All I kept thinking while reading this book is what a good TV show it would make. It has that perfect procedural- with-an-underlying-season-long-mystery feel. However, as a book, I had trouble connecting with the characters. I love stories about fathers and daughters. I love time travel. I even liked the characters of Miranda and Kin. But I just didn't feel about them the way I wanted to or the way I think the author wanted me to. The story was interesting and I liked the concepts about time travel and paradoxes and rules, but it just didn't grab me. However, I will say that the ending made me teary-eyed, despite my figuring out what was going to happen.

Have you ever read those relationships that simply warm your heart and make you want to read about them nonstop?

That's exactly how I felt with Kin and Miranda. Just the sweetest, most heartfelt father and daughter relationship I've ever read. I've actually never read a book before where a father cared so much about his child that he would literally travel through time just to save their life and make sure they live a complete and happy one. Man, I'm almost crying just thinking about them. Kin is the love of my life and definitely one of my favorite characters of all time, I just can't stop thinking about him and how awesome he's as a father.

Moreover, all the time travelling aspects of this book were on point. I actually felt like I was there in two different times. And also, I was able to understand all the paradoxes that can be created by changing facts about the past, which I was so confused about before starting Here and Then and Now. All of it was extremely interesting to me, I just wanted more and more. Just when I thought sci-fi may not be the genre for me, this book comes to prove me how amazing the genre can be.

Saddly, there are two things that I actually didn't like. The first one being a love interest Kin had. I just didn't see the chemistry between P and Kin, from the beginning we were supposed to not want to be with her since we were reading from Kin's point of view but later I didn't see their relationship developing either. All the time I was rooting for him to

SPOILER (go back to Miranda and Heather even though she was going to die, for me they were his true family not Penny. That's one of the reasons why I didn't like her, I felt like she was in the middle of my babies being happy.)

And the second one was that from time to time I would disconnect from the story. I don't actually know why, but there were some moments that dragged a bit for me and I wanted to skip some sentences because I wasn't interested in what was going on. Mainly when Markus was involved, I didn't like that side-character.

Now, the ending was spectacular. This book had so many twist that I actually didn't know how things were going to end up but when we got to it, it was exactly how it needed to end. Incredibly amazing and everything just made so much sense.

SPOILER (But again, I wish Kin didn't end up with Penny.)

All in all, this book was fantastic for the most part. The time travelling aspect as well as our main character were one of the best things I've read for a while. However, there were some moments were I couldn't get into the story and there's also a love interest who I didn't like, that's the reason why I didn't give this book a full 5 stars.

I've been sitting on this review for a week or so, but I cannot figure out what to write. Like, Here and Now and Then was a book? And I read it?? Time travel stories are some of my absolute favorites to experience, but after I finished this one, I realized that there were a lot of things that happened but nothing that really grabbed me or made me feel truly invested in the narrative. Everyone feels like silhouettes of themselves, reduced to fictional stereotypes in a paint-by-numbers sci-fi romp.

I can tell that Mike Chen spent a lot of time thinking about the story—especially how time travel would work—but the prologue introducing Kin was too brief for me to really empathize with him getting stranded in 1996. And then the next time we meet him, in 2014, feels like another blip on the way to the real story: Kin being forced to return to 2142 and subsequently trying to figure out a way "back to his daughter". (I won't write how he accomplishes this, but I literally said out loud "Oh, that's not what I thought would happen but okay sure" once I read it.) But once he's back in his proper timeline, Kin is able to "process both eras clearly and cleanly," the huge barrier providing tension to the previous chapters magically removed. Kin also talks a big game of having to choose between Heather, his wife in 2014, and Penny, his fiancee in 2142—but he never has to, not really. The choice ultimately becomes Penny or his daughter, but he doesn't have to choose between them, either, getting to have both with little conflict. Everything just kind of... works out.

It's not that Here and Now and Then wasn't good, it's that it wasn't for me (even though I really wanted it to be). Chen's characters are stilted outlines without much filler, the plot moves forward but doesn't feel like it goes anywhere, and every scene is so full of extraneous stuff that you don't notice how ultimately bland and empty the book is until you finish. With too much focus on the how instead of the why, the story, unfortunately, becomes forgettable, one of those books you'll close with a "hmm" and then never open again.

[Review to be published on January 25th at http://pagesbelowvaultedsky.wordpress.com/]

DNF @35%

So this wasn't exactly the feel-good time travel drama that I'd had in mind.

And I'm starting to think that I'm setting too-high standards for these time travel stories because I haven't been impressed with the majority of the ones I read in the past year.

Long story short, while I liked how readable and snappy the writing is, I felt the story lacked in-depth exploration into not only the future world and the time travel agency, but the characters and their relationships.

There are too many details that I found ridiculous and/or scientifically wobbly, like the invention of a metabolizer that increases human life span by a whopping 200 years that will come about in 100 years from now, which seems far too soon; the concept that our brains can't handle memories of two time periods and no real explanation as to why; the fact that our protagonist's full name is Quinoa due to a food-name fad that happens sometime in the future; the notion that this big important agency doesn't have set protocols for when an agent gets stuck in a timeline; and the idea that the U.S. in the future is doing secret collaborative time travel projects with Australia of all countries (nothing against Aussies! It's just not very plausible). It's all just so...arbitrary and quirky for the sake of being quirky--like something out of a children's cartoon.

Okay, so this is one of those goofy light-scifi stories. Not what I expected, but fair enough. At least the characters are interesting, right?

Well, I thought the characters' actions were baffling and nonsensical so I guess technically that could be construed as "interesting."

For example, there's a scene near the beginning where Kin is worried that the agency will terminate his 1996 family and he has a lightbulb moment where he decides he's going to run away alone, which makes absolutely no sense considering how the agency already knows where they live and can take them as hostages to lure him back.

Moreover, there's little chemistry between Kin and his wife and daughter, and this takes the emotional impact out of some of the later events.

And speaking of later events...

SPOILERS:

Kin ends up returning to his original timeline but then finds out that his wife dies just a few months after his departure. So he decides to retroactively send an email to his daughter (dated one day after his wife's death) which begins with this line:

"First off, I am so incredibly sorry about what has happened to Mom and that you are suffering alone."

That is a letter you might send to a coworker or an acquaintance when they're in a rough spot (in fact, an acquaintance did send me a similar e-mail after I was in the hospital for suicidal reasons and that had ten times the emotion of Kin's version). And even then the "first off" makes it sound flippant--like you have more important topics to get to. It's definitely not the letter a grieving man would (or should) write to his grieving daughter that he unwittingly abandoned.

It's a detail that just really bothered me and it underscores the feeling that these characters don't behave as normal humans would.

I think I'm in the minority of opinions, though. So if you crave soap opera-y family dramas with light sci-fi elements then you might want to give this one a try. It wasn't to be for me, unfortunately.

Kin used to be an agent of the Temporal Corruption Bureau, until a botched assignment left him stranded in 1996. Eventually, with his memory swiss cheesed by time travel and no hope of rescue, he gets married, has a daughter, gets a job in IT. Eighteen years too late, his partner comes to take him back to 2142. His friends, family, and the TCB expect him to settle quietly into his former life, but Kin cannot. A father's love and his serious technical know-how mean time itself is at risk when he detects a threat to his temporal anomaly of a daughter. Both beautiful and trippy.

I recently discovered my newfound love for time travel books, and Mike Chen's Here and Now and Then did not disappoint. It is so fascinating to me to think that the smallest action can set off a chain of events that could literally change history (or the future depending on when the time travel has occurred!). In this particular story, the main character Kin is a special agent responsible for going back in time and preventing corruption from other travelers in the future. Kin happens to get stuck on one of his missions and ends up in 2014, and he remains in that time period for the next 18 years. When an opportunity arises for him to go back home in 2142, will Kin stay with his wife and daughter, or go back to life he knew before? Read on to find out!

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

All the feels! I was completed engrossed in this time traveler thriller about a father trying to save a daughter he left behind in time. The world-building was solid and the plot was intricate, but best part of this novel was how it touched the heart. Highly recommend! 4.5 stars rounded to 5.

Thanks to NetGalley, Harlequin - Mira and the author Mike Chen for an advanced electronic review copy. The book comes out January 29, 2019.

A clever blend of science fiction and family drama, Here and Now and Then by Mike Chen is an entertaining read from beginning to end. Our hero Kin, short for Quinoa (don't ask! it is explained in the book) works for a Time Travel agency as a secret agent, sent back in time to track and neutralise criminals who could manipulate the timeline for personal gain. Sent from 2142 back to the 1990s on a mission, things go badly wrong and Kin is stranded with no way back to his own time. Despite trying to live off the grid for as long as he can, eventually he begins to create a life for himself, settles down and starts a family. To his shock , a rescue team comes to find him, eighteen years too late, and force him to leave behind his wife and daughter, and return to his own time. To his shock, and causing him no end of discomfort he discovers that fitting back into the life he left behind may not be as easy as he hoped. He has no memory of the wedding he was in the midst of planning with his fiance, and soon finds himself struggling to reconcile his two lives, his two families. Succumbing to temptation, he breaks all the rules to check back on the family he left behind, and when he learns that his daughter's life is in danger, he comes up with a reckless and possibly fatal plan to save her.
While I enjoyed the sci -fi aspects of the story, in fact this is what drew me to the book initially, the real heart of the book is the relationships between Kin and his families in both timelines. The author does an excellent job of portraying the internal dilemmas and struggles he faces when trying to choose between the people he loves. The science of the time travel works well, the author has clearly put a lot of thought into creating a believable scenario, and even takes the time to explain the "grandfather " problem and work around it. If I have any criticism of the book, it is that the ending seems just a little too neat and to well tied up, but this is a very minor complaint, and certainly not enough to mar my enjoyment of such a fun and fast paced book.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

Late in the wee hours of the morning, I closed the final chapter of Here and Now and Then by Mike Chen. I've been known to dip into the time travel genre in the past, but those books usually involved a heavy dose of romance, men in kilts, stone castles, and a librarian falling through a magical portal in an antique mirror.

Mike Chen did time travel differently - it was suspenseful, passionate, and evocative. It reminded me of some of the series my husband's been watching - but a million times better.

Well written, gripping prose with an underlying sense of urgency, I was hooked within the opening pages. A thread of danger, a dose of moral dilemma, a glimpse at human relationships, and a study of the incredible beauty of parental love extending beyond the expanses of time and space culminated into a fascinating work of fiction.

Overall this novel was so much more than time travel and it was a delightful debut. A beautiful blending of emotion and excitement that I could not put down. A definite must read.

I received a digital copy of this book via NetGalley courtesy of the author and/or publisher. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

This review will additionally be shared on Amazon (Canada) and Goodreads..

Here and Now and Then: A Novel is a book about family, love, time travel, fantasy all wrapped up into a read that is captivating, fresh and engaging. The characters are realistic, the world-building is creative and the story is so. worth. reading!

I laughed, cried, agonized and cheered the characters on throughout this riveting story. Here and Now and Then: A Novel is one book that is definitely one of my new favorites and one that I plan to re-visit time and again.

I received this book for free. A favorable review was not required and all views expressed are my own. Thank you to Mr. Chen, Mira Publishing and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Oh my wow! For those that enjoy futuristic/time travel/ romance/ family you will love this book! Even if this doesn’t sound like your kind of book, I’d definitely still give it a try! Yes there are various science fiction references and topics, but they definitely don’t overpower or take away from the story. Mike Chen is an amazing author with a wonderful voice and gift for writing!

Rating: 4 well-traveled stars

This is a wonderful, thought provoking foray into the world of time travel. I suppose this book would be classified as a Sci-Fi, or a Fantasy. However you classify it, it was an enjoyable, and wild ride. We meet Kin Stewart and his family; wife, Ashley and daughter, Miranda in the early 2,000’s. Kin is currently fighting excruciating headaches that he can’t explain; or at least he can’t explain them to his family. He has a suspicion as to what is causing them.

Kin is actually from the year 2142. He travelled to 1992 on a mission to stop something from happening that didn’t happen in the ‘original’ 1992. Something went terribly wrong with the mission and he got stuck in San Francisco in 1992. After 18 years, and starting a family with Ashley (which was totally against the 2142 rules of time travel), Kin is pulled back to the future by a ‘rescue’ mission sent from 2142. At that time he is forced to leave behind his wife, and 14-year old daughter.

From there we watch Kin thrash a like a moth against a porch light on the darkest night. He tries to settle into 2142. He needs to reacquaint himself with his fiancée, and her extended family, and settle into his new job. But his mind is continually pulled back to Ashley and Miranda. He wants to be a part of their lives regardless of the consequences. Who does he have the strongest bond with? If you change something in the lives of the people living in the 2000’s, how will it unexpectedly affect generations in the future? What is the ripple effect?

I’m a sucker for a good time travel story. The mechanics of the time travel jump, and the future world of 2142 seemed totally plausible to me. I was pleased with how interesting the plot was. The thread of parental love, including what measures you’ll go to for your kids, was strong throughout the book. I loved the ending. Nicely done Mr. Chen. I can’t wait until we all get our hover cars. This was Speculative Fiction that really made me stop and speculate about what the far future might actually hold for our world.

‘Thank-You’ to NetGalley; the publisher, HARLEQUIN - MIRA; and the author, Mike Chen; for providing a free e-ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
(Any quotes shown above were taken from an ARC and are subject to change upon publication.)

"People aren't supposed to have lives in two eras. You know that, right?"

Friends, this book took me completely by surprise in the best of ways! I had been in a reading slump for 20 days and nothing that I picked up could hold my attention, but when I picked up Here and Now and Then it was like I had been waiting for this book.

The story is so much more than just a science fiction story about a man stuck between two times: it's about the love our main character feels for his family and being torn between two lives. Kin is from 2142 but was stranded during a mission in 1996. Despite there being strict rules about maintaining the timeline, he goes against them when it becomes obvious that he won't be rescued. Eighteen years later he remembers nothing of his past life in 2142 but snippets he wrote down in a journal about time travel and the bureau he worked for, but nothing of the life he left behind. He has a wife and daughter and is happy. But rescue finally comes and it is time for him to leave the only life he knows - the one that should never have existed - for the one he left behind. But he will do anything to protect them, include leaving them without a word.

"The future versus the past. He couldn't choose between his new life and his old life. Not now. Not like this."

I really enjoy time travel stories and this is one of the best ones I've read so far. This is more than a time travel story, it is a tale about a man that will do anything for the people he loves. The book hooked me in from the first sentence and drew me in. I'll admit that while I loved Kin (short for Quinoa, he was born when it was a fad to name children after foods) from the start, it took me a little bit of time to warm up the other characters. But once I did I wanted to protect each of them with all of my heart.

At the heart, Here And Now And Then is a speculative look at what our world could look like in 150 years. The technologies and advancements of the future are discussed through time travel: Markus always stopping for fast food because they don't have food like that in the future, needing special technology to look into the social media of the past for research, bringing a pair of chopsticks because in the past they still use forks. Despite there being injections available to prolong life, there are still people that prefer to live without. It feels so authentic to life now that I didn't need to suspend any disbelief and it almost felt like I was reading a contemporary because the heart of this story is really the characters and their relationships.

This a definitely a character driven story, but the worldbuilding is effortless. Chen doesn't get bogged down with the details of describing the landscape but provides just enough information about the future for the reader to suspend disbelief. Without these little asides to draw out the differences, 2142 feels very similar to the present and makes the story all the more believable. Except of course the whole time travel thing, but then again he does work for a secret government agency.

"But thanks to the wisdom of a tv show, Kin realized he didn't always have to put up such a fight against circumstances. He might even come to like life in 2142 if he just gave things a chance. He felt different because he was different."

I was surprised at how philosophical the book felt to me (especially since some of the Zen quotes actually come from Doctor Who) and I was totally here for it. For some reason I began to think about Nietzsche and how we are never really the same person from moment to moment -- our memories change and our cells die and live. Honestly it got me thinking about how lucky it is that if we live multiple lives we don't remember them. I loved that this book made me think, but I do want to say it isn't overly philosophical... I just like to think about these things.

Overall, I absolutely loved this book and wholeheartedly recommend it! There is so much I can say about the story but really I think this is one where going in as blind as possible is best. If you like character driven stories and science fiction that feels effortless, you need to read this book!

REPRESENTATION: racially diverse world, gay side character (m/m), PTSD
CONTENT/TRIGGER WARNINGS: loss of a loved one, death, grief

Many thanks to the publisher for sending me an eARC via NetGalley for review. Quotations are taken from an uncorrected proof and may change upon publication.

Here and Now and Then is a time travel story about a father willing to do anything for his daughter.

I’m usually not a fan of time travel stories since the rules usually get muddied to make the plot work. Here and Now and Then is a great use of time travel with clear and precise rules that are easy to follow and are restrictive enough to not hinder the plot. Chen’s explanation of the science behind time travel and its creation is clever and believable.

Unfortunately, the pacing is slow and inconsistent making Here and Now and Then boring to read for most of the novel. About half way through the novel, the wind leaves the sails of the plot as Chen builds his world at the expense of the pace. Through a lot of the chapters, I found myself skimming through the dialogue to understand the gist of what was happening in hopes of getting to a more exciting moment.

The best aspect of this novel is the father-daughter relationship. Chen takes his time fleshing out their connection as father and daughter through unconventional means that may not have had the desired effect in another novel. Sadly, this connection isn’t fleshed out until later in the novel so when the main character is forced to return to the future and abandon his family the emotional impact carries little weight.

Overall, Here and Then and Now is an interesting concept that isn’t executed to its fullest potential since the story is bogged down by inconsistent pacing making it a chore to read most of the time.

Miscellaneous thoughts:

I could definitely tell that this is a debut novel. The dialogue felt a bit off to me.

I didn't think the characters' reactions to the crazy situation they were in were realistic in many cases. For instance, when Kin is pulled back to the future, he is a bummed but isn't freaking out nearly as much as you'd think someone would be if he had suddenly been separated from his wife and daughter forever. And when Penny, his fiancee, discovers that time travel is real and that Kin was stranded in the previous century with another wife and daughter for 18 years, all in what felt like a week or so to her, she just sort of accepts it, again with minimal freaking out. It's didn't ring true to me.

I tend to dislike time travel stories because there are always plot holes and things that can't be explained (i.e. the grandfather paradox: If you went back in time and killed your grandfather before he had children, would you blink out of existence? But then you wouldn't be there to kill him...). I think this book handles it better than many. It offers enough explanation to lend credibility but doesn't get too crazy.

There were enough twists in the story to keep me interested. I think the ending wrapped up much too neatly.

★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2 (rounded up)
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
---
When I really love a book and don't know how to express it, I tend to ramble. Case in point:

You can have fun with a son
But you gotta be a father to a girl


That's Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, not Mike Chen -- but the spirit of the book is in that second line, so I'm going to use it. I found myself singing those lines a lot while thinking about the book. If you're a father to a daughter, you will love this book. I don't think it's necessary to appreciate the book -- non-parents, mothers, people with sons should still be able to see how good it is and to empathize with the characters. But I can't imagine any Father of a Daughter won't see themselves (and Daddy's Little Princess) in these pages.

In the past, I've said something about not really liking non-Doctor Who Time Travel stories. I'm starting to think it's because I haven't been reading the right kind of Time Travel stories. In the last year (give or take), I've read and loved four Time Travel novels -- All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai, Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor, Paradox Bound by Peter Clines, and now Here and Now and Then by Mike Chen. In all of them, the tropes of Time Travel are honored -- while played with a little bit -- but are really just excuses to tell very real emotional stories about some pretty great characters. Which is what Who does best, too, now that I think about it. So maybe for me, Time Travel has to be a means to an end, not the end itself.

Maybe I should leave the introspection for another time, and just get on with talking about the book, eh? My point was supposed to be that, like Matsai, Taylor and Clines, Mike Chen has surprised and excited me beyond expectations and hopes.

The day I started (and fell in love with) this book, I tried to explain it briefly to someone. I did so in a way that was clearly reductionistic (because, that's what you do in a couple of sentences), spot on, and yet horribly inaccurate -- all at the same time. Here's what I said: It's a gender-flipped Outlander, except the protagonist goes to the future instead of the past, and they use science-y stuff to the Time Travel instead of magic-y stuff.

Kin (pronounced /ˈkēn/) is, or was -- or will be -- a Secret Agent for the Temporal Corruption Bureau in 2142. He came back to 1996 to prevent a Twenty-Second Century criminal from altering the timeline for their own profit -- and did so. But things went wrong in carrying out the mission and he was unable to be returned to his time. So he got stuck in 1996 for a bit. For him, it was 18 years. For the TCB it was a couple of weeks. For Kin, he had to give up hope of rescue, get a job -- and then he fell in love, got married and had a kid. He has a nice life -- he's a success in IT for a video game company, he's a pretty decent amateur chef and is working on trying out for a reality show for home chefs, his wife is great, and his daughter is, too. Miranda's fourteen, a soccer star, wicked smart, a SF nerd and loves her parents.

Then his partner Markus shows up to bring him back to their time -- Kin's largely forgotten his former, er, past, er...other life and has really become a resident of 2014 (this is explained in science-y wibbly wobbly, timey wimey terms that actually make sense in context), so Markus has to take him by force. Once he's back to his future, Kin starts remembering his life -- his job, his hobbies, his utter ineptitude in the kitchen -- and his fiancé (Markus' sister). But it doesn't come back to him immediately, and he has to work at it.

One thing he can't do, is let go of his Twenty-First Century life, and he schemes for ways to remain a part of Miranda's life. For awhile, this works -- but only for a while. The instant it starts, every reader knows that Kin won't be able to fly under the radar forever and he gets found out. It turns out that what he's doing risks the future -- but the only fix the TCB has in mind will mean Miranda's death. While Kin can understand their decision, there's no way he can let that happen to his daughter.

I don't think I've said (much) more than the publisher's blurb -- but I can't say much more without spoiling. And trust me, Chen's version is much better than mine would be.

Kin is a great character -- he's thoughtful, skilled, smart -- and human. He makes a lot of mistakes, his judgement is shaky (not just when it comes to Miranda, either) -- but he tries to do the right thing. His loved ones -- in all eras -- are people you can believe are in his life and you can see why he cares for them, and you do too -- because of Kin. That's all I'm going to say about the other characters because I can't talk about any of them without ruining something.

The world of 2142 is just about perfect -- it's different than 2014, but there are straight lines connecting it all. It's the little changes that make it right -- often Kin's perspective allows us to see it. Like the offhand way he mentions to someone that temperatures are 5 degrees lower in 2014. Or the way he reacts to a recreation of 21st Century fast food. There are things about Mars that are just tossed off in conversation without explanation that clearly mean humans are doing something on the surface of the planet. Don't ask me what -- Chen doesn't say. It even took me seeing him use the phrase a couple of times before I realized what it meant. But once I did, I got very excited about how he pulled it off. There are many subtle details like these that really make this a believable read.

The story and the writing are imaginative and playful -- you will smile a lot while reading this. But the instant that Markus shows up and says it's time to go, you just know that your heart is going to get broken in these pages. And you will be right. Thankfully, Chen will give you almost as many reasons to be happy -- some small, some big. It'd have been very easy to make this maudlin or depressing. He could've also make this a playful romp. Chen instead walks the tightrope between the extremes in a performance worthy of Philippe Petit. The pages fly by, I really couldn't believe how quickly I read this -- part of it was because I just had to find out what happened to Kin, Miranda and the rest -- but part of it was Chen's writing. Despite hitting you with all that he hits you with, it's very (and at times, deceptively) easy to read.

(this next paragraph could get a bit spoiler-y. But not really, just in vague sentiments, no particulars...Still, skip if you want)
This worked for me on just about every level and on just about every front -- it checked all of my boxes and did just about every superlative thing I can think of. But the ending -- I loved the ending, don't get me wrong -- just felt a little too easy. Things worked a little too well. Which the fanboy in me loves, but . . . I dunno, the book was filled with twists and struggles and challenges and the in the last three or four chapters everything was a little too easily overcome -- and even the challenges melted away. And yes, I cheered, but I wanted Kin and everyone to have to work a little harder for my cheers. So, I'm docking this 1/2 star. (which is easy to do because on Goodreads/Amazon/NetGalley I have to round up, because they won't accept half-stars, so the ratings average still gets to stay high).

Heart, soul, laughs, and heartbreak -- I don't know what else you want out of a time travel story. Or any story, really. Characters you can like (even when they do things you don't like), characters you want to know better, characters you want to hang out with after the story (or during it, just not during the major plot point times), and a great plotline. This book is about as good as it gets. Grab your copy now while I start eagerly anticipating Chen's next book.


Disclaimer: I received this eARC from HARLEQUIN - MIRA via NetGalley in exchange for this post -- thanks to both for this. These are my own honest -- and hopefully not convoluted -- thoughts and opinions.

I’m a sucker for a good time travel story so the synopsis I read for Mike Chen’s upcoming Here and Now and Then immediately caught my attention. Add a dash of family drama and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. While it wasn’t entirely what I was expecting, that wasn’t a bad thing at all. There was far more attention to the emotional ramifications of everything and less emphasis on the high-stakes thriller side of the story, and for me it worked out better than I initially would have thought.

Kin Stewart works for a secret organization that protects the timelines of history from interference, usually in the form of people hiring mercenaries to rig financial systems in their favor but occasionally from those who would alter history more drastically with assassinations. On one such mission to the mid 1990s, Kin’s retrieval equipment is damaged and he finds himself stranded. With no choice but to wait for his team from 2142 to find him, he clings to what hope he can find. But it’s eighteen years before that retrieval team finally locates him to bring him back and in those intervening years, Kin didn’t hunker down enough. He married and had a daughter whom his bosses now consider timeline corruptions. He has no choice but to go back to his original time and leave the clean-up team to explain his disappearance. Once he’s ‘home’ however, the need to check in on the family he left behind is irresistible and what Kin finds leads to ripples that will put his daughter in danger.

The synopsis had prepared me for Kin’s struggle regarding the family he left behind when he returned to the future, but what it didn’t allude to at all was the life he’d left behind when he left on that ill-fated mission (or any of the world building for that distant future of 2142). The impact of the time traveling on Kin’s memory and how that impacted his ability to remember (or forget) the people he cared about in the future were complications I hadn’t seen coming but the emotional struggle of being torn and trying to reconcile the two were a welcome surprise. It slowed the pacing of the novel unexpectedly but gave the characters space to breathe and develop nicely—and left me just as torn over what I wanted to have happen for Kin as far as where he would ultimately end up and who it would be with.

Though the novel centers around Kin, the women in his life are incredibly well-rounded and emotionally developed. At first, it feels like the fiancée might be just a flat filler character who’s only there to drive Kin’s sense of guilt as he struggles to readjust and his daughter, Miranda’s fate is the key driver of plot in the novel. But while both inspired a bit of initial fear that they were plot devices rather than realized characters, the further the novel progressed, the clearer it became just how important questions of agency and honesty were going to be throughout the story. It’s Kin’s actions that create the timeline corruptions but when it comes to cleaning up his messes, Kin’s biggest lesson isn’t that he should have followed the rules or that the system is corrupt (which is the main direction most time traveling novels that started the way this one did would have followed), but rather that he can’t “fix” his mistakes without taking into account the wishes of those whose lives he affected, that keeping secrets and lying aren’t fair to anyone involved.

Here and Now and Then will be available January 29, 2019.

I would say this is the best time travel story since Dark Matter. Fast paced and enjoyable. I was drawn in through the description and happy to have received an early copy. I can see this getting super popular through the "nerd club" like Ready Player One did. All Star Trek and Doctor Who fans are going to spread this around like wild fire.

I have read more time travel related books in the past year than I have in all the previous years combined. Since my reading numbers have increased, I should probably not be too surprised about this situation. I state this at the beginning, in order to show how I would know by now what works for me in this scenario and how much of it has to make an appropriate amount of sense. This book fit all those criteria and hits all the right notes for me. The time travel and the consequences and the paradoxes seem pretty probable and this makes it a more thrilling read.

We meet time travel agent Kin when he has been hurt by his target, and is too wounded and something has gone wrong. He makes the best of a bad situation which is not that great in retrospect when the 'time' comes. Kin is a family man, with a lot of emotional investment in his life in the 90s. When his real life beckons, he may have to make changes. There is a lot of mental arguments that he has with himself on all his decisions and although set in a whole different futuristic world, it is very relatable. The writing is simple and gets the point across while at the same time tugging at the heart-strings. Each person introduced to us is fleshed out enough for us to have our own opinion on their role in the tale. Kin is also the sort of protagonist that most people would love to encourage and hope the best possible outcomes for.

I really enjoyed the beginning and the ending, the middle felt a little slower than the rest of the pace but it was an enjoyable read that I would actually recommend to others!

Here and Now and Then begins with Kin Crenshaw moments after being shot by a time-traveling criminal whose attempt to alter the future he had traveled back in time to prevent. Unfortunately, he was shot so that his transmitter and connection to the future was irreparably damaged.

Next thing we know, Kin has adapted to 21st-century life, married, and has a fourteen-year-old daughter, but the future has come calling and wants him back in 2142. He may have been here eighteen years, but he’s only been gone for two weeks. Trying to fit back into the future, to rediscover his love for his fiancee while mourning his wife and daughter is a challenge, but the real challenge comes when he finds out his time-traveling ways may have put his daughter in danger.


Here and Now and Then was a heart-wrenching book that I read in one bite. Kin was such a realistic character, a parent who would turn back time if he could to save his daughter, a man who bent the rules, who made mistakes, who sometimes was slow to talk and often avoided the issues that mattered. I cared about him. I cared about his daughter Melinda. I wanted them to find happiness and safety, but perhaps only one is possible.

I am not ashamed to admit I became quite weepy over this story. I cared so much and thought the choices and challenges Kin and those he loved faced were harrowing. Chen explores the old ethics question called the Trolley Dilemma. If you’re a rail switchman and you see a runaway trolley, do you do nothing and let it kill five people or flip the switch so it goes on another track and kills one. Do you sacrifice the few for the many? An early version of the dilemma asks what if the one is the switchman’s daughter. Does that change the calculus? Ethicists and philosophers have been arguing over this for over a hundred years in one form or another. Is it better than 99 guilty men go free than one innocent be imprisoned? How utilitarian are we?

I cannot wait to see what Mike Chen has in store for us in his future. Thankfully we won’t need to wait until 2142.

Here and Now and Then will be released January 29th. I received an e-galley from the publisher through NetGalley.

Here and Now and Then at Mira | Harlequin Books
Mike Chen author site


★★★★