Fifty years in the future, time travel has been invented and put to use as a tourist attraction for rich travelers at the Paradox Hotel. January Cole is a Time Enforcement Agency officer at the hotel there to make sure nobody alters the timestream. But time travel leaks radiation and causes those who travel too frequently to "slip" in time. During a conference of trillionaires there to buy the hotel out from under the US government, January slips and discovers a murder that has yet to occur. She has to race to figure out who is behind the future murder and how they factor into all of the strange occurrences happening around the hotel's auction.

At it's core, The Paradox Hotel is a science fiction thriller. I loved January Cole and all of her snark, it added a fun tone to the book despite it tackling some grim themes like grief. The language was easily digestible, plot well-paced and laced with some great twists. If you like mind benders or Blake Crouch's work, you'll probably love Paradox Hotel. Like Crouch's work, Paradox Hotel is rooted firmly in character while still delivering an action-packed plot. For those who love a little heart with their thrills. I also loved that it was casually diverse with plenty of BIPOC and LGBTQ characters without that being the central focus.

The only issue I ran into is that there was a massive cast of characters and at times I couldn't keep them straight. Between all of the staff, the trillionaires and their entourages, it simply felt too stacked and some of the characters ended up falling a little flat. It was realistic because it is a hotel, but I think I would have been less confused during the first half and connected with the characters more throughout had the cast been a little more streamlined and some of the characters combined. There were too many names and roles and motivations to track. The characters who stood out were fantastic though. January, Mena, and Mbaye especially.

I obviously still absolutely enjoyed it. It was a fun ride that kept me guessing until the end and would definitely recommend.

The older I've gotten, the more I've come to appreciate the value of time. It may be cliche to say, but time really is the one commodity that we can't get more of. As someone who sets a time-based reading goal each year, I always feel the pressure of the weekly clock resetting, urging me to finish my current read, publish my latest review, and move on to the next book for the next week. It can be quite overwhelming. I can't tell you how many times I've wished for just one extra hour to finish a book or polish a review before publishing it. With age comes the realization that there will never be enough time. There will always be a book to read or a review to write and I'm okay with that. But what if we could travel back in time? Would you take the chance to revisit your past, have one extra moment with someone you loved, or even place yourself directly in a historical event? In Rob Hart's latest novel, The Paradox Hotel, he imagines a future where all of that and more is possible.

Years ago, the science behind time travel was perfected. It was hailed as the kind of innovation that would define generations for years to come, a once-in-a-lifetime breakthrough of social, cultural, and technological clout. The possibilities of time travel seemed endless, but in the hands of the US Government, they quickly did what governments do best. They monetized it. The Paradox Hotel was born, a place where only the wealthiest of tourists could pay to visit different time periods. They each come dressed in the various garb of their destinations, eager to pay whatever price necessary to tour the past.

January Cole, head of security for the hotel, is no stranger to unusual happenings. They come with the territory. The occasional stowaway from a bygone era or the random blip in the timeline is inevitable. That's just the price you pay when you are in such close proximity to the ever-continuing timeline. Recently though, things have been getting more and more stressful. You see, like all good government services, the Paradox Hotel is running at a deficit. The promise of time travel, even at astronomical prices, isn't what it used to be. Just like space travel years ago, the government is looking to privatize time travel and sell off the hotel. The world's wealthiest citizens each salivate at the idea of taking control of such a powerful resource.

That's not the only headache ringing through Cole's brain. Before she was head of security, January guided the tours through time, ensuring each of the guests behaved and did nothing to alter the timeline ahead. She was pulled off of this job when she became "unstuck" from the timeline. Now she falls into a kind of limbo, never fully stuck in the past, present, or future. These episodes of involuntary time travel are getting worse, causing her to see things that others can't. Today, January has stumbled upon a corpse in one of the hotel rooms, though she's uncertain of who or when the crime took place. For all she knows, this may be a glimmer of things to come. One thing is certain. January is the only person equipped to solve the case.

I first became aware of Rob Hart's writing when I read his 2019 novel The Warehouse. That work of speculative fiction was a modern Orwellian tale that perfectly captured the predicaments of our modern times. I enjoyed it so much that I eagerly accepted a copy of The Paradox Hotel when his publisher offered it to me earlier this year. This new book falls more into the science fiction category than what I'd normally read, but I couldn't help but be drawn into the premise. Hart grounds the more fanciful concepts of time travel with character motivations of greed, regret, and grief that are universal to past, present, and future. I found myself having to really focus on the plot to fully understand the complexities of the world more than I was prepared to. Still, I found myself invested enough in the main character to keep the pages turning. The end left me feeling more perplexed by my response to it all than anything else. On one hand, I was glad to be finished with a book that challenged me to grasp the intricacies of the mechanics of the world, especially as the genre was outside of my normal reading habits. On the other hand, I can't help but feel as if spending more time becoming acquainted with the world and the characters would have increased my enjoyment of the story on the whole. I loved the concept and idea behind the novel, but I can't say that I ultimately loved reading it. Your results may vary, but I do believe that Hart's skills as an author make this one worth the effort.

Thank you NetGalley for this title in exchange for my honest opinion. As a fan of psychological thrillers, I first thought it was going to satisfy my reading time, but soon found it to be a time travel book and lost interest quickly. For those that love SCI-Fi, this is the book for you! The author has exquisite writing details and researched the info to a "T". Thank you for allowing me to read this even when it wasn't what i was interested in.

The Paradox Hotel is one of the most unusual books I've read in a very long time. You check in and board a "flight" to the past. Amazing! I found myself wanting to check in so badly! Throw in a murder mystery, a a little bit of politics and some very wealthy people and you have a fun, terrific & unputdownable novel! I adored it! Thank you so much!

To be honest, sci-fi is the genre I tend to struggle with the most; however, I have been reading more excellent multi genre books that are mystery/sci-fi. I was hopeful this book would win me over also. This book was more science fiction and it overshadowed the mystery aspect.

Being neurodivergent, I have an extremely difficult time processing and comprehending when you take a highly known brand name and then using that name as something entirely different. Also, making up weird names for common items that are the same thing in our world. It’s sometimes hard for me to decipher social conversations and situations without those added in unknown variables.

If you do enjoy space travel with sci-fi then I would recommend reading it, and let me know what you think.

Thank you for the gifted copy NetGalley.

I checked into the Paradox Hotel ready to be astounded by spectacular sights and time-travel-ful tourist traps. I was greeted by a rather grating protagonist and given a lackluster tour of a rather mundane hotel with only a whirlwind introduction to a rather large but dull cast of characters and some random bits of disconnected exposition to solve a confusing murder with unclear stakes. While I held out hope that my vacation would turn itself around by, I found myself mentally checked-out around halfway through my stay, and I remained in this bored state until the end when I turned in my room key indifferently.

In addition to never connecting to our main character whom I found consistently annoying and self-centered, I think one of my biggest issues with the book was the lack of connection I felt to the "sci-fi" setting. This world has advanced technology in the form of timetravel and AI drones, yet the rest of the items used and referenced (smartphones, weapons, appliances, pop cultural./literary references) all seem to be contemporary. There did not appear to be any impact on day-to-day technologies nor any particular extrapolation into a believable 'future' that might co-exist with such tech. As such, I really had a hard time visualizing the world and the role of the characters in it beyond "alt-history hotel airport for traveling through time instead of space."

In short, I felt this book had a lot of potential with its sassy lead and the creative setting, yet neither was explored in a manner that I found particularly deep nor engaging. I found myself skimming through what should have been riveting action-packed scenes and an epic climax, and while I did not find the end confusing, I did feel certain emotional beats unearned with rather spontaneous character growth that had not been particularly present over the course of the book and confusing ramifications for the greater world of the setting.

A sincere thanks to Random House and NetGalley for providing me access to an ARC of the Paradox Hotel in exchange for an honest review!

Rob hooks you in with dinosaurs, but keeps you there for a touching and heartbreaking story of love and loss over time. Entertaining and poignant.

I'm going to be honest, this is the kind of book where I think a lot of the fun and charm gets lost in translation when read as an ebook. I liked the book, and I liked the story, but the formatting on my iPad was basic and straightforward and didn't assist in helping the reader understand which of the main character's mental state we were experiencing. I will still recommend it to people because it's potentially a really fun story, but I will be sure to tell them to get the physical book.

"Who watches the watchman?"

I've got to be honest, I almost dnf'd this novel. This is a read that takes time jumps and time travel to another level. The mixture of past, present and future with little dinosaurs running around, the echoes of "ghosts" and the detective based Time Enforcement team took a little getting used too.

There comes a moment when everything starts to just click and you start noticing the truly unique aspects hidden in the pages:

- A hotel that lets the wealthy take trips to the past.

- The concept of characters being "unstuck" where their mental capacity degrades due to years of heading into the past to prevent people from changing timelines. Not to mention the weird past and future hallucinatory glimpses that pop up.

- The effects of grief from the loss of someone you love.

- The underlying detective story that wraps sci-fi and thriller together in a neat little package.

- The unique ending that makes you reconsider certain ideas.

If my review seems a bit out there, well... I blame the book. This is a book that should be experienced slowly and contemplatively. A bit of dark sarcastic humor, random dinosaurs and well plotted depth made this a memorable novel.

Thank you Ballantine Books/Penguin Random House for the gifted digital copy in exchange for an honest and unbiased review

Siiiiiigh….. I was really excited about this, but it was not what I expected it to be. The pacing was inconsistent, the characters were forgettable, and the world building was messy and poorly executed. I really hoped it would be great, so I am pretty bummed.

The Paradox Hotel is a delightful blend of mystery and science fiction. It takes place at a hotel that serves the wealthy who come to time travel. It’s beautifully designed with outstanding service and January Cole is hotel security. Part of her job is ensuring the guests who feel so very entitled do not violate the rules of time travel and leave the past untouched. But of course, there are always a few and that’s why suddenly she sees baby dinosaurs running through the lobby.

But then, no one else is seeing what she sees. Not the dead man on the fifth floor, not the dinosaurs, and definitely not Mina, her lover who died recently. IT seems that January has finally succumbed to the sickness that affects those who travel through time too much.

And this is all happening just when the richest and most powerful people in the world have convened to buy the hotel, and transfer it from the government to a privatized corporation. January is not thrilled with privatization, but she’s not the one causing the trouble with time.



I loved The Paradox Hotel from beginning to end. The mystery was far bigger than one dead body and January was competent to unravel it with the help of a few glitches and ghosts. What made this a great story, though, was not the ghosts, the glitches in time, the excitement of chasing dinosaurs, or any of the clever stuff. It was the humanity that came through from the staff and from January. They love each other and will forgive each other some grievous wounds. This is a remarkable story, full of so much creativity, but even with all that, it’s the emotional heft that makes it memorable.

I received an e-galley of The Paradox Hotel from the publisher through NetGalley

The Paradox Hotel at Ballantine | Penguin Random House
Rob Hart

I received a complimentary copy of The Paradox Hotel from NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

I never read anything like this before. This was a very interesting and strange novel. Time travel, hallucinations, and murder... Some of it was a little hard to follow at first, but made sense later in the novel. This was an enjoyable read.

Seemed like it wanted to be something much bigger than it actually was. The concept of it was really cool and well thought out. However, the execution was really flat. The main character was so awful, caustic and acrid that it was hard to read - I know she was supposed to be grieving, but no one is that much of an asshole. It made the redemption in the end that much less impactful. It also strayed too far from sci-fi into the philosophical. Ending was super hokey.

Great combo of murder and time travel. Both are laid out flawlessly with a great delivery. Loved the twists and turns.
Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book

THE PARADOX HOTEL is not your usual kind of hotel. One actually can do time-travel here through the timeport; in addition, it’s haunted with some incomprehensible dark secrets.
January Cole, the head security of the hotel, has the ability to see the unseen and sense the invisible, will take one on a heart-pounding, extraordinary, and twisty ride to some place mysterious.
Buckle up! Rob Hart’s THE PARADOX HOTEL is about to launch you into a sci-fi world full of suspense and mysteries, with a tinge of humor that keeps you entertained!
I would like to thank NetGalley for giving me this unique experience of the unthinkable and unexplainable.
#NetGalley
#TheParadoxHotel

Overall, I greatly enjoyed this read. It continuously gave me a level of humor and satire throughout, mixed with the action, which kept me interested and coming back for more. The level of character development was well done, especially with the overlay of the humanitarian foci of love, family, and altruism, contrasted with the futuristic sci fi take on time travel, the physics behind it, and its implications. There is plenty of action to keep readers engaged, and the layers of mystery the main character January works through is well done.
My only slight criticism is the ending left me wanting more - more details about what happened and more closure with the tension built throughout. That being said, I understand the author's intent, and it was rather clever.

Rob Hart’s new novel, The Paradox Hotel, rests on a brilliant concept: a murder set in a hotel for time travelers, an idea that should have Netflix execs salivating. Unfortunately, given literally all of history to play with, the book doesn’t go far enough, falling short of its compelling premise.
Set 50 years from now, the Paradox Hotel is a way-station for people as they embark on the ultimate in tourism: trips to see dinosaurs up close, walk the streets of ancient Rome, or watch the battle of Normandy as it happened. It’s essentially an airport hotel where people wait for their jaunt to the Cretaceous or the Napoleonic era.

This seems to be the only way humanity uses time travel, because it’s so hideously expensive that only trillionaires can afford it. The government runs the Paradox, but it’s a luxury resort that caters exclusively to the very richest people on the planet.

In its actual details, however, the hotel doesn’t sound very upscale. The coffee urn is always empty; the lobby is an atrium a “hundred feet high;” it has popcorn ceilings in the hallways. I’ve stayed in more impressive Embassy Suites.

Paradox Hotel
‘The Paradox Hotel,’ by Rob Hart (Ballantine Books).
We see all this through the eyes of January Cole, our narrator and the head of hotel security. She insults her bosses and the hotel’s wealthy clients, wears ripped jeans, calls her subordinate “kid,” and tells people that she will spend the rest of her life ruining the rest of theirs.

In short, January is one of those take-no-shit mavericks who’d never occupy a position of responsibility at any place as mind-bogglingly important as the Paradox. She’s supposed to be stellar at her job, but there’s little evidence for that.

To be fair, January is dying. She’s spent too long too close to the time engines, traveling into the past in her former job as a Time Enforcement Agent—someone who keeps people from messing with history. They made her head of hotel security as a reward for past service. Now her brain is collapsing under the weight of all that chronology. She lives moments from her past and future in what look like tiny seizures to the people around her. She could be standing in the hotel’s lobby, but she’s looking at glimpses from her childhood or from events that haven’t happened yet.

January hides her increasing disability because it’s the only way she can see Mena, her now-dead lover, again. These stolen minutes are all January lives for, and, for her, they’re worth dying.

Then January’s flash-forwards show her the death of a visitor to the hotel, and she’s determined to solve the murder before it happens.

The arrival of four bidders in an auction to determine who will be the Paradox’s new owner complicates matters. January gets visions of attempts on their lives, and ghost echoes of plots and conspiracies. Plus there are some baby velociraptors running around who got loose from an illegal dinosaur smuggler.

This is where some clear rules for time travel would help a lot. But Hart never really explains how any of this works. At first, he describes time as a block of all possible events happening at once, and humans live their lives on a straight line through it, unable to perceive anything more because of our limited perspective. The past is the past, unchangeable even with time travel. It already happened, so you can only witness it.

Except when you can, maybe. Time travel, in this world, does not have the math-like precision of Dexter Palmer’s Version Control, or Sean Ferrell’s The Man in the Empty Suit, or the stories of Ted Chiang. Even Avengers: Endgame, which January quotes as a punchline several times—had a clearer explanation for its time-heist.

History is supposed to be fixed, but January spent her earlier career stopping people from altering the timestream by, say, rescuing Hitler. Tourists can bring things back from the past — like dinosaur eggs — but no people have ever hitched a ride with them, or at least not that the book ever mentions.

The design specs for January’s present, which is supposed to be our future, are a little sketchy as well. Everyone still carries phones. Tech-bros and rich people are still instantly recognizable by their outfits. Medicine does not yet have a cure for peanut allergies. Hart gives climate change a fleeting mention and otherwise ignores it. Some guests are angry at the idea of a nonbinary desk clerk. It’s almost as if nothing has changed in five decades.

January keeps plowing forward, despite a few half-hearted attempts by her boss to sideline her. (It’s a good measure of how lax security is at the Paradox that January walks around free even after she shows that she’s a danger to herself and others.) Nobody can see the murder victim except her — he seems to be a symptom of her disease — and even in an age of limitless surveillance, he has no name or ID. Her AI-drone assistant — a kind of floating Alexa, which hovers constantly over her shoulder — turns into an idiot ball when asked any useful question, including, “Who is that guy?”

There are other glitches to keep the plot moving—security cameras go down, the power fails, doors unlock, someone tampers with January’s meds—but aside from the velociraptors running wild, not much happens for long stretches.

Which is frustrating, given Hart’s considerable skills. His previous novel, The Warehouse, took place inside the operations center of a dystopian Amazon-like corporation, which kept its employees housed in tiny dorm rooms, running their lives for the optimum good of the company. Hart made that claustrophobic setting work, and used it as a lens to look at the world which allowed such a future to exist.

That made The Paradox Hotel one of my most anticipated books of 2022—a year which sounds like science fiction itself—and yet, it remains painfully cautious.

Rather than an exploration of all the possibilities of a hotel for time-travelers, we get January reliving the trauma of Mena’s death, over and over, a punishment she thinks is her reward. But again, the fiddly rules of the book make her insistence on staying at the hotel seem arbitrary. There is nothing that says she can only see Mena if she’s physically inside the Paradox. She relives other moments without being anywhere near those actual locations.

It does not help that January is a bully, cruel and insulting to the people who show an inexplicable tolerance for her dickishness. Hart tries to use her flashbacks to her time with her lover—who the other hotel staffers genuinely loved—as a way to make her seem sympathetic. Instead, they they just make Mena seem like that friend who’s dating a huge asshole while everyone else suffers.

January’s murder mystery turns out to be only a clue to the larger crime of what’s actually happening in the Paradox. There is an action-packed sprint to the climax, but it’s unclear if anything January does makes a difference, or if time was always going to proceed along this course.

Maybe that’s the moral of the Paradox Hotel: everyone there is stuck in a future where the mistakes of the past get repeated over and over. Which makes it a strangely fitting tale for our own time.

Lots of “What Ifs” About Time Travel

5 out of 5 stars
Having checked out and thoroughly enjoyed Rob Hart’s last novel, The Warehouse – I knew going into The Paradox Hotel I was going to be in for a treat. Then I see that it’s about timeports, time travel, murder, etc I got even more excited.

Hart was able to tell a story that really messed with my mind as I was reading it. The main character is, for lack of a better term, a time cop. Her job is to make sure that things aren’t stolen from time, people aren’t trying to mess with timelines, etc. Now that et cetera part is important here because playing with time so much apparently has an effect on people’s minds. It causes what Hart calls “slips” where they see things that aren’t there (or aren’t there… yet). Without going into too much detail – those play a big part in The Paradox Hotel, but there’s so much more.

I knew from the last book that things were going to be interesting as the book ramped up – but throwing in time travel (without actually doing much time traveling) and looking at it from the point of view of someone whose mind can’t be fully trusted made this such a suspenseful and hard to predict book. Every time I thought I had the timeline or people figured out… poof.

It’s almost as if this was a time-travel adjacent book. Like sure there’s lots of talk about time traveling but this is almost like “what happens to those who stay behind” mixed with a “what happens when the timeline starts to get messed up?”

This book kept me enthralled throughout and I kept coming back for more knowing that Hart wasn’t going to let me down. This was a great book about forgiving yourself, finding yourself, grief, intrigue, and more.

It has been a while since I have read any science fiction. It’s not that I don’t like the genre (I do); it’s just that I haven’t found any that has caught my eye. Then I started seeing reviews for The Paradox Hotel, which interested me. I figured that I would read it when it was published. So, imagine my surprise (and delight) when I got an invite to review from the publisher.

The Paradox Hotel had an exciting plotline. January Cole is the head of security at The Paradox Hotel, an exclusive hotel where the mega-rich can travel back in time. Her job is to make sure that the guests don’t do anything to disrupt the timeline and to take care of any security threats. The bidders meet at The Paradox when the government decides to privatize time travel. But, as January discovers, someone is willing to do anything to swing the vote in their favor. Can January figure out who is behind the attacks and their motive?

The Paradox Hotel had a fast-moving plotline. The entire book takes place within a couple of days of the bidders arriving at the hotel. There was a slight lag in the middle of the book, but it wasn’t anything that I couldn’t get past.

January was an unlikeable character in The Paradox Hotel. She was unlikable, reckless, and had a potty mouth. But, I had some sympathy for her. She had suffered an unimaginable loss in the recent past and had a traumatic childhood. I did feel bad for her because of those events, and they did help me understand why she was so unlikable. I wish I could say that I grew to like her during the book, but if I would be lying. She was a hot mess.

The author very well wrote the mystery angle of The Paradox Hotel. I couldn’t figure out who was behind the attacks or the why until the end of the book. There were so many red herrings and diverting plotlines that it made it impossible for me to pin down the exact person.

The author just as well wrote the science fiction angle of The Paradox Hotel. I was fascinated by the premise that time travel could be normalized and used as a vacation (even if it was only for the super-rich). There were brief references to people traveling to Egypt (I will never be able to listen to Walk Like an Egyptian without remembering a specific scene in the book again). I also like that the author took a creative angle with people being Unstuck. In the book, Unstuck is someone who has traveled back in time one too many times. People who are Unstuck can see past, future, and current events. There are various levels of being Unstuck, with four being the highest. January is level 2 and takes medication to control it. If she doesn’t take the medication, she can see past, current, and future events. I was fascinated by that!!

I loved the representation that The Paradox Hotel had. There were gay and gender-neutral characters. I firmly believe that January’s girlfriend was trans (the scene where January sees Mena as a child).

The secondary characters were essential to The Paradox Hotel. Ruby, January’s AI assistant, was my favorite secondary character. It reminded me of Jiminy Cricket (being January’s conscience), and a big plus, it was as big of a wiseass as January.

I wouldn’t say I liked the end of The Paradox Hotel. It was the only part of the book that I didn’t like. The author did wrap up the storylines, but I was left feeling that there should have been more.

I would recommend The Paradox Hotel to anyone over 21. There is language, violence, and sexual situations.

This book had absolutely everything I could possibly want.

A grumpy and snarky but sympathetic protagonist, time travel, a murder mystery, dinosaurs, queer representation, and so much more. It was so thrilling and satisfying, but also bittersweet, and it touched beautifully on grief.