New Release by David McLain!
Title: The Time Traveller's Resort and Museum
Author Name: David McLain
Illustrator: Felix Eddy
Genre(s): Time Travel, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Adventure, Romance, Comedy, Steampunk
Release Date: November 17, 2016
Publisher: Mirror World Publishing
Follow the Tour:
~ About The Time Traveller's Resort and Museum ~
“If you need to know men's secrets
Or if there's something you need to find
If you want to see the dinosaurs
Or the insides of your mind.
If you want to watch the earth begin,
Or see what the apocalypse will leave behind,
You need to thank Alice Anderson,
For Alice is the mother of time.”
That was how the rhyme went. Every time traveler knew it. Everyone that is, except of course, for Alice herself, since she hadn’t invented time travel yet. Since returning to London, Alice’s life has been turned upside down. She’s been accused of murder and lost her position in the scientific community. Her only ally in this journey is a strange man who seems to think that Alice may be about to open up a strange new world of possibilities, but is probably not telling her everything he knows.
~ My Review ~
The Time Traveller's Resort & Museum is quirky and a dirigible full of fun. Imagine not only that you could travel in time, but also slip into worlds where anything imagined was real. Sherlock Holmes, King Arthur, dragons. Well, not dragons. Maybe.
Alice's world is turned upside down when she returns to England for a presentation with longtime friend Malcom and then he suddenly turns up dead. And she's the prime suspect. Luckily strange people start popping up to help her get away. Away from the police, away from the whole timestream where Malcom was killed.
Fabulous! Time travel exists. But the craziest thing is that Alice learns that sometime in her future, she's the one who invented it! We follow her twisted path to that invention along with her pet triceratops, a handsome pirate, a circus clown, and a mysterious oriental woman who knows Alice is a murder suspect and seems to be following her through time.
This was a really fun story. The writing was quirky and mostly fun although the tendency for many scenes to end in a telling mode, explaining what would happen in the future didn't always sit well with me. Mostly personal preference though.
The characters were well developed, descriptions excellent. And the illustrations which don't usually come with adult reads were cute and really added to the overall imagery. The book could use some more editing to correct a few typos and unfinished sentences but the story twists kept that from being a focus.
Recommended read and I'd certainly love to read a sequel! 4 stars from me.
~ Read an Excerpt ~
“Hello,” Alice said, with a certain degree of reluctant enthusiasm.
“You sound American,” an annoyed voice on the other end of the line said.
Alice dropped her bag. “I've been in New York for three years,” Alice said. “You're lucky I don't sound like I'm from the Bronx.”
It was Alice's sister, Wendy, giving what by her standards was a remarkably warm and friendly greeting. “You're lucky I don't steal your passport while you’re here and force you to teach Electrical Engineering at the University of the Orkneys. Electrical Engineering, that's what you do, isn't it?”
“You do realize that I just spent an entire evening in a metal tube, sitting on a very small seat that appeared to have been made from rocks confiscated from terrorists at security?”
“Terrorists use rocks these days?”
“Well, they're harder to spot going through metal detectors, aren't they?”
Ending a sentence with a question apparently sounded appropriately British and Wendy seemed to ease up a little.
“How was the flight, then?” she asked.
“I believe I aged three years,” Alice answered, looking for the way to the exit. “Do you want to have a drink?”
“Is that a rhetorical question?”
“In America, it's considered polite to ask.”
“I believe that the University of the Orkneys has early tenure.”
Wendy took pride in her absolute loathing of all things American. She saw Alice's decampment to New York as nothing less than a complete betrayal.
“Would you mind if we met in at my hotel?” Alice asked, trying to sound as if this were a polite request and not a desperate plea.
“I don't know,” Wendy said. “There aren't going to be a lot of randy outer-space types there, are there?”
“It's an astronomy conference,” Alice insisted. “Not a Sci-Fi convention.”
There was the unmistakable sound of pursing lips on the other end of the phone. “What hotel are you staying at?” Wendy asked.
“The Kensington.”
Wendy thought about it. “I'll meet you, but let's meet somewhere else. There's a pub down that way that I've had my eye on.”
“Wendy–”
“I have to drive in all the way from Brixton. You can walk a hundred metres out of the hotel lobby.”
Alice sighed. She decided not to point out that in fact she had come quite a bit farther than hundred meters. “What's the name of the place?” she asked.
“The Gristle and Thorn,” Wendy said.
Alice spotted the word “EXIT” on the far side of the hall. “Couldn't find any place with a ghastlier name? Was the ‘Skull and Crossbones’ already booked?”
“Just meet me,” Wendy insisted, and for a moment, she did her best to sound kind. “I've missed you.”
It has been said that all journeys begin with a single step, and while it might seem that Alice's journey began all the way back at JFK, in actuality the first step of Alice's journey began with a decision. It was not a big decision, not the kind of thing that would strike a historian as a significant chapter in the decline and fall of the Western Empire, but for Alice Anderson, it was the equivalent of crossing the Rubicon. It was the simplest thing really – a choice of restaurants.
“The Gristle and Thorn it is,” Alice said, picking up her bag again and shuffling through the crowd.
Meet the Author:
David McLain is the author of the two novels: Dragonbait, and The Life of a Thief. His stories have been published in the anthologies Metastasis, Penny Dread II, and the Doctor Who Anthology Time Shadows, as well as over two dozen magazines. He has been featured on NPR's Off the Page and the History of England podcast. He lives in New York.
Connect with David McLain:
Meet the Illustrator:
Felix Eddy graduated Magnum Cum Laude from Alfred University. She is the author and illustrator of
A Bestiary Alphabet, and has illustrated several book covers and children's books. You can find out more about her at
www.felixeddy.com
Purchase Links:
MIRROR WORLD PUBLISHING:
AMAZON.COM:
AMAZON.CA:
KOBO:
BARNES & NOBLE:
Chapters.Indigo:
A year after the world was thrown into magical chaos, Harrison Cody takes part in an expedition to learn the cause.
Edward Aubry is a graduate of Wesleyan University, with a degree in music composition. Improbably, this preceded a career as a teacher of high school mathematics and creative writing.
