Let’s Do The Time Warp

Who among us has not thought about what we would tell our younger self if we could go back in time? If we’re honest, we acknowledge that our younger self, after getting over disbelief and the resulting freak out, would not listen to a damned thing we had to say. That’s the challenge for Cal Leandros in Nevermore, the tenth installment in Rob Thurman’s urban fantasy series, and it goes about as well as you might expect.

Since the Cal we dedicated readers have come to know and love (and fear) is difficult and snarky and distrusting of everyone except his brother, Niko, it’s no wonder he doubts everything about his time-traveling older self. Convincing both brothers to listen requires a patience that older Cal has rarely had to master, and it’s interesting to see that character development. That and the intensity of well-written action scenes carried me through this book, despite some of its shortfalls.

I have read and loved all of the books before it, which is why it makes me sad that Nevermore did not live up to its predecessors. I didn’t dislike it, but the combination of time travel, the emotional trauma that prompted it, and numerous flashbacks made for a more disjointed story than I’ve come to expect from Rob Thurman. I could see where the story was aiming, and sometimes, it hit dead on. But the lack of the great banter that has made this series a must-buy for me made Nevermore less of a page-turner than previous books. That said, I enjoyed it enough to see it through to the end, and the cliffhanger ending (which I do not mind in a long series) ensures that I will pick up the next volume.

If you have not read the series, I highly recommend that you do, but start at the beginning. Getting to know the Leandros brothers, and their friends and enemies, is a worthwhile endeavor. This book is an outlier, and it may end up being a better read when the second half of the story is revealed.