3.5 stars. This can be described as a sci-fi/time travel book, but it is really more of an emotional, heart-felt journey of a father trying to do his best for his lost daughter. Lost in time, that is. Wonderful character development and an intriguing premise. The father, Kin, is a secret time traveling agent from the future who gets stranded in the past and develops a new, full life with wife and family. He is then suddenly “found” and brought home to his actual life in the future, having to leave behind those he loved in the past with no explanation. The main gist of the story then follows with how Kin tries to make sense of his two separate lives and, in forced secrecy, help the daughter left behind. Good story with a good ending.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. First off, let me just say that I'm a sucker for a good time travel story. This one has a great premise. Kin time travels from 2142 to 1996 to prevent a "merc" time traveller from creating a bad paradox...and then he gets stuck in the past for 18 years before being rescued and brought back to his proper time. He even commits a major no no by marrying and having a child. So far, so good. The problem? Practically nonexistent character development and so so storytelling. This book could have been so much more. I was disappointed but I'll give three stars for the premise and writing.

I got the digital ARC from Netgally, and this one is a gem.

On his website, Mike Chen, an engineer by education, writes, “…my head was constantly filled with stories. Today, I’ve found my niche, blending science fiction elements and themes with a more grounded and intimate story. In my stories, there are no epic wars or fate-of-the-universe events; instead, they’re tales of family and friendship and humor that just happen to have some time travel or an apocalypse.”

This exactly describes his book, “Here and Now and Then.”

More at https://indiapoint.net/2018/12/31/book-review-here-and-now-and-then-by-mike-chen/

I’m not usually a science fiction fan, but this was amazing, absorbing, and a really quick read. I cannot wait to pass it on to my high school students and my adult friends- it really bridges the gap both genre-wise and interest-wise!

Thank You so much to NetGalley for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.

To be honest it took me awhile to read this book. But in retrospect I will never be sure if it was because I didn’t want it to end or I was afraid the ending wouldn’t be good enough for the great premise it presented in the early pages. Science fiction, especially time travel is my favorite genre. With that said I have read a lot in my years of reading. This book, and its story and most particularly its ending has become a new favorite. Mike Chen has done what few authors of this type of story are able to do, he has given a great most believable ending to a story that is made even better by how it comes together. That was a big part of why it was five star for me.
The story follows Kin –a time traveling secret agent who makes time jumps as directed, though we learn little of his organizations structure or actual assignments. In one of these jumps his equipment is damaged and he becomes stuck or misplaced in a prior century (early 1990) and learns over 16 years to make the best of it—falling in love, marrying and creating a daughter. All this starts to fall apart when he is finally located and rescued by time travel agents from the future and whisked back to his former life, leaving his wife and daughter without a clue as to what has happened. It can be taken for granted that he has problems fitting into his former life and desperate to set things right in the past he begins to look for and follow his daughter’s life in time archives and begins to try to change the course of her life with clandestine correspondence. This ultimately presents big problems for both of them. I won’t give anymore of the plot away, but will say it was very well constructed, without gapping loopholes or quantum leaps of imagination that are often found in this type of story.

I will give a short list of the things that made this a very well written time travel book for me.
1. it was told in a linear fashion. Straight lines, easy to follow, It did not alternate chapters with one in past, one in future.
2. The story was simple but heartfelt and had some actually teary moments. I became invested in these characters and loved seeing them become more rounded as the story proceeded.
3. No fantasy world building or magic, this isn’t a fantasy book but closer to straight science fiction without space ships or travel to other planets.
4. People were still people with concerns for love and family in the future even if all around them was slightly different.

So it was great fun. A little slow at first and not much science in the mix. The author might have added more information about Kin’s work and world in the future but I only wished for that as background to help the story structure. The actual writing was very good, and the story one I will definitely remember.
Not a lot of hard science writing to be found here but if you want a good heartwarming, credible tale with a time travel foundation I highly recommend it.

I loved this story! Here and Now and Then was so much more than I expected. Like The Time Traveler's Wife and Outlander the human story was engrossing and evoked a depth of emotion few novels have managed to stir in this jaded reader. At the same time, the tightly wound plot kept me on the edge of my seat. This one is a classic, destined for "must read" lists for generations to come. No spoilers from me. I'll just say it's about fathers and daughters, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, jobs and careers, soccer and cooking, love and impossible choices. As a librarian I will recommend it for everyone from teens to grandparents. No sex scenes or foul language.

Kin Stewart is a time travelling secret agent from 2142.  When a mission goes wrong. He gets stranded in 1992, and begins a new life.  Everything is going well until hr starts experiencing memory loss and blackouts, and then a rescue team arrive to take him home, 18 years late.  He returns to 2142 and his old life, but is unable to forget his family from 1992.  Torn between the two lives Kin desperately tries to find a way to stay connected to both of them, even if that means breaking all of the rules of time travel.


I really like the idea of this book, I'm a big fan of time travel books so I was looking forward to getting started on this one.  Unfortunately it didn't quite grip me as I was hoping.

The plot and storyline works well, I liked reading about Chen's vision for the future and how he thought things might have changed.  The idea of a time traveller being torn between lives caught my interest.  I think for me the execution just didn't quite work.  Don't get me wrong, the book isn't horrible and it doesn't have any major flaws that make it fail, I just found it didn't capture my interest.
I didn't feel like I made a connection with any of the characters, and that meant I wasn't invested in the story.  I didn't feel the depth of emotions that the author was trying to evoke.  Perhaps if we had a few extra chapters at the start of the book giving us more of an insight to Kin's life with his family it would help to get to know those characters and be more attached to them.

Im going with 3* for this one.  As I said there wasn't anything particularly bad about the book, I just didn't connect with the story as deeply as I normally like to, so I was ambivalent towards it.

Thanks to NetGalley and Harlequin - Mira for an arc in exchange for an honest review

Thank you to Harlequin and Mira Books for sending me a copy in exchange for my honest review.

Kin works for a secret agency from the year 2142 where he is assigned missions to get rid of criminals who would alter the course of history. His latest mission lands him in the year 1996 where things start to go wrong. His method of being able to travel back to 2142 is shot and now he’s stuck, waiting for someone from his present time to come rescue him. 18 years later, that help comes. Although, it’s a little too late. He’s married, has a kid, and a new IT job. He’s completely forgotten what his past life was like. But now, he and his family is in trouble. He has to go back to 2142 and his family is in danger because they were never supposed to be married, and his daughter should have never existed. Will he be able to save his family from the year 2142? Will he be able to travel back to his family?

THIS BOOK! I LOVED IT! As soon as I saw the Star Trek references in the beginning, I knew I was in for a grand time. This is the perfect blend of a science fiction and contemporary fiction novel. I read this book in one night! The author did a wonderful job expressing the appropriate emotions between his family from 2142 and his family from 2014. There were a few events that happened that were sad and left me wanting to throw the book, but it was the best way the story could have gone. The ending was just perfect. It wrapped every cliff hanger up. This would be a wonderful movie, by the way!

4.5/5 Stars

Writing a time travel novel is kind of like writing a vampire novel - there are certains rules that must be followed, but other than that, the only thing an author must do is create a world with internal cohesion. Mike Chen has definitely created a world that holds together. His time travel agents have strict rules they must follow in order to prevent the timeline from corruption, and even the more technical explanations (of things like the "grandfather paradox") are eminently understandable.

Unfortunately, his characters and their relationships don't get the same attention. At first, I thought the lack of depth in the future was deliberate, to reflect Kin's initial feelings of disconnect when he returns to his own time, but I didn't begin to feel more connected to those characters as he apparently did. We're told that his feelings return for his fiancee return, but never really shown it. On the other hand, the present-day characters felt much more fleshed out, but we don't actually have much interaction with them once Kin returns to the future.

So, it's a plus for world-building, a negative for characters, and there's another plus for the actual action of the story. Kin's various attempts to reconnect with and then save his daughter shine through with his intensity, and Chen's determination to stay within the rules that he's created add a sense of urgency and truth to his actions. If you do the math, world-building + action - character development = an eminently readable book, if not one of the best time travel books I've ever read.

Kin Stewart is a time traveling secret agent from 2142, except he becomes severely injured during a mission and gets stuck in the 1990s. Without proper medical intervention and no sign of help coming from the future, Kin slowly begins to forget his life in 2142 and starts a family. Eighteen years later, where only two weeks have passed in the future, Kin's retriever agent comes for him, forcing him to return home and inevitably tearing him between his two families. When his attempts to keep both families are discovered, and his daughter from the past inadvertently threatens the future, he'll risk anything and everything to save her and fix the future.

An intriguing light sci-fi with elements of romance, it was complex and sweet all at the same time. Honestly, though, the details of time travel and the inevitable paradoxes were a little over my head. I didn't always understand how time functioned with years in the past passing by whereas only a few hours would go by in the future. The time travel element was confusing, but I don't feel I needed to understand every detail of how it worked to enjoy the story. But the future didn't feel too jarringly different and I could see it as a definite possible future. Overall, it was just a really sweet story about a family man who wants to do right by the people he loves and to make amends for mistakes he hadn't even realized he had made.

The first half seemed to move at breakneck speed. Multiple events occurred where any number of them could have been a mid point or turning point, but only served to lead up to the mid point. There was so much happening, it kind of felt like the story was moving along a little too quickly, especially since it occurred over a relatively short amount of time. At the same time, Kin seemed a little frozen. His character felt static as he tried to keep his two lives separate. In the second half, the story seemed to slow down quite a bit as it was all downhill and involved a single overarching event. But this is also where we see Kin prove what he's made of. While he spent the first half of the book projecting a certain air to everyone around him, he let all that down in the second half to prove he's a loving man who will do anything to make things right.

I wouldn't call this a romance, but there is a very strong romance element. Here we have a man who has a wife and daughter in the past and a fiancee in the future and we see him have relationships with both romantic partners. The one thing I found annoying was how opposite the two women are, almost as though Kin sought the exact opposite of what he had in the future when he was stuck in the past. It makes me question him and I wish the women had been a little more alike, but it was interesting to see how he interacted with such different women. In the end, it was a really sweet romance without any real drama.

Despite how quickly half of this book moved, it did feel like it dragged a bit. Either too much was going on or too little. There were times when I wanted to stop or just take a long break from it, but I was also reading it aloud to my kids at naptime and bedtime and didn't have anything better to read, so I kept going. And I'm glad I did. The ending was totally worth it. The whole story came together beautifully and I have zero complaints.

Overall, I wouldn't really call this sci-fi or romance though there are strong elements of both. Instead, I like to think of this as a nice story of a man struggling with mistakes he made and trying to atone for them. This is his story and he really is one of the good guys.


Thank you so much to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. It is set to be published January 29, 2019.

Post date: 1/25/19
Blog: thelilycafe.wordpress.com

While I am not a fan of science fiction, I am drawn to books about time travelers. How can one little change mess with the past and the future by disrupting the continuum? Throw that in with a good story, and I am hooked.

In the late 1990's, Kin Stewart lives in the Silicon Valley with his wife and daughter, deciding what to make for dinner and what show will they watch on tv afterward. Then, someone appears to take Kin back to 2142, the year he came from, where he works with a government agency and in the thick of wedding planning to his longtime girlfriend. But wait, Kin misses his other family and is torn between his two lives.

I absolutely loved this story and there was just enough scientific explanation to help understand the whole time travel theory, but not too much to take away from the story of Kin and his family.

If you enjoyed The Time Traveler's Wife and The Jane Austen Project, like I did, then you'll probably enjoy this book as well.

I really enjoyed this book, I love time travel books when they are original and well written and this one was.I liked the main characters, and thought the story was very original, and the pace was good.Very entertaining and with a few surprises thrown in.looking forward to reading more by this author.This book kept me entertained and happily page turning .Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for an ARC.

This time travel book starts really strongly. Kit was in pain and forgetting himself. When he is "found" he faces an unbelievably difficult choice of what to do about his family in the past. Then he comes back to his real time and is faced with more difficult choices. At this point in the story, it started to seem a little predictable. Then Penny gets involved (she had seemed a minor character for the first part of the book) and the book picked up. The ending is great and really appropriate. I'm still not sure who I would recommend this book to. But I will purchase it for the library. It is science fiction without a lot of science, but a lot of the moral dilemmas of time travel ala Connie Willis.

Here and Now and Then is one of those books that is instantly endearing. It has themes of family, agency, and love all wrapped in a science fiction story that will have your heart throbbing. There's drama, love lost, and forgiveness all in one. It's one of those books where all these elements come together in perfect harmony to make a book that just clicks with you without effort. If you love Doctor Who this book is a must read for you.

Reading it felt like being drawn into Doctor Who for the first time. I first saw the episode with Vincent Van Gogh. And just like Here and Now and Then there's this tenderness, this wonder, and utter emotion that spills forth. And I fell in love with this book only more and more until the end left me ugly crying on my couch.

This was a different book and very enjoyable especially as it was a time travel novel with a difference and also plenty of humour. It was also an emotional read that really makes you think, the characters were all extremely well written as was the book and it made for a read that was full of heart.
My thanks to NetGalley and Mira for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

"Kin Stewart used to be a time-traveling secret agent."

I love time-travel as a theme in media, because it gives you so many ways to play with the trope and make up your own rules about it. And hasn't everybody wished to have their own time-machine at hand at least once? I certainly have.

The cover is truly perfect. It's intriguing and it fits the them of the book very well, just as the title does.. There are 35 chapters, all rather short, which makes for a fast and entertaining read. We're following Kin Stewart's life after he gets stranded in the past on a mission. The first sentence captured my interest, because it definitely hits the nail on the head.

As the plot moves along we learn a lot about the world he comes from. I enjoyed all the small and big details very much and how the time-travel worked in this universe. I don't want to say too much in fear of spoiling anything, it's something to experience first hand. (Including Kin's full name, because I honestly laughed out loud when I read it.)

There was a lot of conflict between the rules of the time-travel bureau Kin works for versus the life he built in the past after he got left there, and it was was fascinating to read. Because of course he knew what he signed up for, but on the other hand it was all theoretical until it suddenly wasn't.

You just root for Kin as he tries to save his daughter in any way he can, because all he wants for her is to be safe and happy, just like any other father.

My only complaint would be that I felt it wrapped up just a little too quickly and I'm still left with a few questions that I feel deserve an answer. But that doesn't lessen my great enjoyment of the book at all. I can totally see this being made into a movie, because I think the story would work really well.

It's a fresh take on the genre and I'd recommend this book to everyone who enjoys a good sci-fi story with the main focus on the effects it has on the characters, their relationships, and the dilemmas they are facing.

Thank you to HARLEQUIN - MIRA (U.S. and Canada) and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book in exchange for an honest review.

*Please note there are some slightly spoilerish thoughts below.*

Kin Stewart is a secret agent from the year 2142 who time travels to catch criminals and due to a mishap - ends up stuck in the 1990s for 18 years. Despite his training where he is supposed to lead a solitary life, discard of any technology or trace that he is from the future and refrain from creating any event that could interfere with the future - he doesn't listen. He gets married, has a child and lives a pretty normal, everyday existence. Until the future comes to rescue him and he has to renounce everything he has built over the past 18 years and go back.

I gave this 3 stars, but to be honest I probably wouldn't have finished this if it wasn't an ARC. While I was extremely interested in the description (hence why I requested this), I unfortunately started to struggle around the 50-75 page mark because there just wasn't enough action to keep me engaged. There were some early signs that had me on the edge of my seat and then the opportunity fizzled and so did my interest. You can't always have action - you need dialogue and character development. However, there wasn't an equal amount to keep it as interesting as it could be. I also don't think the author spent enough time in the 1990s for me to feel the emotional bond about those characters the way that Kin did. So when he was forced to go back into the future (or where he originally came from) I wasn't nearly as gutted as I think the author intended me to be.

The other thing I struggled with early on was how it was a little too technical. While I completely appreciate the thought process from the author in explaining everything - I didn't always grasp the science. Some other books that I thought were very "sciencey" (Dark Matter by Blake Crouch and The Martian by Andy Weir) did a better job of explaining the science in more layman's terms. Maybe it didn't help that the time I was able to devote to reading this was later at night when my mom-brain is already tired, but I have read a few other reviews that mentioned the same thing.

Back to the action comment - please don't misunderstand me and think I'm one of those people that needs constant action - but I think there needs to be more of a give and take when you're asking the reader to invest their emotions with a character going through a journey like this. My concern with Kin's life in the future ringing hallow - I think the author intended on us living through what the main character did when he returned to the future. Kin struggled with connecting emotionally with his fiance and best friend, even though the memories were there and his brain told him he loved these people, he just didn't feel it. His heart remained back in the 1990's. I was experiencing the same problem, however with both time periods. I didn't get enough of the bond with either time period so the emotion just fell flat with me. It seems that many other readers did find it easy to connect so maybe I am the outlier.

I feel bad being so tough on this book because I think it had a lot of potential. I give so much credit to anyone who could write a book and this effort was good. It just wasn't what I was hoping for. Best of luck to the author and I hope he finds success with this venture and continues to write!

I am a huge time-travel fan, so I was really excited to read this, and suffice it to say that Mike Chen's novel met my expectations and then exceeded them by a thousand!!!! It's like TNG's The Inner Light and The Yesterday's Enterprise combined, which is just about the highest compliment I can pay. (And if you don't know what that means, I don't even know what to say to you, except that I feel really really sad for you and you should go watch TNG. Right. Now.). It's time travel and all the logic twists that entails, plus a great hero's journey arc, plus some extremely likable (albeit impulsive and not always reasonable) characters, plus an emotionally satisfying ending. SO clever in all its plot twists.

Just thinking about the ending gives me the chills. I've always loved the Time Traveler's Wife, mostly because of that last scene. The ending of this novel has that same resonance, the same poignancy. It's SOOOOO good. I loved it so much. Just thinking about it brings a smile to my face.

I suspect Dr. Who fans will enjoy Here and Now and Then more than I did. Kin Stewart is a secret agent who time travels on unspecified crime fighting missions. A glitch results in him being stranded for 18 years in the early 2000s, where against protocol he gets married and has a daughter. He has no memories of his old life until a Retriever shows up to bring him back. Suddenly he’s grappling with two lives, two identities. He’s torn over abandoning his daughter and readjusting to his girlfriend. That’s pretty much it. Kin goes back and forth trying to reconcile the two situations, wanting to do right for both. When he finally hits on the plan, I just didn’t care that much.

I really enjoyed reading this one and the ending is so satisfying. Some might say things wrapped up too neatly, but I love a happy ending. This book did not disappoint!