The Day Tripper -a standalone

By- James Goodhand-never read author

Publication date 3-19-24, read 3-20-24

📃 Page count: 373 kindle

.Quick Summary: In 1995 Alex Dean has his future planned out- a place at Cambridge University next year, the love of his life Holly Chan, and his music. When he's attacked and almost drowns, he wakes up fifteen years into the future(2010) with no idea what happened or how to get back. As he time travels more, he sees the downward spiral his life takes. He learns that even small choices have consequences and he has to re-evaluate his choices.

🤷🏾‍♀️ What to Expect:
⭐ ️time travel
⭐️ second chances
⭐️ what if

⚠️TW: alcoholism, depression, emotional abuse, homelessness, prison time

🤔 My Thoughts: I am a sucker for time travel and self discovery. Alex got to go back, right wrongs, and make better decisions. He hit rock bottom and had to face hard truths that he was impulsive and did unhealthy things to himself and the people around him. I wish I could go back and pick different options, but I follow the mantra" you are exactly where you're supposed to be." This novel gave me Cassandra in Reverse and The Time Traveler's Wife vibes.

Rating: 4/5⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher MIRA for this ARC💙 ! I voluntarily give an honest review and all opinions expressed are my own.

I love the premise of The Day Tripper by James Goodhand. The first person narration embeds the reader in Alex's confusion and his dilemmas. At the same time, the first person narration makes it difficult for me as a reader to find an anchor or to "get to know" Alex. Perhaps, that is the entire point of the book. We don't know another's perspective. In order or out of order, we see the world as we see it not as it may actually be.

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2024/03/the-day-tripper.html

Reviewed for NetGalley and a publisher’s blog tour.

While Day Tripper started out a *little* shaky for me, I ended up absolutely devouring it, and feeling so glad I stuck with it because it is incredibly worth the payout! When we meet Alex, he seems like a pretty typical guy, nothing crazy. But as we begin to jump around to various points in his life, we can see that as he aged, he kind of started to suck. It was depressing, and Alex was none too pleased with how he'd apparently chosen to live his life. Good news is, he keeps getting various chances to make differences.

I don't want to say too much, because this is best experienced for yourself, but it is incredibly thought provoking. What little changes in our daily lives would or could change its trajectory? And what would you change if given the chance? The story was lovely, watching Alex grow and develop and try to figure out what kind of man he wanted to be. I was so, so glad I stuck with it, it was truly a heartfelt journey.

Bottom Line: This one got me right in the feels, and was entertaining to boot!

3.5 stars

This unusual story follows a young man who suddenly starts living his days out of order. Every morning he wakes up a different age and has to discover the date and his situation. As he slowly makes sense of his situation, he also finds that he does not like his life and wishes to go back to his twenty year old self and the girl he loved then.

I found the pacing a little bit difficult with the main character making bad decisions and being unlikable for at least half of the book. But when he finally begins to deal with the issues from his childhood that have led him to his adult self, my empathy awoke and I finally found a character to root for. Much of the book deals with hard topics but if the reader perseveres, the payoff is there at the end. Thankfully, I have a group of readers to discuss the book with. I think it would make a very good book club discussion.

Thank you to Harlequin Trade Publishing (Mira) for the eARC via Netgalley.

✨Release Day Review✨

The Day Tripper
James Goodhand
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you so much @htp_hive @jamesgoodhand and @htp_books for the opportunity to read and review this book.
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After a tragic accident Alex wakes up each morning living a different day of his life. His days are all there just the order in which he lives them is mixed up.
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I absolutely LOVED the journey this book took me on. I have never read anything like it and I was so invested in the story.

If you’re looking for a book where the main character has so much depth and growth then look no further. The time traveling was so very interesting to me and seeing how Alex changed his life with each new day was amazing to read.

There were so many times I felt so connected to Alex and the experiences he was going through. He learns how to work through past traumas and open himself up to new possibilities. I felt the full range of emotions as I read this because I believe we all can relate to Alex and his journey in some way or another.

In the beginning it did take me a bit to adjust to the style of how it’s written. But this was such a beautiful and raw story. I’m so glad I got the opportunity to read this!

✨Check trigger warnings on this before reading.

Thank you so much @htp_hive for a gifted copy of this book! #hiveinfluencer
Also, thank you @htpbooks @_mira_books_ @netgalley for the ARC!

⏳ 𝙈𝙮 𝙏𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙨 ⏳
This book gets you thinking! It’s 1995, Alex Dean is with his date Holly that he is falling for, and has a run in with an old bully, that sends him flying into the Thames and nearly dying. The next day, Alex wakes up and it’s 2010 and Alex is 15 years older. Confused, he finds things obviously different and not to his liking. When he wakes up the next day, it’s another 9 years into the future. And Alex isn’t loving how his life is turning out since that day in 1995.

The story continues as each day Alex wakes up back and forth in time. He finally meets a couple of “friends” who give him perspective about what might be happening. I don’t want to say much more about the plot as to not give it away, but if you were jumping around in time in your life, and see it’s not great later on, what would you think? Alex realizes he may not be with someone he began falling in love with, which is the least of his problems really, but he can’t fathom why that would be until he begins to look inward.

This book can be relatable to anyone who likes to self-evaluate their life and the choices they have made to get where they are at. The what-ifs. The cause and effects of decisions made long ago!

Pick this one up and dive into a story of what-ifs, self-reflection, some tragedy and some victories, and learn about what you might do if you were in Alex’s shoes!

✨ 𝙔𝙤𝙪 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙗𝙤𝙤𝙠 𝙞𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚:
⏰ Time Travel
⏰ Cause and Effect
⏰ SciFi Books
⏰ Self-Development

I'm a big time travel fiction fan, so of course when I came across The Day Tripper, it immediately appealed to me. This is a new-to-me author so I didn't know what to expect with the writing style. From page one, the story is told disassembled and jumbled back together in non-lineal order. We are experiencing the disorientation right along with Alex as he slips from one moment to another in his life. It did take some getting used to, which caused my reading pace to lag for a time.

If you've read the synopsis, you get the general idea: Alex Dean suddenly finds himself waking up every day at different points in the timeline of his life. It all seemed to start after a near-fatal assault he experienced in the mid 90s. After this day, life as he knew it was gone. It's certainly intriguing to think about seeing the effects things make on your life almost instantaneously. For most, collections of bad decisions and actions can take years to manifest into dire consequences. Alex sees his life destroyed before he even knows the cause.

Much of the first half is pretty grim and depressing. I can't say that I was a big fan of Alex as his alcoholism, bad choices with his girlfriend Holly, and his broken family comes to light. He's a damaged man who was deeply influenced by his father's emotional abuse, and his murky relationship with Blake Benfield as a troubled kid. None of the details come out until much later in the book, but we do know that there are significant events in his past that are driving his bad choices. Typically, in a normal, linear storyline, you get the backstory of the character fairly early and that helps you understand them better and empathize with them. That is very hard to do when you're reading things so out of order and trying to make sense of what is even happening and how.

Alex is drowning in the current of his bad decisions from one moment to the next. Homelessness, alcoholism, prison time, rejection and shame from his parents, loss of the love of his life, and a short, failed marriage are things that he sees jumping through time in his life. He is desperate to find out what is happening to him, but more importantly, if he could alter anything and return to the promising life he once had. His one beacon of hope is a strange man that he encounters by the name of Dr. P.H. (Paul) Defrates. Paul seems to know quite a bit about his personal situation but isn't very willing to share any answers with him. He does explain Einstein's theory of time: how each moment in time is happening simultaneously rather than in individual, chronographic order. Alex seems to be viewing his life in a way that others can't because of an aberration that occurred. It's imperative that he finds out what jarred him into this new reality so he can try to repair his broken life.

Once Alex starts to face some hard truths about himself, he begins to make changes in his impulsive and unhealthy actions. This is when the "updates" start to occur and he finally believes that there may be a way to escape his doomed fate. In the end, the story is an uplifting one because Alex goes through a considerable amount of growth and is able to identify how he was his own worst enemy. He wants to make a difference in his own life as well as others'. He learns to express his pain, reach out for help, and share his gratitude and love with those that mean the most to him. In doing this, he gradually starts to heal-and the effects are clearly evident. Many people have regrets in life as they get older. Who doesn't wish that they could turn back time and do things a little differently? This story is an intriguing play on that idea, which fortunately ends with a lot of introspection in a positive light. While I didn't necessarily care for the main character for much of the book, I do appreciate the journey he went on and seeing the character development along the way. It was executed in a way that was a bit more dismal and gritty for my taste, but worthwhile if you hang on until the end.

Big thanks to NetGalley for letting me review this eARC.

I really enjoyed this book.

Like, immensely enjoyed it.

It was a bit slow at the beginning, yes, but once you really got into it and Alex really started to CARE about changing his life and really putting the effort in, it was just an amazing read.

He worked so hard to change his life after the incident in ‘95 and he finally got the life he knew he deserved. He changed his entire life around after one day. He knew what he wanted and he went for it, even knowing it had an end date.

This book features an unlikable narrator in desperate need of a redemption which I personally found difficult to care about. The side characters are way more interesting but they exist only as opportunities for Alex to do better. The first 2/3 of this book was slow and depressing. The ending did redeem the book a bit but I felt like the premise is pretty flawed. I normally love time travel books but this just didn't hit for me.

This book was absolutely fantastic. Alex finds himself waking up a different day in his timeline every day. But what happens when he doesn’t like the future?

This book blew my mind. I had a fantastic time reading it and would definitely recommend for others to pick it up. The writing took a minute for the American in me to get used to but I thoroughly enjoyed it pretty quickly.

I found myself cheering for Alex & friends throughout the book and found the book inspiring.

5 Stars
Thank you to Harlequin and NetGalley for this ARC
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Its 1995 and Alex has the perfect life. He has a spot at Cambridge and the love of his life, Holly. But after a night out where Alex was brutally attacked and left to drown, he wakes up 15 years later in 2010 in a bedroom he does not recognize. The next day he wakes up another 9 years later in 2019, the next day it’s 1999. Each day he wakes up paints a bleak picture of what happened to his life after the attack. Never knowing what day he will wake up to next, Alex realizes that making small changes can impact what happens in his life that he lives the next day. Unhappy with how his life is in the future, Alex sets out to make changes and grow as a person to get the future he know he deserves.

I very much enjoyed the time travel aspect of this book. I enjoyed the lack of control he had of when he would be waking up as well as the fact that every day was years apart. Although I do see the other reviewers feedback that waking up everyday decades apart was confusing, I found that as a fun part of the puzzle. I enjoyed getting to work out that there was a pattern to how and why he woke up on the days that he did. I felt that there was a lot of character growth in the book and you got to watch him confront his demons in such raw and real ways. I don’t think this book would be for every reader but I loved the concept and felt it was well executed.

This felt like an alcoholic/addicts take on The Midnight Library and The Time Travelers Wife. The main character Alex on the eve of starting his undergraduate course at Cambridge gets into a fight with a long standing rival which upends his life and sends him traveling through time through different versions of his future-all terrible outcomes as he tries to get back to this night where he was with the love of his life Holly and his future was still positive. He’s obsessed with his rival and and miserable alcoholic and addict throughout the book. And overall I felt like I just wanted him to just get to the dated he wanted to be in as well so it would be over. Even before his accident he wasn’t a very pleasant person honestly. Midnight library/Time travelers wife did this genre much better.

Living life one day at a time is a philosophy that many people live by. James Goodhand takes you on a journey where one man wakes every day, not knowing which day in his life will be next. The Day Tripper will test your normal thought process and have you thinking about yourlife choices.

Alex Dean is a man with two loves, Holly Chan and his incredible musical ability. Alex is absolutely infatuated with Holly, knowing that she is the love of his life. He also has an appointment to Cambridge and a potential sk0y tipping ceiling to his life. That is, until one day a chance meeting with a bully while on a date with Holly changes his life forever.

Awaking from an accident of epic proportions, Dean tries to place himself as he’s in an apartment where he’s never been, with a woman he’s never met. It’s not the same month, year, or even decade as Dean starts to put things together. As the days start to pass by one after another, Dean learns that nothing in his life is normal, having to determine timelines and what year it is everywhere he goes. Jumping through time like a pinball in an arcade, Alex Dean dodges prison, career changes, alcoholism, along with gaining and losing the love of his life on a daily basis.

Goodhand drives decades of life through ups and downs while capturing raw life in the process. He captures you straight out of the gate and doesn’t let go while driving you down a mountain switchback, never letting you get comfortable. The emotions are raw and authentic as you get a large glimpse of Dean's life, but broken down into 24-hour increments, not knowing where it is going to lead. There are plenty of characters that support Alex through his journey, and plenty of hurdles he must navigate while trying to determine what happened.

What you feel like you’re missing is exactly what Goodhand is provides. He makes you subconsciously think about what you can do to change the trajectory in your own life and how every single interaction could play into the future. This was a well written adventure that draws you in immediately and will leave you hanging onto Deans every day to ensure he doesn’t mess them up. It’s a battle for Alex Dean and one that you will absolutely love to journey with him. Don’t miss this one.

The beginning of this book packs a (literal) punch. It immediately involves the reader in the life of its protagonist. This is the story of a man’s life told in a series of episodes that are not linear. I think that those who have enjoyed novels by Matt Haig will want to give this one a look.

Thanks to NetGalley and MIRA for the ARC of this title.

DNF at 20% - I like the premise here, but felt thrown into the deep end by the first few chapters of this one and never got a chance to feel like I had a grip on why we're following the main character's journey through time out-of-order. The pacing here feels weird - slow, languid while it infodumps, then once you've got a grip on what's happening IMMEDIATELY throwing you into a timeshift. This could totally be a case of right book, wrong time, but I really bounced off this one from the jump.

Interesting take on a time travelers conundrum.

Alex Dean has a perfect day with the perfect girl that does not end well. The next day he wakes up in another year and then day after that it happens again. All he wants to do is figure out what happened to his life, how he got to be the mess he seems to be and why he's no longer with the woman he thought was the love of his life.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, though the British slang threw me at the beginning. The time travel aspect made me think about a life lived out of order and what that could lead to.

Thank you to Harlequin Trade Publishing and Netgalley!

It’s 1995 and Alex’s life is about to turn around for the better, he’s with Holly, his love, he has a spot at Cambridge and he has worked for a year to have enough money to go - but then it all comes crumbling down when he gets in a fight with a man from his past and wakes up in 2010. His life in the future is a mess and he has no idea why, and then he wakes up in 2019, and then 1999…. Every day he wakes up in a different day in a different year and has to piece together his life and try to fix his it as best he can.

I am having a hard time reviewing this book; it is a lot like Oona out of Order which I really liked - but more depressing. The non linear timeline was jarring at the onset and the one day jumps were sometimes bit hard to follow, but I would have been fine with it if not for how Alex kept making such bad decisions even when he knew not to based on his experience from the day before. The end however, is worth it and had me crying, but the getting there was a bit hard, I’m glad I had friends who finished first and told me to stick with it. I would give it a higher rating for the end, but I didn’t enjoy the book for quite a bit which is why I wam so torn in this review.

3.75 stars rounded to 4

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing/Mira for the ARC to review

Following a brutal encounter in 1995, The Day Tripper follows Alex Dean through time as he wakes up seemingly uninjured but having lived a hard fifteen years since the fight. As Alex grapples with the unsettling reality of having lived a decade-and-a-half in a single night, he is forced to navigate the uncertainties of his past, present, and future. And every night’s sleep thereafter hurls him through time, where each day brings a new year.

One of the hangups with any time-travel plot whose themes are centered on non-sci-fi ideas like exploring a deeper sense of self and your impact on others, à la ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ (which is the best Christmas movie ever, hands down), is that often from the outset it’s fairly evident where a character like Alex is supposed to end up, like ‘Oona Out of Order’ or ‘The Midnight Library,’ two books where the execution didn’t quite elevate the stories above the predictable and ordinary.

But I ended up being pretty surprised by and drawn into Goodhand’s novel. As the entire conceit depended on his ability to properly carry out the plot, I think he did a great job. Any predictability made the book feel familiar, and yet I was often unsure about what was to come next or what impact Alex would be able to have on his out-of-order life.

My few complaints center on two main areas: the present tense and the pacing. While I certainly understand the inclination to unfurl a plot-driven narrative with present tense, this can sometimes create a rushed and claustrophobic atmosphere, which detracts from my overall experience. Also, while the pacing may falter slightly here and there, perhaps mirroring the erratic nature of Alex's journey, it does feel like it serves as a reflection of life itself. Some days are profound, etching themselves into memory, while others pass by unnoticed, their significance revealed only in hindsight.

Almost unlike any other sub-genre, time-travel books are often defined by how they interact with other time-travel stories. Here, Goodhand plays with time on a continuous but nonlinear line. Everyone’s actions impact their future, but Alex has the benefit of seeing the effects years into the future, the very next day — as well as the chance to make changes in the past again and again. Like Toby from ‘The Witch Elm,’ whose actions may or may not have led up to this life-altering event, his path was profoundly redirected following the attack. Drawing parallels to ‘The Lost Weekend,’ where addiction is the struggle, ‘Groundhog Day,’ which explores self-understanding, and ‘Quantum Leap,’ questioning purpose and change, The Day Tripper explores the complex relationship between cause and effect. In the realm of time travel, is it a blessing or a curse, a path to redemption or ruin? Raising huge questions about destiny and free will, Goodhand managed a superb balance that made the unusual way Alex was living seem strikingly similar to an ordinary life. No one is promised a tomorrow.

Overall, while I didn’t fall in love with it, I appreciated the ways Goodhand explored his themes and I kind of miss Alex. In the realm of time-play stories, The Day Tripper stands on its own with a thought-provoking exploration of what it means to live your life.

I was provided an ARC of this book via Netgalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing, all opinions are my own. I was also provided a ALC version of this book via Netgalley and Harper Audio/Harlequin Audio.


I found it very helpful to have both the print version handy as I was listening to the audiobook because of the way the story is told in a non-linear timeline. I found it helpful to go back and reference when he was and what age he was several times when reading/listening as it is critical to the storyline. As the title indicates, Alex's story is told as he visits various days of his life in his future and past. His story starts in 1995 at age twenty, when everything seemed to be going right for him when a pivotal and brutal event occurs that changes the trajectory of his life. Every morning he wakes up at a different age and can't remember where he is and what has happened in his life. Determined to get back to the woman he loves and the life he wanted, he begins to piece things together as he lives his life out of order.


As Alex slowly beings to understand what is going on and why he is living his days out of order, he attempts to make small changes where he can both in the past and the future. He tries to be a better man, help a someone in need, get help for past trauma experienced, and tell the people in his life that they matter to him. Alex finds that by making small, impactful changes over time he can't undo everything bad that happens in his future and all the bad decisions that he has made, but he can change some of them for the better.


This took me a while to get into, it is a slower burn and I found Alex unlikable in the beginning but make no mistake he is on a journey and does redeem himself by the end and turns into a great guy. I'm not the biggest fan of non-linear timelines, and it took me a while to settle into the time jumps. In the beginning Alex makes a ton of bad decisions. Toward the latter half of the book we find out what is truly going on with him and get more information about his past and why the fight happened that left him for dead in 1995 that began this whole time jumping situation. Once you understand Alex, the reason for the time jumping to different parts of his life clicks and the decisions he made at different points of his life and the lessons he learns at each visit begin to make sense. Alex starts to understand what is going on and begins to make incremental changes for the better to mend his relationship with his mother, recover his relationship with his true love Holly, and mentor a bright young man named Jazz. I really began to enjoy the book in the latter half once Alex begins to understand himself and what he needs to do.


If you enjoy time travel books with a soul searching aspect and a love story at its heart this is a great one to pick up. It really is a beautiful story.


Trigger warnings: alcoholism, substance use, molestation/sexual abuse

This book was incredibly difficult to follow. The author used a ton of British Slang which for me caused me to stop and figure out what it meant. That took away from the story for me.
When added to unlikeable and one dimensional characters, that tipped this novel over the line and into an almost DNF category for me.
If you are familiar with British slang then I say give this one a try.
I received a ARC of this book, all opinions are my own