Fresh of the monster success of The Warehouse, Rob Hart arrives with his latest to set to rest any doubts about his bona fides as an author to be reckoned with. Taking as a starting point a topic that could be a a tired trope in lesser hands, time travel, Hart, manages to blend a murder mystery, ghost story, exploration of grief, and commentary on government overreach and corruption into one compelling, relentless page turner.

Fully awesome story setup, great characters and interpersonal drama, interesting locked-room mystery, but a bit of a soft ending that wasn’t completely satisfying.

January Cole is a major hard-ass and that did not improve when her girlfriend was killed in an accident. Her grief shuts her down, and the fact that she’s starting to Slip is making things incredibly complicated. Can she keep her job, her sanity and her found family together when everything is falling apart?

I was completely on board with this story, enjoying the Easter eggs and having my heart broken along with Jan. I wanted SO MUCH MORE including a fully guided tour of Einstein, but no such luck. Every death and complication was harsh and real. Excellent story telling.

But we’re left with a soft ending that feels very deus ex machina and I was disappointed by that. Like solve your sci-fi problems without needing a cosmic hand, guys. Maybe I’m just burned out on that trope, but there you have it.

Otherwise, awesome book with good LGBTQIA representation exploring the great sci-fi question of if we can, should we?

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my free copy. These opinions are my own.

Let me start by stating that I rarely read Sci-fi books. But, I found this book to be quite fascinating with all the intricate characters and storyline, this is the kind of story that you have to really pay attention to the plot otherwise it is easy to get lost. However, it was a very interesting story and it has the makings for a great movie.. Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Publishing for providing a free electronic copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. #TheParadoxHotel #NetGalley.

Book Review

The Paradox Hotel
Rob Hart
reviewed by Lou Jacobs



readersremains.com | Goodreads


Imagine going back to the late Cretaceous period to marvel over the plethora of various dinosaurs roaming the earth. This was one of the many opportunities afforded TEA Agent, January Cole.

One of her duties in the Time Enforcement Agency was to assure that no one messed with the timestream. “Look, don’t touch!” Everyone knows the rules—you cannot interfere with anything that’s already happened. If you do so, there will be ripples that affect the fabric of reality. January is “Unstuck,” an occupational hazard of traveling the time stream too often. This neurodegenerative condition progresses in stages and has no cure. She is in Stage I and occasionally experiences a “slip” – hears an internal clacking sound followed by experiencing an episode / memory of the past or even future. These spells can last seconds to minutes, and to an outside observer it “looks like you were somewhere else” (medically speaking, like an absence seizure). Retronim is a medication that slows the process, it’s not a cure. It forestalls the inevitable progression to stage 2 and finally 3, were the slips occur frequently and lead to coma.

January, now progressing to stage 2, is on meds and is serving as security head for the Paradox Hotel. The hotel serves as a waiting area in preparation for “catching a flight” to the past at the nearby Einstein Intercentury Timeport. The rich pony-up hundreds of thousands of dollars for exotic vacations to the past.

Apparently, the time travel operation is expensive and is proving to be a losing proposition for the government. The Feds have invited four trillionaires to the hotel for a summit to accept bids to privatize the operation. January’s job is to see that the summit happens without a hitch.

January is assisted by Ruby, an AI drone that hovers over her shoulder, observing and offering advice and valuable info. Ruby’s voice is not female and has an accent. January thinks it would be sexist to make her drone a female. To make Ruby more personable, January has added googly eyes, even though it obscures her visionary input. As the summit draws near it is apparent that someone is breaking into the hotel’s security system, erasing video and trying to hide events.

Soon there are attempts on the lives of the trillionaires. January has a slip in which she visualizes baby velociraptor in the lobby, quickly followed in reality by an incursion of three velociraptors into the hotel with the resultant brutal killing of one the employees. Who has smuggled from the time port three dinosaur eggs, on the brink of hatching? And why?

Weird anomalies begin occurring, someone is deliberately screwing with the upcoming summit. January’s suspect list is growing. A blizzard is approaching, and the surrounding roads are impassable and there are not enough rooms for all.

Rob Hart provides a masterful twisted and complex narrative involving a time travel murder mystery. Expertly employed are a colorful ensemble cast of characters to aid in the progression of intrigue and tension. January continues to not only visualize but converse with her beloved girlfriend, Mena (aided by her continual “slips” ) This not only explores the theme of grieving and lost love, but also provides some relief from January’s usual acerbic and antisocial behavior. Many refer to her as a sarcastic bitch. The ultimate prize is having unrestricted access to all of time, and with it, the potential destruction of reality.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for providing an Uncorrected Proof in exchange for an honest review.

This was such an interesting story! I really enjoyed the time travel story line, and how it interacts in the regular world! I did think there were an awful lot of characters, and that could have been reduced, but overall, it's a fun story, and I enjoyed it!

January Cole is the house detective at the Paradox Hotel. She had formerly been an agent that traveled through time to make sure noone changed anything. This caused her to become unstuck. Her health is deteriorating and she has slips, or lapses where she sees both past and future events. When a big summit comes to where the Paradox is going to be sold to a very wealthy bidder and a body shows up that only she can see, January has a lot to investigate. Can she get to the bottom of the murder and keep the hotel from falling into the wrong hands?

This was an enjoyable story. I feel like it's more character driven than plot. There are a lot of characters to keep track of here, and at times I had to stop to figure out who was who. I really liked January and Ruby. The snarky banter kept it from getting too heavy. The underlying themes here are love, loss, and found family, which were presented really well. I would recommend to those who like sci-fi and character driven novels,

My thanks to Ballantine Books, author Rob Hart, and NetGalley for gifting me a digital copy of this book. My opinions are my own.

The Paradox Hotel sits near the world’s only time travel airport. The uber-rich can vacation in ancient Egypt or Renaissance Italy. The TEA ensure that nothing crucial is changed in the past by the bumbling tourists or stealthy smugglers.

January was a crack agent in the TEA. Unfortunately, she got Unstuck, where too much time travel causes time slips. January is forced to work as the hotel's Chief of Security rather than doing any more time travel. However, it may be too little too late for January's mind. She seems to be moving onto a more dangerous stage in the disease. She is having hallucinations that later happen. First, she sees lost baby dinosaurs. Next, it’s her own murder. However, the most disturbing image is the dead man in one of the hotel's rooms who appears to be stuck in time. And only she can see him. The plot is further complicated by the US government's sale of the hotel in an auction in the bowels of the hotel. Oh, and the atomic clock in the lobby is broken too. It is basically a bad week to be January.

I loved the world building within The Paradox Hotel. However, the plot is stuffed with too many subplots. The list in the paragraph above only hits about half of them. It gets overwhelming not just for January but also for the reader. In addition, there are so many characters that after a while I stopped trying to determine whether Oswald was the nice Elon Musk or the rude Jeff Bezos-type potential hotel buyer. This book would make a better trilogy with several cliffhanger endings (even though I hate those types of conclusions). Still, I did enjoy it as written, even if I felt like I had run a marathon after each chapter. 4 stars!

Thanks to Ballantine Books and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

The Paradox Hotel has a very intriguing synopsis. January works at a luxury hotel, The Paradox Hotel. The hotel is upscale, and very unique in that it offers time travel for their wealthy guests. The guests flock to the hotel to travel back in time to see extraordinary sights such as the first Shakespeare plays. When the government decides to privatize the hotel, they host an auction to the world’s wealthiest bidders. As the weekend of the auction unfolds, there are tons of strange occurrences around the hotel. January becomes concerned with the safety of selling the hotel to a private citizen. Her bosses brush her off but as the weekend continues, it becomes apparent that there is something more sinister at play.

I wanted to LOVE this book, but I found it a little confusing at times. Overall, it still was a good read and I look forward to reading more from this author

3.5⭐

This story follows January, the head of security at The Paradox Hotel where people come from when having time traveled. It is an interesting concept, and what a wind ride it was! This was a twisty, mind bending, murder mystery that confused me at times. There was so much happening, and at times it was hard to follow (which I think was intentional?). This wasn't my favorite because I don't normally read sci-fi, but for what it was it was an enjoyable, interesting and well written novel! Ruby was definitely my favorite character.

Read if you enjoy:
• locked room trope
• unique mysteries
• time travel

Thank you Netgalley and Random House for this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

This book is the epitome of an unreliable narrator. January is "unstuck" which means her mind skips around in time from her past working for the government time travelling. Now, I don't have any issues with unreliable narrators but this book had way too much going on for me to keep track of what was truth and what was just January's mind playing tricks on her.

There were too many people, too many plot points, too many things going wrong in the hotel. I was fairly lost about halfway through with what all was going on. Trillionaires who were in competition to buy the hotel were dying, January was seeing dead bodies that weren't there, a snow storm trapped the entire hotel inside, her mental capacity was dying, her boss wanted her to leave her job. It was all far too much and, although complicated plots can be enjoyable, it was complicated in a way where it was difficult to keep track of all the separate plot points.

Overall it was an interesting idea but for me, the execution was simply not there.

Getting ready for a trip through time? Well then the odds are you have a reservation at the Paradox Hotel. I have to say this is one heck of a trippy adventure. While at it’s core it’s a murder mystery in a sci-fi setting, it could easily fall into half a dozen other genres. What’s the story about? Read the book blurb because I don’t think I can do any better explaining it, without letting slip several spoilers, lol.
I will say if you are like me and have a tendency to read multiple books concurrently, you might not want to do that with this book. Given that time travel is a central component of the story and there are quite a few twists and turns, not to mention the story features a decent sized cast of characters, it’s definitely a book you’ll want to give your undivided attention to, but if you stick with it (and pay attention) it’s quite the adventure, though as I mentioned above, I probably would have enjoyed it even more had it been the only book I was reading at the time.
I’d like to thank Random House and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review an eARC of The Paradox Hotel.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-paradox-hotel-rob-hart/1139544100?ean=9781984820648&bvnotificationId=d02804d4-9454-11ec-a40c-12f29b785e8d&bvmessageType=REVIEW_APPROVED&bvrecipientDomain=gmail.com#review/201902929

https://www.amazon.com/review/RVWO978Y2QPH3/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv

It was slow-going at first. Like with many books in this genre, it took a while for me to familiarize myself with the world that exists in The Paradox Hotel. But once I got going, I read huge chunks at a time, often needing to keep turning more pages!

The story takes place in our near-ish future, in the northern United States (seemingly upstate New York), in a time when time travel is a common vacation activity. The Paradox Hotel sits near Einstein, which is the machine/portal used for time travel. People who use time travel for recreation are often the ultra-rich, so that’s who the hotel mostly caters to.

Einstein, for obvious (don’t eff up the timeline) reasons, is controlled by the government. But, being in debt, they’re currently looking to privatize it. There are four billionaire-types coming to the hotel to bid for it, and a snowstorm raging outside. All the makings of a classic locked room scenario.

January Cole used to work at Einstein, as a sort of “time cop” who jumped into the timestream to stop people from doing crazy things (like killing Hitler, the usual). People who time travel too much, though, become “unstuck,” and start having episodes where they see things that happened in the past – or in the future. Having reached level one of being unstuck, Cole was reassigned to be the head of security at the nearby Parodox.

So, as the guests arrive, Cole is put on the spot to make sure things are all up to their high security standards. But there’s a dead body that only she can see – leading her to believe the murder hasn’t happened yet? – and problems with the internal security camera footage, in which large portions of data seem to have been erased.

The story, like so many involving time travel, gets twisty and weird. And sometimes philosophical. There is a lot of action, small incidents that add up to bigger issues, clues left along the way, and three dinosaurs on the loose inside the hotel. And all the while, Cole’s mental state is deteriorating, leading us to wonder how much of any of it is even real.

But aside from the actual story, the atmosphere of the hotel plays an important part in this book. There’s an element of “we’re all in this together” that seems relevant to the times we live in – the lower class hotel staff often being pushed around by their wealthy customers inspires them to stick up for one another on multiple occasions. The staff like to think of themselves as an extended family, and they are certainly a motley crew.

The colorful characters are part of the charm, I’d say. But I also did like the story, even though it was complicated at times. If you’re the type of person who could get through “Inception,” for example, I think you’d enjoy this story. If movies or books similar to that give you a headache, this one might not be for you.

"The Paradox Hotel" by Rob Hart will make an excellent movie. This mystery detective story revolves around January Cole, the hardened no-nonsense head of security at the Paradox Hotel. Since the Paradox Hotel caters to ultra-rich present-day time travelers, it is useful that January is also an agent at the Time Enforcement Agency. The story is filled with side effects of time travel including ravenous dinosaurs and humans plotting to manipulate the past to take over the present. There is plenty of action, blood, intrigue, maniacal villains, and mysterious phenomena.

This was a fun action filled detective story with a decided scifi twist.

I thank Rob Hart and Ballantine Books for kindly providing a temporary electronic review copy of this work.

I usually summarize each book in one sentence, but I’m not going there with this one, as it might make my brain explode, especially after a relaxing 3-day weekend. So, I’m going right to…

My thoughts:

This book is mind-bending sci-fi meets a locked room mystery, and it seemed rather Blake Crouch-ish…that’s an adjective, right? Just as Crouch goes all out in exploring the many possibilities of travelling the multiverse in DARK MATTER, Hart goes all out in exploring the many permutations of time travel in this book. Also, both books are set in the not-too-distant future and explore the human condition deeper than most speculative fiction I’ve read.

In this story, time travel takes an enormous toll on the body. I love Hart’s idea of somebody becoming ‘unstuck’ – meaning that they are untethered from the time they used to inhabit, so they have flashes of future situations.

January, the narrator, is suffering from these very issues, forcing the reader to try to figure out – with her – what has actually happened and what has yet to happen…and why. I really enjoyed January and Ruby, the AI, and the relationship the two of them shared. There’s good banter between them, and good humor in the book overall, mainly because January doesn’t trade in niceties and doesn’t suffer fools, although she’s given a strong backstory to account for her quirks. As a side note, this story is LGBTQIA friendly, with a lesbian protagonist as well as another main character who is nonbinary.

There are a lot of characters, and a couple of the less developed ones are key at a point late in the story, which was a bit confusing. And while I applaud the author for exploring so many potential facets of time travel, I did think that the plot felt a bit weighed down and perhaps overly complex. I think a little more simplicity may have served the story – and the main characters – better.

Overall, I really enjoyed it! I’ve already got my hands on The Warehouse, Hart’s earlier book.

It’s out today!

Thank you Ballantine Books for the ARC!

This is not my usual kind of story. I think it was a good story with some very strange characters. I was having a hard time keeping them all straight and sometimes felt as if I came in at the middle of the story. January is snarky and downright rude, but very good at her job. Just because she is in the first stages of Unstuck, doesn't mean she is completely out of her mind. She has time shifts and sees things others don't. When she tries to make things right, everyone assumes that she is getting sicker. She needs to find out what is happening before anyone else dies.

Thank you to Ballantine Books for an advanced copy of Paradox Hotel.

I am typically not a science fiction / fantasy fan so I took a chance on this book. Overall, it was entertaining, but not my favorite. I am sure someone who loves the science fiction genre will like this book, but it just wasn't for me.

This book may not have been perfect, but when I can turn to my husband at 20% and tell him he needs to listen to a book, then it must be a 5 star book! (for the record, he prefers audiobooks) We have a world where time travel is possible. Of course it is controlled by the government who want to sell it to the highest bidder. We have serious side effects for people who time travel a lot, including the main character who is basically a time travel continuity enforcer. I loved the quirky characters and inventive ideas presented in the book. I think there could have been 100 more pages to add more depth to the characters and storyline, but it wasn't like there was anything substantial missing or major questions unanswered at the end. The nice thing about stories like this is that you do not have to be a die hard science fiction fan to enjoy them.

"The Paradox Hotel" by Rob Hart is a fun ride with an unreliable narrator. Or... is she? The Paradox Hotel is a way-station for the upper crust as they embark on trips through the world's first (and government-regulated, of course) portal through time. January Cole was once an agent of the government agency charged with preventing time travelers from smuggling artifacts and otherwise trying to alter history, but eventually, the radiation involved in frequent time travel started to mess with her brain and memories. Eventually, someone with this condition becomes "unstuck" and unable to tell the past, present, and future apart (a brilliant turn of phrase, IMO). Because time is quasi-linear and there seems to be some predetermination, but maybe not, because at one point January prevents the murder of a guest that she saw just moments before. January is also haunted by a past lover that she met at the Hotel after she signed up as head of security. It is generally believed that the hotel is haunted by ghosts, following the disappearance of the architect once the hotel was completed. And there turns up an apparent murder victim that only January can see, invisible even to her snarky personal drone that is always whirring about. While the richest of the rich gather to bid on the hotel in a government effort to privatize its operation, security and surveillance glitches plague January's efforts to investigate, and she becomes increasingly unstuck. Her bosses and co-workers don't believe her accounts of what only she can see happening, but her seemingly preternatural abilities to kick ass (both humans and dinosaurs) and investigate her mounting troubles simultaneously twist that unreliable narration on its head. Fantastic and thrilling all the way through.

Thank you to Random House for the Arc and Happy Publishing Day! I have very complicated feelings towards The Paradox Hotel. It's a lightning fast read with an inclusive cast of LGBT+ characters that I found charming and fun to read. The dialog was witty, funny and kept a sharp beat about it.

The plot is where we get to it January Cole is a security officer at a Hotel that seems to be a wating room (from what I ascertained) for time travelers. The rules for time traveling are very strict and as convoluted as you might expect. There's a murder mystery in here. It's superb if you can sus it out. The problem being January suffers from delusions and hallucinations of other times.

It's a challenging narrative to follow. And with the aforementioned, it's a fast read, it's going to be hard for a lot of people to really glom on. I think if you take your time and gobble this one up in bits, this Hotel is worth the stay.

The Paradox Hotel is a sci-fi time travel mystery. Our main character, January Jones, is a grouchy, sarcastic detective in The Paradox Hotel which caters to the uber-rich who can afford private time travel trips. January has experienced a deep personal lost and takes it out on everyone she encounters. The hotel is now up for sale as the United States government is preparing to privatize time travel. Things get more and more strange as the summit draws near which is complicated by the fact that January is "unstuck" and can slip in time, which makes everyone wary of her stability.

The plot is interesting and complicated, but apparently the sub-genre of time travel sci-fi is my jam when there's a mystery/thriller element. I quite enjoyed this book and I think if you were a fan of Recursion you'd enjoy this one too.