Being a researcher of Victorian crime, the storyline was way out of my comfort zone. With Time Rovers, Transitives & a madman in the mix, I had no idea what to expect. As main character Cynda finds herself in the Whitechapel of 1888, expected to retrieve an ‘overstayer’, I began to warm to the plot & accurately portrayed setting, enjoying the quirky interaction between characters & the unusual spin that Oliver has put on a classic murder mystery. This is a deliciously different book....

Very well wrought tale of time travel. Jacynda Lassiter is a Time Rover working as escort and retriever of time tourists. This first book has her retrieving a person who's overstayed his time in Victorian England just before Jack the Ripper gets started. The another and another. The company she's working for is doing some illegal things and it appears some rovers are being abandoned. Good start to the series.

4.5 stars.Well, this was a nice surprise, and just what I needed - something a bit different. Excellent world building, character development and an interesting mystery to solve within a convincing historical context. After finishing this one, which has somewhat of an ending, but doesn’t conclude the story, I immediately bought book 2 (and paid full price, which I rarely do). I highly recommend if you like historical fiction, time travel, shape shifters, a strong heroine and a good detective sto...

Great start for a series…but not a cliffhanger

I found the timeline in the first couple of chapters confusing and came close to setting the book aside…I’m glad I didn’t. Once I understood it was part of the plot, it made perfect sense. The characters are well-imagined and wonderfully developed. I could envision the era with all its grit and grime through this story. Well done, well done indeed. I’ll be looking for more in this series…well worth the read.

While it has a degree of freshness, if this won seven awards I don't imagine the other candidates for those awards were up to much. It's above average, but it's not a long way above quite a low average, and there are enough issues that I can't in good conscience give four stars. It's a high three. The two completely separate speculative elements (time travel and shapeshifting) are more plot devices than they are fully worked out setting elements, and there's a bit of a tonal clash between the hi...

First, the good: Jacynda Lassiter proved a capable heroine in the end. I hesitate to employ the overused phrase "strong heroine," partly because that vague term "strong" could mean any number of things to any number of "people." "Capable" is a bit more clearly defined. And Jacynda certainly proved capable of taking care of herself at the climax and seeing to it that the bad guy got what was coming to him. I've seen one too many supposedly "strong" heroines turn into helpless damsels when capabil...

Alternate Victorian historical mystery with time travel and shape shifters, and Jack the Ripper on top. This was exactly my cup of tea. It did start out feeling like a bit of a mish-mash at some points, but I ended up really enjoying it and the whole series. All of these elements came together better and better as the overall story developed, although it might not be apparent yet by the end of the first book.In this book, there are three mysteries including the Ripper plot. The paranormal and sc...

[writing rough draft of rev, notes]I'm giving this one a 3.5 . I had fun reading it. I've read the author's Demon Trapper's series (and loved it). This was written before (and I do think that writer's get better the more books they have under their belt). The characters are well done, and I liked their interactions. Also, the heroine is strong, smart but not invincible. The mythology is a different twist too. All of these are things I'm starting to associate with Oliver's work.Cynda is a Time Ro...

I’ve struggled to figure out how I should write this review because all I really want to say is that this book is great and that if you like time travel, Victorian London and well thought out characters then you’ll love Sojourn, but that’s not really a review is it?Sojourn begins in Pompeii on, as Doctor Who calls it, Volcano Day. The top has blown, smoke is billowing, people are screaming and the lava is flowing, and flowing rather too quickly for Jacynda Lassiter’s taste because she isn’t runn...

I really enjoyed this story -- time travel, talking spiders, shape shifters and Jack the Ripper. How can that not be cool?