I finished this book in a day - its that compelling.

Kate Mascarenhas is not only adept at writing about time travel, but keeps the reader enraptured the entire time. The genre combination of sci-fi and mystery kept me even more glued to the page.

I'll give a more detailed review as it gets closer to the publication date.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

A beautiful novel about women, technology, death, morality and psychology. It begins with a locked-room mystery and spirals backwards and forwards through time. I love the complexities of the relationships between the women and the relationships of the time travellers to themselves. I highly recommend this book.

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I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. I was not paid for this review.

interesting read with unique and interesting writing. this book really made me think and question things but kept me into the story.

I have heard lots of great things about The Psychology Of Time Travel in the last couple of months, so I was excited to be finally reading it myself. The first thing that stood out for me was the fact that the most important characters are all female. This doesn't happen too often in the sci-fi genre (that I'm aware of) and it's good to see female scientifics in the spotlight. This story present time travel in a very interesting way. It was fascinating to see how they first developed the machine and how the company has grown over time, making time travelers into an elite group with their own slang and views on life. The psychological aspect behind time travel is intriguing and The Psychology Of Time Travel will definitely leave its mark and make you wonder how you would react to the effects of time travel. It's interesting that they cannot go to the distant past; only to when machine was invented onwards. The whole seeing past and future selves does sound a little disturbing though... I think I would go mad myself even though I would probably be aware time travel exists in that situation. This is partly where I had some doubts: the way that so-called 'one-way travelers' accept the sudden appearance of time travelers that easily without going crazy. The plot is intricate and constructed in quite a complex way, making sure you will have to pay attention to the different characters and timelines to be able to put together the full puzzle. The mystery around the death in the toy museum and the different characters and their futures are intertwined, and you will slowly learn how everything fits together. The Psychology Of Time Travel is a fascinating debut that left me wondering about how I would react to such situations. Surprisingly low on the sci-fi and high on the psychology, this story is perfect even for those who are not really into the sci-fi genre.

This story is part sci-fi, part psychology, part murder mystery, part family drama and part romantic fiction. There are a lot of different elements involved in The Psychology Of Time Travel, and somehow they all manage to work together and create a very fascinating debut. The complex plot will have you on your toes as you try to fit everything together, but only in the most positive way. It was interesting to see the different characters evolve over time and the psychology behind time travel is simply intriguing. I loved the details of the time traveler's slang as well! This book definitely left a mark and will stay with me for quite some time.

In 1967, four women built the very first time machine. During its unveiling to the world, Barbara suffers a bit of a break and is diagnosed with what is now bipolar disorder. Fifty-years later, the body of a woman is found in the basement of a toy museum. Who is she? Who killed her? Through time travel, can her death be prevented?Barbara’s granddaughter, Ruby Rebello is among those desperate to solve the murder.

Before we go any further, can I just say how much I loved this book? I wasn’t expecting too much when I picked it up. I just knew I love time travel and female-driven stories. This had both, so why not?

There is so much to love about this book. As soon as I got the characters straight (there are a lot), I was fully engrossed. The book is told in 3rd person but from alternating perspectives and timelines. There are the four lady time travelers, members of their families, and those with whom they become entangled across time. The author does a great job with acquainting the audience with them pretty quickly, so it becomes easy to get lost in the story and not be bogged down in too many details. The chapters are super short, but I never seemed to find a solid stopping point, because I just wanted to keep going.

Aside from some minor exposition and narration issues, this book was gold. I did feel occasionally that I was being told things rather than shown them, but I completely get it. When you try to get into complex physics across space and time, it’s probably not the best idea to spend too much time and energy getting the reader bogged down in the details, particularly when the story needs to keep moving.

Also. Also. ALSO. I was not expecting queer representation in this book, so that was a nice surprise. There is a lesbian character (or two), at least one bi character as well, and as I always appreciate, their sexuality isn’t the most interesting thing about them. It’s part of the romance plot line, but these characters’ involvements in the murder investigation are far more compelling than who they are sleeping with, and I appreciated that wholeheartedly.

If you’re into sci-fi, definitely check this one out. I’m hardly ever a mystery person, but it’s weaved so expertly through this story, I was desperate to solve it, too.

That cover, the title, the publisher’s description, all drew me completely in. And the book did, somewhat, live up to what was triply promised. The time travel elements were interesting, with the lack of a butterfly effect but imposition of other constraints and the potential of important personal occasions being attended by multiple “green-self” and “silver-self” versions of a time traveler. Also of great interest was the Conclave, the agency of sorts that grew up around the discovery of time travel by the pioneering team of four women. Controlled by the richest of them, and excluding Barbara, the one who had a mental health episode on camera and shamed the rest of the team.

Beyond the mystery of who a dead woman was and how she came to be discovered in the locked back room of a toy factory having died in a brutal way, the really interesting part of the story was that of the aged group of time travel pioneers and 82 year old Barbara’s attempt to be accepted back into their ranks. But instead of focusing on this, much of the story revolved around two younger women affected by members of the Conclave in different ways and their romances with various other women.

This story had potential, and it does have many interesting elements. The author did a great job with the occasional interweaving of characters and generations but where it falls a bit flat is in characterization, and in not leaving a lasting impression on the reader. Decently plotted, a satisfying resolution of the mystery aspect, but overall just a bit forgettable.

This review refers to an advanced digital copy read through NetGalley, courtesy of the publisher. All opinions expressed are my own.

I'm always looking forward to reading a good story about time travel. This book is an homage to all women. All important characters are women, and they are the ones who make the time machine in 1967. This book is also a story of how human psyche could be affected by all the information gathered from the future. The date of death or who you marry etc. Not everyone can handle that. And then, why would you even want to. Isn't life supposed to be an adventure to the unknown future?
There is a murder mystery to solve. Who was murdered and who did it? The story moves between several time levels and is told by multiple POV's. At first I did not know what was what, but gradually you get to know the characters and their motivations. Writing style was a little flat, but the story itself was good.
Thank you NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for a copy of this book.

This was a fantastic and well-crafted book, which easily mixed a variety of genres in such an interesting manner. Mystery, Science Fiction and Thriller.. oh my.

I adored the characters, particularly Barbara. And later on in the book - Lucille.

Although the book jumped forward into the future and back into the past, it was easy to follow and allowed one to get to know the main characters a lot better. I would have like to have heard more from Fay, to fill in some of the blanks between the green-Fay and the silver-Fay. However I realize that it is than a referral to the happenings within the Conclave.

I haven’t read very many time travel books, and thus cannot make a good comparison of the bits of theories touched on within the contents of the story. However it did insight some deep discussions with the hubby - if knowing parts of one’s future would it than solidified the knowledge to be as is (thus not fate but destiny), or does it allow for a different path to be taken and change the direction in which one’s life was headed. To which his response was: “As per Doc Brown: Your future is whatever you make it, so make it a good one.”

** I received a copy of The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. (Review on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2680460079

#ThePsychologyOfTimeTravel #NetGalley

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I loved the characters and the era-hopping was well done. I'm not usually one for stories about time travel but this was well written and a great read.

The Psychology of Time Travel is almost part science fiction, part murder mystery. It is intensely story driven and I think my main complaint would be that we don't get a deep enough picture of each of the characters. But besides that, I found myself immersed in the plot line, trying to figure out what happened, and how each of these women's decisions are influence by love and ambition.

While it does revolve around a group of pioneer scientists, the bulk of the story revolves around Granny Bee, one of the pioneers that is pushed out of their group, her grand daughter, and a witness to the discovery of a body. We get to know these women the most and there's a ton of diversity with a bisexual, lesbian, and black character as well within the story. All three of these characters uncover various parts of not only the murder mystery element, but also the invention of time travel.

Is it ironic that the creators of time travel never seem to know what will come of their discovery? Could the four women who create time travel in England in the 1960s have known that their invention would lead to a byzantine, temporally tangled, terrifyingly shadowy bureaucracy? They definitely couldn’t have predicted what time travel itself could do the psyches of people who undertake it. In Kate Mascarenhas’ fascinating novel, The Psychology of Time Travel, we dive deeply into these questions, especially that last one.

Barbara was one of the original four women who created time travel but, after an incident captured live by the BBC, she was pushed out of the quartet and forever banned from even working for the Conclave. Decades later, when another time travel starts to send warnings? hints? to Barbara’s granddaughter, Ruby, a spectacularly complex plot kicks off that will take the rest of the book, several investigators, and a lot of head-scratching to figure out. I loved every page of it.

The title of the book–and many events therein–force us to think about the consequences of skipping through time. A lot of the time travelers employed by the Conclave (including all of the original inventors except Barbara) “cheat” by looking ahead to see what happens to themselves. On the one hand, they are very confident. They know they will accomplish what they set out to do, because they already know what the outcome is. On the other, knowing when they’ll die and how, who their spouses will be, and so on, seems to leach their emotions of their intensity; they just don’t feel as much after a few trips. The only way to feel anything is to haze the new recruits or play chilling psychological games with civilians. For a few recruits, time traveling leads to debilitating maladaptive coping behavior or triggers latent mental illnesses. On top of a wonderfully complicated plot, The Psychology of Time Travel is one of the best “set up a scenario and let’s see what happens” books I’ve read in a long time.

The more I read The Psychology of Time Travel, the more I enjoyed it. The characters are fascinatingly warped and the moving parts of the plot slide around before satisfactorily clicking into place. It’s the kind of book where, at the end, you see that everything up to that point was perfectly placed, necessary, even fated. It’s the kind of plot mastery that I absolutely adore; I got a story that was utterly gripping, but only saw the author’s pen at work at the very end. Reading The Psychology of Time Travel is like watching an elaborate magic trick and getting to learn how it worked afterwards.

I chose this book because I was intrigued by the title. This is a genre-breaking book combining time travel, science fiction, a “locked room” mystery, with touches of romance. I am sure there are techies out there who will denigrate the time-travel aspect, but I was able to suspend disbelief long enough to get through—and enjoy—the novel.

There are a lot of characters who, as they time travel, meet their future selves (called “silver selves” because of their gray hair) and their past selves (“green selves” because of their youth. With four main characters and multiples of their green and silver selves zipping in and out of time, often it’s like looking into the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. Many of these characters had very little development. Perhaps stream-lining the character list might allow for expansion of character development and increase the emotionality.

There is a bit of a mystery with a woman killed in a locked room. It’s not the highlight of the book, but rather a bit of a subplot that adds interest especially since it can only be solved by time traveling back to just before the woman is murdered.

The main appeal of The Psychology of Time Travel is that it describes four female (yes, women! and culturally diverse and sexually diverse to boot) scientists who create the first time machine back in 1967. The book focuses on these four pioneers and their multiple selves to look at how time travel affects them psychologically and physiologically. This books looks at multiple currently relevant issues through the lens of the lives of its characters: sexuality, death, bipolar disorder, bullying, hazing, racism, and infidelity.

Mascarenhas’s writing style is quite matter of fact but is enriched by neologisms she lists in an appendix to the book. The multi-layered, creative plot requires some concentration to follow, but overall the book is worth the effort, especially as it is loaded with female characters who are competent, capable, and sexual.

A wonderfully queer time travel novel that explores the cognitive impact of time travel on humans and the capacity of the brain to accept and process the unbelievable. I highly recommend for those who loved The Power by Naomi Alderman and want more books with queer characters in the science fiction genre.

This was an enjoyable read that combined science fiction and gentle feminism. Strong characters and a mystery plot make for a feel good read.

OMG! I feel so empowered after reading this! What a wonderful book this is. There are many books out there that deal with time travel. Some of them are good, some bad and some are just plain ugly. This book has left me with wanting more.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Crooked Lane Books for this advanced readers copy.

Excellent story, put me in the mind of the ladies who worked on the atomic bomb. Skillfully interwoven, I think some people don't realize how confusing a time travel novel can get, but this handles it beautifully. It features strong women, which is always a good thing.

I have always been fascinated by time travel stories in which time travel cannot create reality-altering paradoxes (e.g. To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis). As this book’s title suggests, it explores what kind of psychological effect this sort of time travel might have on people. The author does so with a degree of thoughtfulness and complexity that I don’t think I have seen before in time travel sci-fi. Topics explored include crime & punishment, romance, mental illness, bullying, fate/fatalism, and especially the fear of death.

What makes the plot great isn’t the solution of the mystery (the “whodunnit to whom?” is obvious well before the end). Rather, the fun is in watching the characters figure it out and seeing how the three different story arcs (starting in 1967, 2017, and 2018) fit together. The actual narration of the story was a bit flat (e.g. sometimes something momentous would happen and it would be stated so blandly that I would have to go back and reread to make sure I read correctly), but the plotting and worldbuilding more than made up for it.

To me, the characters seemed a bit contrived to check as many “strong, diverse female character” boxes as possible (e.g. black, immigrant, lesbian, mentally ill, aristocratic…). All the primary and secondary characters are women with a handful of men putting in very brief whiny, overprotective, or leering appearances. Though it felt a bit overplayed, if you are looking for sci-fi with strong female characters, this is it.

Overall, the plotting, worldbuilding, and psychology more than made up for any bits that felt flat or contrived.

I was able to receive this on Netgalley for an honest review, so thank you to Crooked Lane Books!

This novel is told in multiple perspectives about four female scientists that create a time machine in 1960's. When they were about to announce their brilliant creation and ideas, one of them has a mental breakdown, embarrassing the other three. That one member is ostracized from the group, erasing her contributions from history.
Now, fifty years later, time travel is a hit. Ruby Rebello's grandmother, Bee, was one of the pioneers, and Ruby is very much interested. No one will tell her anything more than that. Bee receives news from the future that there is a death of an unidentified woman. Could it be Bee? Can it possibly be stopped?

This novel was tricky to get through. I wanted to put it down and not finish it, but I was also curious as to how it was going to end. There are many aspects to this story, and I couldn't get invested. I tried very, VERY hard to fall in love with even one of the characters. I'm thinking that time travel stories are not for me. I didn't find that it helped the story at all.
There was a lot of shaming in this novel, which I found to be a bit overwhelming. Any little thing that happened was critiqued by one of the other characters. Definitely a lot of negativity.
The writing, however, was actually good. I would read another novel by Mascarenhas in a heartbeat. You can tell that there was a lot of time clocked into this novel. I almost think that I am to blame here for not enjoying this as much as I feel like I should have.

-If you are interested in picking this up there is LGBTQ+ representation-
If you do like time travel, then this novel is probably for you. I'm sure there are tons of people that would love this so much more than me. This was very middle of the road, but I would recommend it if you're interested!

An intriguing book! Was my first read of the year, it sets the bar really high. Beforehand I was apprehensive about the way time traveling would work, but somehow the way the author describes it actually makes it seem possible. The fact that there are only female characters is also a great idea. It turns out that when you leave out the men I don't really miss them...

What happens to your mental health when you time travel? How would you manage with seeing the lifetimes of your loved ones pass non-linearly for you? These are just some of the questions that Kate Mascarenhas touches on in The Psychology of Time Travel.

This has a strong predominantly female cast with LGBTQ relationships without making a big deal out of these. It has women from every walk of life who appear as well rounded characters (if not always that likeable as a result). It takes place across multiple times from 1972 -2019 and jumps between these which means that it requires concentration to follow which characters are where and when, but it all comes together to a very satisfying ending.

I'd definitely pick up this author's next book when it comes.

Thanks to netgalley and the publishers for an ARC.