Thank you netgalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
The premise of a post apocalyptic world where everyone has a death time stamp is a compelling one. The author does a good job creating a world where people do not waste time and some even embrace the finality. But of course there will always be a few who feel they deserve to live longer and they begin to steal time from the young. The rest of the book becomes a race for a solution. Although the story is engaging, i found the characters rather dull and the story slow to pick up. Overall, a good story but needs more suspenseful action.

DNF 70%
I gave this story a chance, but it simply did not grip me. I did not finish. Perhaps I will pick it up again someday as some books are better when revisited. However, at this point in time it was not for me.

I really like the premise of this story! The idea of time travel always grabs my attention, and this one headed to the 1800's, another favorite! I enjoyed the chapters when we were back in time, I thought those were the best part of the story. I wasn't as connected to the story in present day. I think that it slowed the pace of the story a bit. Overall though, this was a fun story!

Timey-wimey books are right in my wheelhouse, especially when they're well done. So, it's not surprising that I loved this book a whole lot. I wish the ending was a bit better, though... I wish I got more of a resolution about what happened with the Time Thieves. Still, an enjoyable trip.

"Sixty-five years is long enough to walk this earth, to use her resources. It's time to cede the space to somebody else." With an ageing population, Stealing Time delves directly into our anxiety about what we'll do as the earth's finite resources begin to run out. Using a Time Chip system, the novel's proposed solution is capping a life to—at most—sixty-five years before the chip itself wrapped around the nervous system, delivers a lethal dose of poison and ends the host's life: "Time Chips are manmade devices, loaded with poison. That's all they are."

Perhaps drawing inspiration from Australia's current Liberal Government, the system is sold to the people using a solely economic rationale: "Their health fell apart, with multiple and complex issues, they stopped working and became a drain on the economy. The healthy, younger people had to pay higher taxes to find the infirm for decades after they'd stopped contributing to society." The Time Chip system was implemented after the human rights of older people were gradually eroded: "The government reduced medical support to over sixty-fives. Then they reduced the pension at the same time the price of food sky-rocketed." The population had also been thinned: "Mysterious outbreaks of influenza in government-funded aged care facilities took care of large numbers of the elderly." It's all very plausible and horrific (though here it was the private sector aged care facilities that brought about the premature deaths of the most elderly Australians during the pandemic).

After setting up the idea that it was almost a plausible solution to a big social problem, Bowyer proceeds to show us how even this seemingly fair system will fall apart, from renegade scientists who invent (and refuse to destroy) its undoing; to greedy folk who want more than their fair share; to a black market selling time loop holes that allow you to pack more into your day without time coming off the Time Chip; to a nether space "a living museum" that pauses your age and Time Chip while the world continues on without you.

These intriguing temporal ideas are closely attached to current social anxieties about time running out for the planet. This combination of science and social conscience is packaged up in an engaging story about Dr Varya Galanos—one of the scientists who initially developed the technology—as she discovers the difference between the things she'll do for science and the things she'll do for love. Stealing Time was an enjoyable read.

In a dystopian Australia set well into the future, where time chips were inserted into your brain stem at birth, the maximum life span for anyone was 65 and once you’d reached that age, your life was terminated by Rest Time. To keep the population down, only one child per family was permitted.

Doctor Varya Galanos was a physicist in Melbourne who’d invented a special technology, which was in turn stolen by time thieves. Young children were abducted, and their life spans stolen, with the children dying within hours of returning to their families. Ten years prior the thieves were caught, and the technology destroyed, but during that time Varya’s four-year-old son, Kir, developed an aggressive and terminal form of cancer. Varya was determined to find a cure for childhood illnesses and formed the Minor Miracles Foundation to work on a cure so others wouldn’t lose their beloved offspring. But when children began disappearing once again, Varya’s guilt and desperation caused all sorts of problems…

Stealing Time by Aussie author Rebecca Bowyer has a huge focus on mothers and their children (or in this case, their child) and what they would do for them. The situation of a damaged Australia – and across the world - where climate change has caused lack of food and resources, where the aged are not of any value (I’d have been terminated already!), where death is peaceful (if you’ve reached 65 and been a model citizen) or brutal if you’re a criminal – I’m very glad this book is fiction! Entertaining and different, Stealing Time is well worth a read. Recommended.

With thanks to Rebecca Bowyer and NetGalley for my digital ARC to read in exchange for an honest review.

Rebecca Bowyer’s new book is set in a dystopian future world where climate change has rendered food and resources scarce. In response, some countries, including Australia have decided to restrict their population by allowing women to only have one child and by terminating life at a maximum age of 65. This is achieved by inserting a time chip, called the Rest Time, into people’s brain stems. Bonus time is given for extra hours spent working and for having a child but no is allowed more than to live beyond 65 years, when death is automatically delivered by the chip, saving resources that would otherwise be used on aged care.

Varya Galanos was one of the physicists who worked to develop the Rest Time chip but after her son Kir developed a rare and incurable disease, she started the Minor Miracles Foundation raising funds for research into cures for rare conditions. She now works as a lab technician at the foundation’s labs, where no one knows she is actually the CEO. Although removing a chip would kill the owner, some years ago thieves used some stolen technology to steal time from childrens’ time chips. The children were returned with just a few hours left on their chips before they died in the arms of their distraught parents. The thieves were eventually caught and the technology destroyed, but when Varya hears new reports of children disappearing, she’s concerned something similar could be happening again.

Bowyer’s brave new world is a disturbing one where any one over 65 is seen as a drain on society rather than an important resource. This seems shocking when in our current society so many people are fit and healthy into their 70s and beyond, continuing to work, supporting their families with unpaid childcare or volunteering in the community. Time is a precious commodity in Bowyer’s world and begs the question of whether we all use our time here in this world as profitably as we could and whether we would lead our lives any differently if we knew there was a definite endpoint at 65.

Children are also very precious in Bowyer’s world and the bond between mothers and their children is a major theme of this novel. It should be no surprise that in a dystopian and damaged world, where a woman can have only one child, the love of mothers for their children is so strong and the main focus of their lives. Varya, her mother and her friends are prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to prevent children from dying. For me the climax of this book seemed a bit rushed and could have unfolded more slowly to better explain what was happening. Aside from that, I very enjoyed this work of speculative fiction and the issues it raised.

Stealing Time is the second novel by Australian author, Rebecca Bowyer. Although she is a highly qualified temporal physicist, Varya Galanos now works as a lab technician in a private laboratory. The Minor Miracles Foundation tries to find cures for rare childhood diseases that mainstream research deems uneconomic to work on, diseases like the one that had afflicted her four-year-old son some five years earlier.

The researchers don’t know that Varya once worked for Rest Time Corp, or that she funds the lab with the sale of a sought-after illegal product, a time tab that Varya’s expertise allows her to produce. The lab has had numerous successes, and Varya works desperately to find a certain cure.

It’s a very different world to that her grandparents knew: Rest Time Chips, inserted at birth, ensure that the maximum allocated lifespan of sixty-five years can only be achieved by not engaging in criminal activity, having the required single child and working a sixty-hour week.

When a child is abducted, most of his lifespan stolen, and he is returned to die in his parents’ arms, alarm bells ring for Varya. This should not have been possible: the Rest Time chips are meant to be tamperproof, and the technology to allow time transfer had been destroyed ten years earlier, after the first spate of abductions. Although Varya knows differently…

This boy went to school with Daniel, the son of Varya’s best friend, Zoe, so now parents are on high alert. When Daniel is taken, their carefully controlled existence is turned upside-down.

The premise of this speculative fiction tale is quite fascinating, and Bowyer’s world-building is fairly subtle. When Varya explains the government’s rationale for implementing Rest Time chips, it demonstrates a society that no longer values the elderly, sees them only as a burden and not as a resource, and one that values productivity over family.

The plot is gripping and keeps the pages turning towards the dramatic climax. The complete situation with Varya’s family is only gradually revealed, and every time the reader believes they know the entire scenario, another wrinkle is added to complicate it further. But the postulated reason that the abducted children are returned to their families is unconvincing.

Bowyer paints her setting as a rather bleak place to live. Perhaps because of the pressure Varya operates under she’s not a character who is easy to connect with, even though her family’s situation tugs at the heart strings. As her mother states: ”She refuses to let the universe run its course, thinking she can always intervene to change the path of fate.” This is an interesting and thought-provoking read.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Xpresso Book Tours.

This was officially good.

The sci-fi/dystopian premise was compelling, as were the Time Thieves. But what was REALLY compelling were the themes of motherhood and family. What would you do for your kids?

The only weak spot, I think, was the ending. We didn't get to be involved in the real plot resolution at all and the explanation of what had happened, both with the Time Thieves and with Kir, seemed pretty anticlimactic.

The cover drew my eye to this book first, then I saw the authors name Rebecca Bowyer and as I had read and loved her previous book /Maternal Instinct I immediately gave it a closer look. I do really like the cover, the mysterious hooded figure at the centre of the cover and the smoky effect maybe representing time. Once you read the book, the cover makes even more sense.

This book is set in a future where women are allowed to have just one child, in an effort to control the growing population and preserve natural resources. Everyone has a chip inserted into their neck which allows them a maximum of 65 years of life. Once your 65 years expires you literally die. However, you have to earn your years by staying out of trouble, conforming to the one child policy. No chip has ever successfully been removed without that person dying.

The technology in the world within this book is so advanced, cars that drive themselves, cryogenics so those wealthy enough could be frozen in time and perhaps brought back to life sometime in the future. Naturally this makes “Time” a precious, highly desirable commodity. When things are in such demand those that can afford it will pay a great deal for “time chips” which in turn creates a black market.

The desirability of “extra time” created people referred to as “Time Thieves” who kidnapped children and removed their “Time” and sell it to others. One of the main characters Dr Varya Galanos was part of the company that created the technology that allowed the “Time Thieves” to remove time for the children they kidnapped. The technology was of course, destroyed to prevent such a thing ever happening again.

Varya’s own son was terminally ill with a rare disease that didn’t have enough research funding to help him in any way. Varya creates her own research centre called Minor Miracles, where she researches rare diseases. To fund her research Varya supplies short time tabs to Marissa, a woman she has befriended. Marissa goes to the wealthier peoples’ homes, the money they pay as a “donation” to the Minor Miracles foundation. It’s not only the rich that have a need for extra time tabs, as the poorer, single mums, would love them to either get extra sleep or to spend extra time with their children.

When it appears that someone has re-invented the necessary technology to steal time directly from children again, and are kidnapping them, removing their time, and then returning them to their parents with hours left to live, it really bothers Dr Varya, especially when her friend Zoe’s son, Daniel is one of the kidnapped children she knows she has to do something and very quickly. However, doing this will involve revealing a very large secret about her own son and mother as well as asking her ex-husband for help, which she really doesn’t want to do. I can’t go much further in describing the plot as I feel it would reveal too much and impede the slow unfurling of the book when you read it yourself.

My favourite character in this book would have to be Marissa, she wasn’t overly wealthy despite selling the Time Tabs to Dr Varya’s wealthy clients. Marissa selling the tabs enables Varya to continue investing into rare disease research and treatment. As part of her “payment” Marissa takes a certain amount of time tabs every month to a domestic violence shelter, which gives the women extra time to spend helping their children with school work, or just “spare time” to spend with them. Which I think redeems her character as someone was always going to be selling time tabs to the rich but she does still try to help others who are not so well off.

This book is certainly thought provoking, among the questions I felt this book raised were, such as, how far would/could/should a mother be prepared to go for their child? What would you do to help your child? Anything? At the expense of others?
Can giving to the less fortunate for free whilst making the rich pay for the same thing, balance out the scales of right and wrong? What amount of 'doing right' does it take to cancel out the 'wrong doing'?

Though I had read another book by this author, I honestly didn’t think that Stealing Time could be as good as Maternal Instinct but by the end of it I felt it was even better! I will certainly be keeping an eye out for Rebecca’s next book!

My immediate thoughts upon finishing the book were that it was an amazingly thought- provoking book.

To sum up this book is brilliantly written, has lots of twists, turns, surprises, and a perfect ending!

Wow... this book had me hooked from the start. There were so many twists and it really made you think how far would you go to protect your child and how far is too far.
Brilliant book thanks you so much netgalley.

This book had me hooked from page one! Every time you think you understand what’s going on there’s another little twist introduced into the story that just makes you say “what??” And I actually really liked that the twists weren’t explained immediately. The author threw you the new scenario, and then a little later actually explained it. It’s a good way to keep you guessing. The plot definitely brings up some really deep ethical conundrums. Is it OK to limit a lifespan for the greater good of conserving resources? How far can a mother go to protect her child? How far is too far with any of this? I plowed through this book in two days and was on the edge of my seat the whole time! Great job!