I was excited to read this book but the first couple chapters determined that this book was not for me. The writing style is amateur and not something I expect from an author who has written a book before. The parts I've read sound like a fanfiction of Outlander and knowing that the author is a fan of it I'm sure that the plot will be very similar to it further into the book. I didn't connect with any characters and found our main character annoying with how she kept lying to her family about school when it was really no big deal. The cover of this book is amazing and gives me high fantasy vibes. I don't think it matched the book at all.

This book was just all over the place and just wasn't for me. I was excited about the premise but the execution wasn't there.

For me, this book was Project Red for a long time. I'm so happy to have read the ARC, I enjoyed it very much.

Klara feared she hit the strange Scotsman with her car, but Callum is from another time entirely. Klara is the last Pillar of Time, an anchor point in the timeline and a hiding place for magic. Callum must protect her, especially after he was unable to protect the previous Pillar. A force is hunting the Pillars to claim the power within them. Klara and Callum must learn to trust each other and work together to stop that force, and they may create a tighter connection.

Starting with Callum in the past, we see exactly how traumatic his friend's death was, and why it's personal for him to protect Klara. As for her introduction, it's the ordinary, everyday world that we're used to, so painfully bland that we want that inciting incident to come to shake it up. The pacing is interrupted with extensive dialogue giving us backstory as Klara learns it, but it doesn't feel exciting. Learning what the pillars are and why they were created doesn't feel important, even if it shakes Klara's perspective. Too much seems to simply fall into their laps, so there's no real struggle in discovering the truth.

I think part of the problem is that the plot is very common, and the only new aspect of this seems to be the Celtic mythology layered in. As much as I enjoyed the premise and looked forward to reading this, the actual reading felt more like a chore. It's not a bad book, just one that didn't seem as gripping as it should have been.

Breaking Time is an interesting time travel/fantasy story, and is the first of a series.

Klara and her dad moved to Scotland after her mother's death. Klara planned on enrolling in the astronomical sciences program at University of Edinburgh, but now she has lost the desire to do so. She and her dad are running a bed and breakfast in an old manor house, filled with Scottish antiques her mother had collected during her life. But Klara is a bit stuck, not sure what to do with her life, and not sure how to tell her father she had told the University she wasn't enrolling.

In 1568, Callum had just left The Black Hart Inn, looking for his friend Thomas. When he finds him, he has been attacked by a shadow creature and is dying. The shadow man attacks Callum as well, stabbing him and leaving him for dead. He says he has one more Pillar to find, and disappears in a fog of his making. Callum gathers up enough strength to chase after the man, and suddenly finds himself surrounded by light and falling into another world.

Klara goes out for a drive, and almost hits a man (Callum) standing in the middle of the road. When she investigates, he is crumpled on the ground and his clothes are bloody (though there's no visible wound). She rescues him, takes him home with her and calls an ambulance. However, they can find nothing wrong with him, and she returns him to The Black Hart, where he says he can get home from.

But Klara feels a pull to help him, and follows him into the woods, where they find a fairy ring, and the Shadow Man attacks them. It seems that Klara is the last Pillar that the Shadow Man is looking for. Callum and Klara must work together to defeat the evil trying to kill all of the Pillars to take on the strength of a god.

The mythology of this story is fascinating, but the overall story didn't quite work for me. However, this is the first of the series, and I am hoping book 2 will be better.

Thanks to Netgalley for this advance copy. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I wanted to love this book--the cover and the premise had a lot going for it! While I did see the similarities to Outlander, this book is geared towards YA readers and focuses a lot on time traveling and the gods and goddesses of Scotland rather than history and a love story like Outlander. However, I didn't fall in love with the characters like I wanted to which made following their journey a bit more difficult.

Klara and Callum's characters didn't feel very dimensional or deep; reading them felt very surface level, so their love story didn't really do it for me.

But, I actually did like the time traveling/goddess/magic aspect of it. While the writing wasn't great, I still enjoyed what the author was trying to do. And the twist at the end intrigued me. So while there isn't a lot going for it, the premise isn't all that bad if you get past the characters being a bit flat.

I think I was hoping for a SEEKER vibe from this book. Long tradition of people trained to protect a magical portal or something. Time travel to stop the bad buy from stealing the magic. Something like that. BREAKING TIME isn’t that story, not exactly. Which is okay. I made assumptions from the cover copy that turned out to be inaccurate.

At the beginning of the story, Klara doesn’t know she’s anybody important. She doesn’t believe in spiritual stuff– she’s much more comfortable with things being explained by science. Then a sixteenth century Scotsman pretty much tumbles into her life, and suddenly her scientific explanations come up empty.

I liked the story and the tension between Callum and Klara. I wish that some questions would have been answered, though. Like, Callum travels in time, but how? The story didn’t explain that. Also, it seems like someone else killing Klara (or maybe even her doing that herself) would have also resolved the magical problem they faced, but that idea never came up, either. I wouldn’t have wanted that to happen, of course, but it seemed weird that the whole magic system that’s set up left that loophole wide open and no one ever addressed it.

BREAKING TIME ends in a whirlwind followed by a pretty steep cliffhanger, so I expect there will be a follow-up novel. Initially I’d assumed this was a standalone, but judging from the ending, I think it’s not.

On the whole, I liked Klara and Callum’s relationship and some of the historical details, but I wish there had been more explanation holding the pieces of the story together. I enjoyed reading it, but I’m not sure I would continue the series.

Fans of The Falconer series by Elizabeth May might enjoy this one.

I think Breaking Time is gonna be one of those books that people will either love it or not with very little in between. I'll admit that time-travel romance can be a bit of a hit or miss with me. I tend to compare it to the one pretty much everybody knows. No matter how hard I try to avoid doing just that, it always happens. Well, this one is a lot more Outlander-similar than I would've expected. Keep in mind that it is YA, and with the writing style - mostly characters and dialogue - think Outlander for the younger teens. I'm a long way past that age, but I still like a good YA book once in a while. This one did hold my interest enough to keep me reading til the end. So, if you like time travel romance and have been looking for a young adult version, you might want to check this one out, but be prepared for some unanswered questions and a wait for a sequel.

Loved this third book from Sasha. I think the writing is finally coming into its own and the love for the setting and story really shines through. A fun and adorable read!

Thank you NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
I was pleasantly surprised by how much fun I had while reading this. We follow main character Klara who hits Callum with her car. He’s traveled from the past and things are getting weird.
I liked Klara and Callum. They were a little surface level as far as development, but I still had fun following them.
I know everyone is calling this a self insert Outlander story, but I thought it was pretty different from the outlander books. There was a lot more magic. The magic wasn’t fully explained which I didn’t love (I like to know the limits of the magic and how it all works).
Overall, this isn’t a favorite or anything. But I had fun while I was reading it.

"It was one thing to be a bard who told these stories for a living, but it was another thing to speak like a madman of evil spirits and fairies as if they were tangible things away from the lyrics of a song or the pages of a book."

Thank you to NetGalley, Inkyard Press, and Sasha Alsberg for the opportunity to not only read Breaking Time in exchange for an honest review, but to be a part of the blog tour as well.

As a fan of Zenith (co-written by Sasha Alsberg) as well as the books and TV show Outlander, I thought this book sounded like a pretty good fit for me. While the writing craft is much more simplistic than Zenith, Breaking Time was still an enjoyable, though easy, read.

In opposition to Outlander, Callum finds himself in contemporary Scotland, pulled from the 1500's into Klara's time. This book is considered to be in the young adult genre, despite the deceiving description and cover that give it a more adult feel, though I find this book to be more in the new adult genre. There are characters exploring the idea of love for the first time (Klara and Callum) as well as having Klara go through the personal conflict of fulfilling her family's dream for her to go to college versus the path she wants to take.

Learning of Callum's travel through time, Klara gets involved in something bigger than she ever expected. She is the last of twelve pillars of time that a dark god wants. Having already slain the other eleven pillars, he just needs Klara to finalize the powers within him. Alternately, a goddess is the one who bestowed the power upon Klara and the other pillars. Klara and Calllum visit various rumored magic areas of Scotland seeking to gain the power to destroy the dark god, Llaw, before he destroys them. (This is really the only historical element to the novel besides a few architectural comparisons).

Klara, with her growing feelings for Callum and vice versa, must face Llaw's demonic dogs, as well as survive Llaw's moves against her. Callum is only mixed up in everything because his friend, Thomas, appears to  have been one of the pillars and Klara, being the last, had the connection to bring Callum to her time. Either way, they find they will go through this ordeal together and will come away thinking about their future after all is said and done...for what future can one from the twenty-first century build with someone from the 1500's? It remains to be seen.

This novel is easy to read, somewhat quick, though not as eventful as I would have liked. The writing style is simple, though the concept of time through the powers of gods and goddesses was a nice alteration from other similar works. While I was hoping for a strong stand-alone, the ending indicates further installments to Klara and Callum's story. I would recommend this book to older teens or early college age people who love a nice blend of fantasy and romance.

3.5 Stars*
This was one of my most anticipated books of the year because I have been a follower of Sasha Alsberg for years. "Zenith" and "Nexus" where not my favorites, but I was really excited to read something different from Sasha.
This story follows Klara, a young woman in Scotland who is struggling with the grief of losing her mother to cancer. She is driving late one night when she almost hits Callum, a Scotsman from over 500 years ago who has accidentally found himself in the present. Brought together, the pair needs to battle a force in order to save the world.
I had a few problems with this book mechanically. I felt like realistically, Callum should have had more pushback or been more shocked about the world because Scotland has changed DRAMATICALLY in 500 years. There were a few moments Callum was confused by his new surroundings (seeing a cellphone, or an airplane) but I still feel like he would have been more scared, intimidated, really anything other than general acceptance. The time traveling details and how Klara's powers ultimately work also seemed kind of disjointed. Time traveling is a huge undertaking to write about because there are a lot of details and plot holes that arise around the topic, and I did not feel like this was the best representation of time travel.
Klara and Callum ultimately start to fall for each other and pursue a romantic relationship, and this is my biggest gripe with the novel. The story felt very insta-lovey, which it was, and it really threw me for a loop. I did not feel like the two characters had any chemistry beforehand, and even when they started to "fall" for each other, I just thought it was weird and completely out of left field. They were literally two people thrown together in a unique way who have to work together to save time. I also do not see how their romance propelled the story forward in a meaningful way, so it felt like an unnecessary plot point. I would have appreciated this book and enjoyed it so much more if Klara and Callum were just two people who became friends.
I did enjoy reading a book set in Scotland, and it felt to me like Sasha did research not only into present day Scotland, but also Scotland of the past. I also enjoyed seeing some Scottish lore. At its bare bones, the story was fun, and I had an okay time reading it.
Will I read from Sasha Alsberg in the future? Yes, but I still do not have the highest of expectations.

I could not even get halfway through this book because it was just so boring. I didn't like either of the main characters.

Even thought it's quite entertaining I couldn't help thinking about Outlander and how this seemed a YA version of that series.
I had fun but I would recommend a crash course in British Isles mythology as it can vary according to the place.
Had fun but not my cup of tea.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

𝘉𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘛𝘪𝘮𝘦 by Sasha Alsberg is a time travel story full of romance and lore. It has strong reverse-𝘖𝘶𝘵𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳 vibes, which peeked my interest, was a quick read for me, and left off with an intriguing cliffhanger. Give it a try!

𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘈𝘙𝘊 𝘤𝘰𝘱𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘣𝘺 𝘏𝘛𝘗 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴 (𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬-𝘺𝘰𝘶!). 𝘈𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘷𝘰𝘭𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘺 𝘰𝘸𝘯.

The Review

This was such a powerful and entertaining new read! The author did such an incredible job of world-building in this narrative. Each scene felt vibrant and alive on the page, thanks to the author's incredible handle on imagery in her writing and the atmosphere she builds as the narrative progresses. The striking balance the author struck between the rich mythology of the world she created and the intimate and emotional character growth was superb. As a huge fan of mythology in general, I was immediately drawn into this narrative, but what was really fun was being introduced to new mythological figures and stories, and the intricacies of Celtic mythology definitely drew me into the story so much that I’ll be researching the mythos myself, really adding to the author's ability to draw readers in.

Yet it was the rich character development that really drew me in further and further into the story. The multiple POVs were great to have, as they added depth to both Callum’s and Klara’s stories. Their backstories and the eras from which they hail and the instant chemistry and discoveries they make about themselves along the way were truly inviting to behold on the page. Even the antagonist, who emerges from the shadows and strikes into the heart of these two protagonists, was chilling and haunting to behold and did a great job of becoming the hero’s foil in the narrative.

The Verdict

Captivating, engaging, and brilliantly written, author Sasha Alsberg’s “Breaking Time” is a must-read YA Historical Fantasy meets Time Travel story and one of my top picks for best reads of 2022. The author does a great job of traversing the influences of other series such as Outlander and The Mortal Instruments, and yet feels so original and authentic on its own at the same time, bringing magic back into the Historical Fantasy meets Highland genre. With a twist ending that left this reader eager to read more, you guys won’t want to miss out on this spectacular story.

Title: Breaking Time
Author: Sasha Alsberg
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

When a mysterious Scotsman appears out of nowhere in the middle of the road, Klara thinks the biggest problem is whether she hit him with her car. But, as impossible as it sounds, Callum has stepped out of another time, and it’s just the beginning of a deadly adventure.

Klara will soon learn that she is the last Pillar of Time—an anchor point in the timeline of the world and a hiding place for a rogue goddess’s magic. Callum is fated to protect her at all costs. A dark force is hunting for the Pillars, to claim the power of the goddess—and Klara and Callum are the only two standing in the way. Thrown together by fate, the two have to learn to trust one another and work together…but they'll need to protect their hearts from one another if they're going to survive.

This was a decent read. Nothing too unique, but nothing completely cookie cutter, either. I enjoyed Klara’s personality and I liked Callum, but sometimes his dialogue sounded like he was from the 1500s—appropriate—and sometimes it sounded like he was the boy next door—not appropriate at all and threw me out of the story. A quick read, but one I never really felt like the stakes were very high in—despite the supposed consequences of the plot.

Sasha Alsberg lives in Massachusetts. Breaking Time is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Inkyard Press in exchange for an honest review.)

Thank you to the publisher, Inkyard Press, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of Breaking Time in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

The Gist
I have been staring at my screen trying to find something to say about this story, but words aren’t coming easily today. Or perhaps there isn’t really anything to say.

I don’t mean to sound nasty. And maybe I just don’t have that much patience lately, but it’s been hard finding a good story these days.

Just look at my previous ratings of books. Mostly 2 stars. I feel like I’m just repeating myself these days.

I knew nothing about Breaking Time or the author, but was genuinely looking forward to a YA time travel story.

The Details
There was so much going on in the first chapter, I had no idea what to make of it all.

We are introduced to the first protagonist and pretty much learn his complete backstory and that of his best friend. Plus some weird stuff is going on in the shadows. I felt like my mind was pulled in too many directions. It was impossible to focus. Or even figure out which part of the info dump one is supposed to focus.

Also, I don’t think back in the 1500’s – I’m assuming that’s when the chapter takes place – “streets” was a commonly used word. I could be wrong, but it felt very modern in that scene.

Then we time travel about a half century to read about a rather grumpy, spoiled and self-centred young woman in her late teens, complaining how she is going to end up an old maid.

We also get to read about how her mother bought Scottish antiques in North America to make the Scottish inn that is actually located in Scotland look and feel more Scottish…

If you feel like throwing in the towel just reading this review, you can imagine how I felt reading Breaking Time.

To say that the writing is chaotic is an understatement. The characters are unlikeable, to say the least.

With that I must stop before the big blue vein inside my head pops.

The Verdict
Overall, I feel very discouraged thinking about Breaking Time. It makes me want to curl up in bed and never read again.

Maybe I have finally outlived my time reading YA stories.

I really enjoyed this amazing time-travel romp! I'm usually very wary of any media with this kind of premise, but this was done really well! Highly recommended, and definitely for those a bit younger that are wanting to venture into Outlander kind of territory. (But this is definitely more appropriate for a YA audience.)

Breaking Time by Sasha Alsberg is an intriguing read that pulled me in from the beginning and held my attention until the very end. A story that will take you away to another place, another time.