Travelers - Blog Tour

Synopsis:
Sienna Crenshaw knows the rules: 1) no time traveling beyond your natural lifetime, 2) no screwing with death, and 3) no changing the past. Ever. Sienna doesn’t love being stuck in the present, but she’s not the type to break the rules. That is, she wasn’t the type until her best friend broke every one of those rules to keep Henry, her twin brother and Sienna’s ex-boyfriend, alive.

Suddenly, Sienna is caught in an unfamiliar reality. The upside? Henry is still alive. The downside? Sienna’s old life, including the people in it, has been erased. Now, Sienna and Henry must untangle the giant knot in time, or her parents and all the rest of the Travelers, will be lost forever. One problem: the only way to be successful is for Henry to die.

Review:

Traveling through time has always fascinated me. But changing time? Now that's a little more on the scary side for one main reason: the butterfly effect. A simple theory that comes down to the smallest detail. Change that and the world changes with it. Meradith Houston explores that theory in her novel, Travelers, where one girl merely wishes to save her brother's life, but in doing so, creates an entire new reality. 

Sienna Crenshaw is the main character in this mind bending, time altering ride. She has the time traveling gene but isn't the greatest at it. She tends to end up in the wrong places. That's one of the reasons her parents restrict her traveling. Her imperfect nature definitely makes Sienna more down to earth and relatable, which I think is always important in a science fiction novel. She's also a loving and understanding person. The love Sienna has for her family and boyfriend show how big her heart is and her reaction when everything is taken away from her will empathetically connect her to readers. 

The plot of Travelers gets a bit confusing because of the drastic time shift and altering of reality, but Houston does a good job at staying focused. Thankfully, she narrows the massive change down to a specific event. After Joan changes history so that her brother lives, Sienna knows she has to change it back. Especially when she learns that her parents aren't alive in the parallel dimension. She'll do anything to save her family, but the hard part lies in letting Henry, her boyfriend and Joan's twin, die all over again. The struggle between realities is difficult and readers will understand that. The right decision isn't always the easiest and Sienna has to be ready to make some sacrifices to set things back on track. The foundation of a character connection will begin with Sienna's personality but it will further develop, and solidify, with the decisions she makes, as the whole world hangs in the balance. 

Rating: 3.5/5 Cups

Meet the Author:

I’ve never been a big fan of talking about myself, but if you really want to know, here are some random tidbits about me:

I'm a California girl. This generally means I talk too fast and use "like" a lot. Since I now live in Montana, sometimes this is a problem. 

I have my doctorate in molecular anthropology. Translation: I sequence dead people's DNA and spend a whole lot of time in a lab, which I love. 

I've been writing since I was 11 years old. It's my hobby, my passion, and I'm so happy to get to share my work! 

My other passion is teaching. There's nothing more fun than getting a classroom of college kids fired up about anthropology! This is probably a good thing, since my day job requires me to teach at the local university. 

If I could have a super-power, it would totally be flying. Which is a little strange, because I'm terrified of heights.

Connect with Meradith

Website / Blog / Facebook / Twitter / Goodreads

Connect with BookFishBooks

Website / Twitter

Teaser Tuesday (177)

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers



Travelers (p.156)
  - Meradeth Houston

I knew a general timeframe, and despite Augustus' failure to figure things out, I benefited from having known Joan my whole life. I would find a way to stop her. I could do it.

Sanctum

Dan, Abby, and Jordan remain traumatized by the summer they shared in the Brookline asylum. Much as they'd love to move on, someone is determined to keep the terror alive, sending the teens photos of an old-timey carnival, with no note and no name. Forsaking their plan never to go back, the teens return to New Hampshire College under the guise of a weekend for prospective students, and there they realize that the carnival from the photos is not only real, it's here on campus, apparently for the first time in many years.

Sneaking away from sample classes and college parties, Dan and his friends lead a tour of their own—one through the abandoned houses and hidden places of the surrounding town. Camford is hiding a terrible past, and the influence of the asylum runs deeper than Dan ever imagined.

*May Contain Spoilers*

Looking for closure can open old wounds, especially when the wound never stopped bleeding. Madeleine Roux lets readers in on a little Brookline Asylum secret in her sequel, Sanctum. And the secret is? The madness never stopped. 

Dan is still having nightmares where he feels as if he is the old Warden of Brookline Asylum. He's definitely heading for the deep end. Bravely, or stupidly, he decides to return to the place of murder and mayhem for a college tour weekend. I like Dan; I can't really help it. He's a little weird, goofy, teetering on the edge of crazy, but it works for him. And for this novel. Readers will definitely be intrigued by the unsolved mystery that we all thought was solved. However, this book is more about the mystery than the actual character. Roux connected readers to Dan in the first book and since that has been established, the story can move to center stage.

Abby and Jordan are still present, and accounted for, in this sequel. Though, they have seemed to distance themselves from Dan to help leave what happened at Brookline in the past. But Dan isn't the only one being haunted. Readers get a deeper look into Abby's love for art and Jordan's mathematical madness in this sequel. The trust these three have in each other is a big part of why readers will feel themselves connecting with the characters. When characters rely on and trust each other, readers feel as if they are reliable and trustworthy. Especially when their crazy theories turn out to be right.

The plot of Sanctum begins with the three teens being lured back to Brookline. Obviously whoever was behind the grisly murders in the first book was not the ghost of The Sculptor or The Warden. There's much more to the story and it's quite intense. Dan, Abby, and Jordan meet back at NHC for a weekend tour to find out, once and for all, what or who is haunting them. This book isn't as gruesome as the first one, with less death and more threats. However, honestly, I was a bit disappointed with the ending as I had already guessed who was the true culprit. And when it comes to mysteries, I want to be wrong for all the perfect reasons.

Rating: 3/5 Cups

Photo Friday

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I had the same misconception.

Anyone else?