The idea of time travel is one that has often inspired authors and filmmakers—resulting in everything from books like The Time Machine to movies like Back to the Future. Author Rob Hart offers his own take on time travel in The Paradox Hotel, exploring the dangers of traveling back and forth through time...

Full review published on NightsAndWeekends.com - and aired on Shelf Discovery

This is a fascinating concept and a really interesting read. It blends mystery with science fiction, taking the concept of time travel in a direction I’d never thought about. There’s an intensely unreliable narrator, but it doesn’t feel forced at all. This might be a really good intro point for a mystery reader to get into some sci-fi.

I appreciated this novel a whole lot! I had the chance to review it during a somewhat dry period for my reading, and this brought me back to the good old days of my love for books. Great, great read!

An interesting premise, and Rob hart pulls it off quite well, a good read.
This ARC was given to me by NetGalley and the publishers to read and review. All comments above are my true opinion after reading this book.

Catching up on some NetGalley ARCs. The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart published on Feb. 22, 2022.

Science fiction is just not my genre. But I keep trying it. Overall I enjoyed The Paradox Hotel. That being said, I’m not sure that I really could tell you what was actually happening in the story!

January Cole is a Time Enforcement Agent (TEA) assigned to the Paradox Hotel because she’s Unstuck. She’s not able to ground herself in time so she’s disposed to times when time warps for her. And she’s able to see ghosts and events to come.

The Paradox Hotel is where rich people stay before they board flights to other eras: dinosaurs, Ancient times, past historical events.

This book looked at all things time: time travel, time cloaking, time warps. There was ghosts, secret rooms, espionage, murder.

January also has an AI, Ruby, who was the best character in the book! I loved their relationship and Ruby’s humor was fantastic!

This book would be amazing as a series and I hope that someday it becomes one because, for me, I would love to visually revisit this story.

Thank you to #netgalley and #ballentinebooks for the advanced e-copy of #theparadoxhotel .

Thank you to the author Rob Hart, the publisher and NetGalley for giving me and ARC in exchange for my candid review. x

WOW!!!! I LOVED THIS BOOK! This is an amazing book about time travel. Time travel has been perfected and the government runs the time travel space port and the adjacent Hotel Par adox. The government can no longer afford to operate and protect the sanctity of time even though rich people have been supporting the effort. January, a former time agent, has taken over the security of the Paradox Hotel, after exhibiting side effects from time travel called slipping. She is a bad ass, butt kicking, sleuthing machine who is trying to figure out why strange things keep happening in the hotel. The government has decided to sell the time travel spaceport to the highest bidder, and January is trying to keep all of the bidders alive.....

This is a rip roaring adventure which at the heart of it asks the question.....if you could go back in time and change anything ....what would you do? Even if it meant the end of the world?

This is a great book and I heartily recommend it!

Thank you, NetGalley, for this book.

I was so pumped to read this book. It sounded like something I would love. Time travel- check. Thriller- double check. Dinosaurs- I’m all in. But man alive, this book was not nearly as good as I hoped. The main character was so obnoxious and mean for no reason and was wholly unlikeable. I appreciate a good snarky character, but she was over-the-top awful. The plot was interesting, but the pacing was way off. The last 10% was full of great action, but it had so many characters and boring plot that didn’t need to exist that by the time I was close to the end, I was begging for anything to happen.

From Goodreads:

January Cole’s job just got a whole lot harder. Not that running security at the Paradox was ever really easy. Nothing’s simple at a hotel where the ultra-wealthy tourists arrive costumed for a dozen different time periods, all eagerly waiting to catch their “flights” to the past.

Or where proximity to the timeport makes the clocks run backward on occasion—and, rumor has it, allows ghosts to stroll the halls. None of that compares to the corpse in room 526. The one that seems to be both there and not there. The one that somehow only January can see.

On top of that, some very important new guests have just checked in. Because the U.S. government is about to privatize time-travel technology—and the world’s most powerful people are on hand to stake their claims.

January is sure the timing isn’t a coincidence. Neither are those “accidents” that start stalking their bidders. There’s a reason January can glimpse what others can’t. A reason why she’s the only one who can catch a killer who’s operating invisibly and in plain sight, all at once.

But her ability is also destroying her grip on reality—and as her past, present, and future collide, she finds herself confronting not just the hotel’s dark secrets but her own.

The premise is ridiculous, but in a fun way, but it didn’t hold up for me. The privatization plot point was absolutely pointless. If this book had just been about January and the reason why she can see things others can’t and her trying to solve the time travel issues the hotel is facing, that would have been a much better book. But there are so many extraneous characters that distract from the best part of the book. January is needlessly mean. She’s not clever with her sarcasm. She’s just so unlikeable. This book had so much potential but was a big disappointment.

This one was such a ride! It truly panned out like a TV show for me — 10/10 would watch it all in one night (just like I read this one in one day). I really liked the story but I didn't *love* the main character or the writing. The MC felt extremely fictional. Also she just kind of was a witch with a B. I think the circumstances were supposed to make her that way, but sounds like she's just always been a pill.

Anyways, good ride for sure!

The Paradox Hotel is definitely not my usual genre so I wasn't sure what to expect when I received this ARC from the publisher. Though it’s not something I would have picked out on my own, I was excited to try it because I thought the premise of a time traveler who was uncontrollably “slipping” between times was really intriguing. Sadly, it never really came together for me. I found the complex plot and multitude of characters were somewhat difficult to follow in book form, and felt to me like they’d be better served as a tv show or movie. (And I understand it has been optioned for television, so my congrats to the author!)

Unfortunately, while it was an interesting concept, it just wasn’t the right fit for me -- but do check it out if you like science fiction/fantasy and time travel books. I’m sure you’ll love it.

I am so grateful to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine Books for the opportunity to read and review The Paradox Hotel.

I received a copy of this story from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 stars

I love time travel and any story that messes with time so when I read the synopsis, I had a feeling I'd like this one. And I did! Just not as much as I thought I would so I had to round down.

I've read Rob's work before so I knew a little of what to expect in terms of storytelling. The time travel and the theories about time were all fascinating. And the mystery surrounding it all unfurled nicely. I never try to guess the ending when it comes to time travel stories because there are too many variables. Some surprises were more surprising than others.

There are some larger conversations happening here, too. Ones about equality and equity and entitlement. And deeper than that, ones about loss and grief and trauma. Musings on what it means to be a family, what makes up a family. These elements are beautiful and poignant on their own but they've been folded into the story in such a way that they get lost.

The primary plot has a lot going on. So much so that the emotional life of the characters drops in and out like spotty wifi. It makes it hard to connect to and makes it hard to care about what happens to them. Sure, it's an entertaining read but it isn't one that hit me in the feels. It has the potential to be one that I carry with me but it falls short on delivery.

I don't know if I'd recommend this one or not.

This was the standout of the weird fiction this quarter, significantly better than Atlas Six, would reccomend

The Paradox Hotel is one of those bizarre, mind-bending, unique reads that you can't help but respect and adore. This twisty, sci-f, futuristic murder mystery has everything! Suspense, heart, charm, and page-turning thrills.
I don't think I've ever read something quite like this. THE WAREHOUSE was a brilliant, unsettling story about corporations and power.
This is a surprising and inventive story that keeps you guessing until the very end. Rob Hart is a writer to watch out for.

This is SO not my usual genre but I LOVED this book! Totally engaging and I could picture everything about this "Hotel" and it's crazy sci-fi time-bending reality. I want to design this in a movie... like tomorrow. Or at least see it in a movie tomorrow. Ha ha ha... This was one of those books I had to get on audio as well so I could continue "reading" when I had to actually go to work or you know... not sit on the couch reading. This is one of those rare books that makes me think science fiction should be on my shelves more.. Thank you NetGalley for a sneak peek because I'm now looking for Rob Hart books to binge.

This is a story about time, and travel.

I loved this book! The details about the hotel were incredibly fun, and I felt like I could see the scenes playing out- someone please make this into a movie! The protagonist was entertaining & I never felt bored seeing the world through her eyes. The elements about consequences, the impact on the brain etc were well done & raised the (already pretty high!) stakes. I also loved the end- the author somehow perfect wrapped up the story.

Thank you so much @netgalley @randomhouse & Ballantine for the eArc!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This was my introduction to Rob Hart. Hit it out of the park. This book sat in my tbr pile for awhile because of other books by authors I already follow. I shoul not have waited. This book was hard to put down and stayed on the gas. There was tech, sci-fi, thriller, security, rich assholes and so much more. Definitely a must read. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my advanced copy.

I wanted to love this one, I really did! But it ultimately missed the mark for me. Why? There was way too much going on and way too many characters to follow.

The concept was really cool - a future world which permits time travel as actual travel (don't be mistaken this is primarily for the rich as most things are), and a hotel at the center of it all. The hotel has been struggling financially, so the government decides to open it up to bids from the world's rich and elite at a summit now hosted at the hotel. January, the queer security guard lead who is getting sicker and sicker from the effects too much time travel has her hands full during this summit dealing with irate rich guests, summit coordinators who won't listen, rich bidders who believe they can do whatever they want, dinosaurs on the loose, a dead body in a room that no one else can see, and slips both into her own past where she has to confront the fate of her lost love, as well as into her future where she's being hunted and killed. A gripping who done it at it's core, but my goodness it was a lot to follow, and the overwhelming number of characters made it very difficult to keep track of who was actually doing what. I was lost more times than I was found.

Time travel is such a complex topic, I feel that the stories I enjoy the most are the ones that keep everything else fairly simple so I can focus on grasping the science parts and not also sorting through emotional turmoil, relationship dynamics, and a murder mystery.

The Paradox Hotel has a lot going for it: interesting premise, solid world building, decent characterization and some fun action sequences.

the problems i had with it were the prosaic nature of the whodunit plot & the overly saccharine denouement.

I liked this book. I'm not too big into Sci-fi but this book was about time travel, which I always find interesting, and it had a mystery as well.

The main character, January, is gay, which does make her stand out from most detectives. She's unreliable because she's "unstuck," which means that she experiences the past, present and future at any given moment. At first it was confusing, but then I realized the author put "..." whenever a time slip was coming. January is helped throughout her investigation by a drone named Ruby, and it was an awesome character. The interactions between the two were so fun and snarky. The rest of the characters were great as well. The biggest theme of the book, in my opinion, was the notion of a found family, and that's what January eventually realizes she has in her co-workers.

The mystery kept me interested. So much happened and it left me wondering how it was all connected and what the end result was going to be. I was not disappointed when the solution was finally revealed. The explanation made sense and cleared up any confusion I had around time travel and being "unstuck."

The only complaint I have is that I wish time travel had played a bigger role. I loved when January slipped and we got to witness her hunting down a man who had gone back to warn Hitler of his impending death. I wish we could have had more of that. A collection of stories about the Time Enforcement Agents would be awesome.

Overall, this was a quick read and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. The action was consistent so there was never really a part that felt long or boring.

**Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC copy. The opinions expressed herein are my own.**

This was trippy and I loved it! Mind-bending, fun, and even made you feel a little something. Definitely would recommend to any sci-fi loving friends.

This one was definitely interesting! Unlike anything I’ve read before, and I really enjoyed it. There were elements of sci-fi, fantasy, and mystery so I feel like it would appeal to readers of many genres. Would recommend!