe as he frequently time travels.
This book is actually a standalone and the first book in a series set to be consisting of 4 full books.
I’m excited to see where Joe heads next after this one.

A man obsessed with the mystery of his sister’s disappearance 20 years ago.
An accidental discovery that time travel is possible.
A chance to save his sister.

I enjoyed this author's writing and would definitely try more books by him.

Teens and adults can read this book. There was a suicide mentioned within this book and an accidental death that can disturb younger readers.

A missing child and time travel. This book was an edge of your seat story that I couldn't put it down. There was a twist I didn't see coming and I need the next one now. The writing was superb and just wow!! This story is one to lose yourself in.

Favorite Quotes:

Money. When you have it, you don’t think about it, and when you don’t, it’s all you think about. Unless you’re me: Captain Denial of the good ship Penniless.

The walls are adorned with the usual “I’m really qualified” certificates, along with oil paintings depicting calm scenes of shorelines, sunsets, and gardens. The color of the room is soothing. I suspect it has some pretentious name like “Coffee Breath” or “Buffalo Turd at Sunset.” I guess if they just called it “Brown,” they wouldn’t be able to charge as much.

It’s just that I’m taking particle physics and applying it to hair ribbons. I’m struggling with my professional credibility and twenty years of dogma here. If you ever tell anyone about this conversation, I’ll kill you.


My Review:

I rarely read this genre, as in never, but I was intrigued by the synopsis while also feeling the need for a drastic change-up and due for a jackpot – bingo! I’ve struck gold, as this was an unexpected treasure chest of believable oddity that persistently taunted and poked at my curiosity while squeezing my heart.

The well-crafted storylines and agile writing style were engagingly emotive and deceptively evocative, yet despite the bit of imaginative world-building required, it is easy to follow and highly absorbing. I may have done a bit of time traveling myself as I fell right into Mr. Jones’s clever arrangements of words and was lost in Joe’s story for hours before looking up. I vastly enjoy witty snark and the main character of Joe was assembled with a heaping helping. And while it wasn’t a cliffhanger, there is obviously more to come and I will be eagerly awaiting Mr. Bridgeman’s return.

As a bonus, I scored a new addition to my Brit Words and Phrases list with lovely jubbly, which Mr. Google indicated is an exclamation of joy or delight to good news, which is an apt expression of how I felt about stumbling upon this peculiarly compelling tale, it was indeed lovely jubbly.

Joe has always had a connection to objects. They brought back memories, and quite literally at that—after touching a meaningful object he would be plunged right into a very vivid memory, like a recording of the past. And now, he discovers that if he tries hard enough, he can go back in time.

And to him, it means everything. Years ago, he lost sight of his sister and she never came back. Time travel is his chance to redeem himself and save his family.

The idea behind this book wasn't particularly original—this kind of time travel has been done in books, movies, games, and manga before—but this time, it feels very personal. It's a story of a man who never grew up, kept down by the guilt he felt.

The book was simple, and quite typical of the genre (with all the "we have to figure out the rules, there are always rules to time travel" and sharing the secret with his best friend), and yet I found myself rooting for Joe. His wish to save his sister was so wholesome I couldn't imagine this story not having a happy ending.

My favorite character was obviously the best friend, Vinny. I think it was mainly due to nostalgia, because he reminded me of those sidekicks from movies I watched as a kid.

In terms of characters, I wish there was some more female presence in the book and generally more different types of people. Apart from Joe’s therapist, all main characters and people Joe interacts with the most are men. Maybe this is one of the reasons why this book reminded me of one of those films from my childhood.

It was cute and I had fun reading it. It's one of those books that are easy and pleasant to read, but also nothing special. Good for people who read to relax and enjoy simple stories with happy endings, but not necessarily for people who want something more from the story.

"When I wake all that's left is the truth. She's gone."

What stand's out most to me about this compelling scifi mystery is how much heart and emotion the author was able to convey in his purposeful prose. And Then She Vanished by Nick Jones is so much more than a typical disappearance thriller.

There are a few timelines in this story but we begin in 1997 when Joseph's 7 year old sister Amy, who was in his care, seems to vanish into thin air at a carnival. As a young teen he is filled with guilt and he and his parents suffer throughout their lives.

The pain his parents endure is handled with such honesty and despair. The emotions help to center this story which deals with Joe's psychometry; the ability to feel objects and see their past owners. It also helps lead Joe into discovering time travel through hypnotherapy.

I know for some this all may seem far fetch but in the hands of a skilled writer such as this one it becomes a means of hope to save a lost little girl and her family.

Trust me when I say this book does not go through the usual path of discovery. We struggle with Joe about time traveling rules and how to beat them. We anguish over his mom's dementia and what role his losing Amy played in it and mostly we are stunned by the conclusion of his search for his sister.

Though a stand alone book And Then She Vanished is the beginning of a series with 4 books scheduled for release in 2021 and 2022. I am thrilled to continue reading the adventures of The Joseph Bridgeman Series.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via #NetGalley for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

After seeing a hypnotherapist, Joe Bridgeman incidentally learns that he has the to ability to time travel. Joe's life has had it's fair share of heartache and adversity. In particular, he is still grieving the disappearance of his kid sister, Amy. Self-blame and guilt have become second nature, but time travel has given Joe hope that he can rewrite the past and save Amy.

Adventure, time travel, mystery -- all wrapped in one! I was very intrigued by the plot of this story. It was so fun learning the rules of time travel in this novel. I found myself rooting for Joe on his quest to figure out how Amy went missing and his attempts to save her. Nick Jones has a simple writing style that's easy to get into and stick with. Very excited for the second book in the series.

I’m not even sure how to start reviewing this book, because I’m not even sure how to categorise it. It starts off as though it’s going to be some sort of crime/mystery thriller, as we meet our protagonist Joe, whose little sister Amy disappeared from a funfair over 20 years ago, never to be seen again. Joe’s insomniac and depressed, and it’s obvious his life is about to cave in around his ears… and then things take a bit of a turn for the odd as we learn he has the talent of psychometry, in that he can discern things about an object’s origins by touching it.

Then things get REALLY weird as, following a hypnotherapy session to try and treat his insomnia, Joe discovers he can time travel. It doesn’t take long for him to start wondering if he can, somehow, go back in time and save his sister from whatever her fate turned out to be. With the help of an old school friend who happens to be a genius mathematician, the hypnotherapist who accidentally unlocked his ability, and his vinyl-loving friend Vinny, Nick is determined to save Amy. No matter what.

I really wasn’t expecting the fantasy and psychic elements to this book (that’ll teach me to properly read the blurb when selecting a mystery/thriller to review from NetGalley solely based on whether I like the cover or not) but… I actually really enjoyed it, and stayed up late to finish it. There is an awful lot unexplained about how time travel works in this universe, but it actually works really well because nobody has the answers so you can’t just have a glib explanation. Joe is trying to figure it out as he goes along. I’m intrigued by the ending of the book as well, which hinted at the existence of more time travellers and set up a series with Joe as the protagonist, though what I really wanted to know was whether Amy still had the ability which was revealed as the twist. I guess I’ll have to read book 2 to find out!

5 stars for an intriguing time-travel mystery thriller I wasn’t expecting, but thoroughly enjoyed.

This was definitely a more melancholy take on time travel, but I enjoyed it overall. Years ago, Joseph's sister mysteriously vanished, and we get to see how this moment has affected Joseph's life, as well as the lives of his parents. I really liked learning about how the time travel works in this book. There's an inverse relationship between how far back in time you go and how long you're able to stay there where you can only spend a brief amount of time in the more distant past. I do think that parts of the book, the middle especially, felt a bit repetitive. However, I did enjoy the flashbacks we get to the night of Amy's disappearance, as well as the aftermath of that event. It's great to see Joseph uncover more details about what really happened. The ending was definitely not what I expected, so that was nice! It also sets us up for future installments of the series.

In terms of the characters, we're very much focused on Joseph. At the beginning of the book, he is struggling to keep his house and sleep. Once he discovers his time traveling abilities, he starts to have hope again which is great to see. I really loved his bond with his sister and how he is so driven to go back to save her. I also really liked how he actually has this ability of psychometry to read the history/get other information from objects. While this does play a part in what happens, I do wish it had been used even more. Overall, although I can appreciate where Joseph is coming from, I'm not sure I fully connected with him or any of the other characters.

Overall, I did enjoy this take on time travel and would recommend it if this premise sounds interesting. It was great to have this underlying mystery of what happened to Amy drive the general direction of the book!

Content warnings for suicide

I received a copy of this for review from the publisher via NetGalley - thank you! All opinions are my own.

My video review can be seen on my channel (around minutes 0:13-3:53 of this video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gwkc4Hn3-6I

And Then She Vanished by Nick Jones
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Joseph Bridgeman was only 14 when he lost his sister at the fair, but he has been haunted ever since. After he visits a hypnotherapist for his insomnia he accidentally discovers that he may be able to time travel. Can he travel back to that night and save his sister?
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I kind of loved this book. Anytime time travel is involved in a book (or movie, or show) I am here for it!
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Things I liked about this book:
-I liked how the book unraveled Joe learning he had the ability to time travel and learning how to do so. It wasn’t super complicated and was easy for me to follow.
-I liked all the characters. I originally thought there was going to be a twist to Alexia’s character but I was wrong 😅. Although, I like her character better as it turns out. I think my favorite character, besides Joe and Alexia, was Vinny.
-I liked the other ability that Joe had, which I had never heard of before, where when he touches some objects they tell him their story.
-I’m excited by the end of this story and that it is going to be a series. I am looking forward to learning more about Joe and his abilities. I also want to learn more about Alexia’s mysterious past that she hints at.
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Things I didn’t like about this book:
-I could be picky here and say that I didn’t LOVE the writing but when I sat and read the book I would fly through whole chapters at a time so 🤷🏻‍♀️.
-I was a little sad with one point in particular about how the ending played out but can’t go into details because *spoilers* (and also the space-time continuum would implode).
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I gave this book 4⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ and am very interesting in continuing with the series.

When Joseph took his eye off his little sister for just a few seconds at the fair, she disappeared and was never seen again. From that moment, his life and family were never the same. Now, he is grown up, and all he wants is to travel back to that day and save his sister and put things right, but even with the ability to time travel, it's not that easy. This book puts a unique spin on the idea of time travel. Even if you've ever read a book of this type before this one's different. The story will grab you and the end will surprise you. All in all, it's an exciting journey.

Something I don't get to read very often, are these kind of time travel stories. Ones without tech and the usual aspects of science fiction. It's not in the future, it's in the now, and it doesn't have any of the flashy bells and whistles. And that's exactly what I love about them. It's gritty, it's raw, and it's just so interesting to me that I absolutely cannot get enough of it. This book was no exception. From the moment I picked it up I knew I would be hooked, and to my delight, it won't end at the last page. It's something that will continue to bring me joy in the future. And I'm almost ecstatic about it.

As a young teenager, Joe's life was torn apart when he took his little sister Amy to a local fair. Trying to win a prize for her, he took his eye off of her for only seconds when she vanished into thin air, never to be seen again. No one ever found out what happened to her. It destroyed his family, and his sense of self worth. As an adult, Joe finds himself drinking himself to sleep every night and quickly running out of money, as well as being on the verge of losing his house. But Joe has a secret, a special power that seems unrelated to everything else. Sometimes object speak to him, they tell him their story through a kind of vision on his head when he touches them. And then after losing too many nights to insomnia, his friend convinces him to try hypnotherapy. That's when everything changes.

After his first session he feels like it hasn't really done anything, but that night he time travels back in time, just an hour. He watches himself do his nightly routine, all the while, he's frozen with fear. And then it happens again, only farther back, and for a longer time. And then he starts trying to do it. That's when he realizes that he might be able to change his past, make his life better, and even save his sister, and his entire family.

This book was amazing from the beginning until the end. I didn't want to put it down for a second, for fear of missing something, even though I know it's a book, and I can just go back and re read it if I do. Joe's story, and the world crafted around him, is just so intense and interesting that it's almost believable. The emotions portrayed in this story are so real and raw, that the characters really seem like actual people you could know. And the best part of all, is that I wasn't left with any questions at the end, which I think is a pretty hard thing to do. Everything was like a perfectly put together puzzle, and I couldn't get enough of it. We get to watch Joe go from a depressed hermit who's lost everything in his life but his few friends, to someone who actually wants to put effort into his life again. And I think the most important part, is that the story really teaches you about having to let go the things that you can't change, and you have to start living your life before it's too late.

I think this book is for anyone looking for a really heartfelt story with a scifi twist that's not too overwhelming. If you are a fan of books like How to Stop Time by Matt Haig, and The Time Travellers Wife, I think you'll really enjoy this. It has the same kind of subtle scifi aspect as those books, and I loved this one just as much as I did those. I can't wait to see what comes next for Joe, and I think that with the absolutely breathtaking cover that this book has, it would make a beautiful addition to anyone's bookshelf.

(Radioactivebookreviews.wordpress.com)

I would give this 4 stars!

Joe and his sister Amy are off to the fair one summer evening. Joe tries to win Amy a toy at one of the stands. Within a blink of an eye, any disappears. No one has seen her go or where she went. 20 some years later Joe is still living in the past wishing he never took his off of his sister.

Joe decides with the push of a friend to go to a hypnotist to help his insomnia. What Joe ends up with is the ability to travel into the past. Joe realizes this new ability could help him save his sister, but I. Doing so what will change for his further self and will he be able to achieve this goal?

What i liked:
The writing style was simple and easy to follow. There was a past and present timeline which was beneficial to the story. I liked the time travel aspect and I thought it was a well thought out storyline. I felt entranced in the story of Joe and Amy and could not put it down to see what happened.
The relationship Joe describes of him and his sister Amy is so sweet.
I liked the epilogue I thought the author gave a good amount of conclusion for readers to feel they got some answers but also to want more from this potential series.

What I didn’t love:
I was fully committed in Joe help wing Amy. However, I didn’t ever feel a “kinship” to Joe. I don’t know what exactly it was that made me feel this way. Maybe the pessimist in him.

I love a good time travel book. And this one was intriguing and fascinating. Joseph Bridgeman's life is kind of falling apart when he accidentally discovers he can time travel. He has been haunted by his sister's sudden disappearance many years ago, and with this new discovery, he is convinced he can go back and prevent the moment when his life started falling apart.

I loved that the time travel element in this book wasn't too complicated and that the characters come together over the course of the novel to grow individually and together.

The end of the book sets you up for what may be next in this series and I think interesting things await!

TW: Child Disappearance, Dementia (very minimal), Depression, Suicide

Joseph, unlikes just about everyone else, has never forgotten his sister Amy, who vanished 22 years ago when she was 7. He's struggled with it, as one would and as an adult has terrible insomnia. He reaches out to Alexia, a hypnotherapist in the hopes that she'll help him sleep but finds, instead, that he has the ability to time travel. It's not as simple as it sounds- he dips in and out of the past but the reality is that he can't spend much time in any one spot. The further back he goes, the less he can be there. So, with that as backdrop, of course he wants to find Amy but no spoilers from me on what happens. It's a well conceived plot but one which sci-fi fans might quibble with. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Read this as a brother's hunt for answers and forgiveness,

A man obsessed with the mystery of his sister’s disappearance 20 years ago.
An accidental discovery that time travel is possible.
A chance to save his sister.

I really loved the premise for this book, and the story lived up to my expectations! The time-travel was fun, exciting, and unexpected. I enjoyed the main character’s drive and determination about finding his sister, and I loved how the story wrapped up!

The main character, Joe, is absolutely a wreck from the disappearance of his sister. He’s become a recluse and is about to lose his home. His life and family fell apart after Amy went missing. I enjoyed this distraught behavior in him in the beginning. It created such a character arc as he discovers his ability to time travel. I thought he was a good MC and I enjoyed his story from start to finish. There were a few other side characters that I really enjoyed as well. One, a record store owner, brings some light moments that made me smile a lot.

I liked Joe’s time travel situation. I really enjoy time travel because there are so many ways an author can take the story. This one had some fun rules that made the story really interesting and helped move the plot along.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book! It was hard for me to put aside, and when I wasn’t reading, I was wondering what Joe was up to!

I was provided a gifted copy of this book for free. I am leaving my review voluntarily.