Following a tragic family event, Jen (a wife, mother, and lawyer) finds that she can travel endlessly backwards in time to try to change past events.

First off, let me ask the following. How many of you remember the film adaptation of Charlotte's Web? The good old cartoon from the 70s? Remember the mother goose that repeats, repeats, repeats random words she says three times? Either McAllister and that goose are related, or the former doesn't realize she has the extremely annoying proclivity for tripling, tripling, tripling a word almost every, every, every other page. This little habit of hers became so, so, so apparent and obnoxious that it started to detract from the rest of the story for me.

That being said-I found the plot a little absurd, the twists a little lackluster, and the final blurb about Mom strength and time loops just completely unnecessary. This wasn't very suspenseful or thrilling for me and by the halfway point I was more than ready for this novel to reach its conclusion. The writing felt stilted and as if someone just took a very rough draft and decided to push it for publishing. (Granted I did read the ARC so maybe things were cleaned up in the version everyone else is raving about?) Regardless of whether or not we all read the same book, I didn't quite enjoy my copy like I hoped.

This was a page turner for me from start to finish. As opposed to the natural flashback story telling this is a straight trip back in time. After Jen's son murders a man in front of her home, she wakes up the next day in the past and then each night she wakes up further in the past to the start of her life with her husband Kelly. It's an interesting approach and I was totally on board waiting for it all to unravel.

THIS! THIS is how a book should be written. When the pages fly by faster than any I've read in a very long time, the world stands still around me while I immerse myself in the story, and my jaw is nearly dislocated with how many times it has dropped due to some end-of-chapter revelation .... that's a five star plus book for me! Not only did I purchase it for my library, but I have told everyone about it since I read it.

Jen is sitting in a window waiting for her son, Todd, to return home. He has a curfew, one that becomes completely irrelevant as she watches him come into view and, out of nowhere, stab a stranger to death. As Jen's world collapses around her, she's left trying to figure out how and why her happy-go-lucky boy would do such a thing. What went terribly wrong? What could she possibly have missed that led him to this, and where do they go from here?

When Jen wakes up the next morning, it's not the next morning at all. It's the day before...the same day that she watched her son murder someone. Somehow, she's given a chance to prevent Todd from destroying his life, but it won't be easy. Many strands, big and small, spanning decades into the past were woven together to form the rope pulling Todd into that worst moment of all of their lives. Each morning when Jen awakes, it is a previous day, sometimes days or weeks, sometimes months or years into the past. She will discover things she never knew about her son, her husband, her father, even herself. Only one thing is certain. No matter how far she goes back and no matter the outcome, their lives will never be the same.

While the backward timeline of Wrong Place Wrong Time isn't an entirely unique style, the way Gillian McAllister continues to wow with the details Jen missed kept me thoroughly engrossed and made it feel like I'd never read anything like this before. Her frustration would, understandably, grow each time she thought she had a way to remember things she had learned or remind others that she had spoken to them, but her attempts failed. Then the day came when she reached a point where her father was still alive. My heart wrenched along with hers as she dealt with the situation.

It seems like there were a couple of things that I should have seen coming, normally could have picked up on, but honestly, I was simply enjoying the ride too much to spend it critiquing or guessing. I wanted to know where we were going next, what we were going to find out, and how was this all going to end???

As for the final sort of "twist," it's the only thing I could have done without. I think it should have just come to its natural conclusion without then moving into the direction it did.

I will definitely be checking into the backlog of books by this author and grabbing the next one as soon as I can get my hands on it.

Thank you for NetGalley, William Morrow and Gillian McAllister for providing access to the egalley for which I've chosen to write this honest and objective review.

It is now clear to me why Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister was a nominee for the 2022 Goodreads Choice Awards, and it is also clear to me that I waited entirely too long to read it! I also only just realized this is actually my first time reading a book by this author even though I know for a fact I have more than one on my shelves. Guess we know what that means, time to dig into a backlist! I loved the writing style used in this novel and it is incredibly unique to read something that goes backwards. I can't even imagine how hard that would be to plot, and I thought McAllister really killed it. This felt basically unputdownable to me, and I wish I had the time to finish in one sitting because I definitely would have.

I highly recommend the audiobook due to the talented narrator Lesley Sharp. She did an amazing job bringing Jen to life, and I enjoyed her narration for Kelly because she didn't try to do some weird man voice, and instead just read those parts in her normal voice. Her narration was smooth and emotional, and I truly believe she heightened my enjoyment of Wrong Place Wrong Time. I would also say it would be good to go into this book as blind as possible like I did and enjoy all the twists and turns along the way. My mouth dropped open a couple of times, and I loved that the author was able to surprise me so completely multiple times. There is a police procedural aspect on top of a female sleuthing side of things, and I loved both immensely. I would recommend this to fans of mysteries, time travel, time loops, and police procedurals.

Thank you to the publishers for my complimentary listening and reader copies of this book. All opinions and thoughts are my own.

I'm a little late but gosh I loved this! The time travel element is such fun, and executed wonderfully. But I most enjoyed the relational aspect of the book: to break out of her time loop the protagonist has to get to the roots of her most important relationships. It all comes together in a way that some readers will find a little too “tied-with-a-bow” but that I found really satisfying.

I love a good time loop plot and this was fantastic! This took twists and turns that I did not see coming. I am going to need a neck brace from the whiplash this book gave me.

I have been a fan of the authors since I read Anything You Do Say. Which plays a little with the story and time. I mention that because, this too is a stand out due to its unique time telling. On the nights the clock fall back an hour, Jen also starts her time travel journey where she ends up back in time trying to save her son.

I was mesmerized trying to piece this one together. Every time Jen wakes up, it is a day further back in her past. What was so unique with that is she would find some key piece of evidence (read twist to the story) and then doesn’t get to figure out what that means since she goes backward not forward in time. I can be a little critical of fantasy type books and time travel is definitely fantasy, but this one reads like any other thriller except for the time travel. What a clever hook since if told in linear time, the plot is less remarkable.

If you are a mystery/thriller fan, you need to read this one. It will be unlike any other you read this year.

I made it to about 50% and once I sort of figured out how everyone was involved/what was going on... I didn't care. It didn't feel high-stakes enough (not to be insensitive) but I was not interested in finding out what the resolution was. So many people I know loved this, but it wasn't for me.

Excellent book!!! Can't wait for the next book by this author! Thank you for the advanced ebook to read!

A wild roller-coaster of a time-loop book! When a mother's son commits an unthinkable crime, waking up each day before the crime happens seems like a blessing in disguise. Can one change cause a different outlook?

I ended up listening to the audio of this book and while the narrator was phenomenal, I think this book is one that maybe is best read instead of listened to. It was too easy to zone out, miss how far back in time we had traveled, and just difficult to keep track of the reverse timeline.

Nevertheless, this was a fun popcorn thriller! I loved the twists and turns and big reveals. Would definitely recommend this one to thriller and suspense lovers.

Jen sees her son kill someone right in front of their house and then wakes up one day before the crime occurs and keeps travelling back in time to try to prevent her son from committing murder. This book sucked me right in. There is a lot to keep track of with the time travel and you can really feel Jenn's frustration at going back to all these points in time and trying to figure out exactly why she is where she is. This was a pretty quick read. First book by this author and I enjoyed it a lot.

Unfortunately, I have been locked out of my netgalley account for a few months and was not able to see which books I had on my list or even know to check if they downloaded properly, in order to properly read and review. I do apologize and am doing a 3 for neutral. Will update once I’m able to obtain a copy and read!

In WRONG PLACE WRONG TIME, McAllister crafted a mind-blowing and wonderfully intricate suspense novel. This clever, poignant, and tense story pushes the concept of how far a mother would go for her son.

What truly made this book so interesting and a compulsive read was how the author unraveled a mystery by going back in time with Jen as she desperately pieces together what led her son to commit murder. It was fascinating how experiencing the small moments shed new light on her perceptions, and eventually realized the true start of what led her to her original present day.

To say that I loved this book would be an understatement. The only problem I had was that I finished it too quickly. The pace, the suspense, and the characters round out a sensational thriller.

This one was a wild ride! I loved the twists and turns trying to figure out who Ryan was and how he was related in the story. I did not see the ending coming and couldn’t put this down!

'Wrong Place Wrong Time,' by Gillian McAllister is a great, twisty thriller. It's a 'Ground Hog Day' murder mystery. Really fun!

Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister is an entertaining twist on the Groundhog Day-type scenario.

First, I do really like these Groundhog Day-type stories—this is typically where the protagonist relives the same day or time period over and over. The idea is that they’re supposed to discover something or even take some type of action in the past that will change their current present and future for good.

With Wrong Place, Wrong Time, a mother is trying to stop her teenage son from becoming a murderer. But so much more is going on—how did it get to that point? And why? What signs did she miss along the way?

I keep these spoiler free so I’m not going to go much into the plot but again, I think this is an intriguing read. I like these kind of time travel-type stories and while I wish it was a bit more exciting in the beginning, the last half makes up for it. All in all a solid read.

The story starts with Jen watching her son kill someone in front of their home , but she has no clue who the victim was or why her son would do such a thing. A time travel element is quickly introduced as Jen begins slipping/jumping back through time. She witnesses certain dates/events that she feels all tie together to answer her original questions....but will she ever be able to get back to the present day? If so, can she stop the murder before it is too late?

Candidly, I am not the biggest fan of "ground hog day" stories, they tend to become far too repetitive way too fast, but I am here to tell ya.....this one worked for me! I really enjoyed the angle of solving a crime in reverse. I was taken on an emotional journey as the history of Jen, Kelly (her husband) and Todd (her son) played out. Easy for me to recommend this one as it had a great plot and character development as well!

Rating: 4 stars.

Special thanks to William Morrow and NetGalley for the ARC of Wrong Place Wrong Time for review purposes. All opinions are my own.

I love a good time loop novel, but it’s so hard to get them right. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to keep the notes on a novel like this while you’re writing it, always endeavoring to make sure you keep your loop notes in a row like so many duckies. How many revisions must it take? How many times must an author want to pull their hair out because they forgot a tiny detail and now must write a whole section over again? Never mind the editing process! The give and take relationship between editor and writer, the many discussions there must be about what needs to go and what needs to stay and just why they need to go or why they absolutely need to stay.

The cleverness of writing a time novel in reverse is that the author doesn’t have to worry about getting the details of every single day correct every time it loops. Every day is different, because our protagonist is moving backwards in time. She has a mission, and every day she lands in is somehow important to getting to the bottom of stopping her son from committing murder some day in the future. But as we move through the book (and through time) with Jen, we begin to figure out it’s not only the mystery of stopping the murder she needs to solve, but she also needs to figure out what set this whole chain of events in motion in the first place. That’s when the book goes from merely interesting to downright intriguing.

As a mother, I had so many feelings about this book in the first half. I found myself tearing up more than once reading about how Jen struggled with wondering if what happened was all her fault; if somehow she had failed somewhere along the line as a mom and that’s why her son had ended up killing a man. As she moved backward in time and saw her son grow younger, saw all the tiny things she missed or took for granted at the time like we all do, and wondered where all the time had gone and why. Her conviction to keep looking and keep digging is something I sympathized with, because I know if I were in a situation like that I would do everything possible to try and figure out why my kid killed someone so suddenly and without warning.

In the second half of the book, I sympathized with the complex and myriad emotions Jen was feeling while at the same time enjoying the upshift in both pacing and suspense. Jen goes from fumbling and trying her best to piece together this puzzle, and then an important piece clicks into place and it changes the whole game. From there on out it becomes amateur covert ops combined with a mettle only a mom can gather when her child’s life is on the line.

The bottom line is Gillian McAllister somehow manages to weave intense family drama with intriguing suspense thriller without making the book clunky or slow. It’s a wonderful and moving read.

Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for granting me access to this title.

If you love back and forth plot lines, this one is for you. It starts out a s mundane evening with Jen waiting up for her son to get home by curfew. She looks out the window only to witness him stab a man dead. The night is a blur of emotion as her son is arrested.

She wakes the next day feeling devastated only to realise it it actually the day before. She starts traveling back inn time to piece this all together. It was a roller coaster of a read! It was not my favorite with the science fiction part of time travel, but a good read overall.

I’ve been seeing this book everywhere and I get terrible FOMO so I was very excited to be offered the opportunity to read Wrong Place, Wrong Time. And it absolutely lived up to my expectations! It’s a story told in reverse so you need to pay a little more attention to the timeline, but I was in awe of how Gillian was able to do that!

Jen is waiting up for her 18 yr old son to return home way night when she sees her son get into an altercation with a man and she runs outside to see her son stab this man to death. The police are called and her son is taken to the police precinct. After several hours at the police m, she finally goes home and to sleep, but she wakes up and it’s like nothing has happened? It’s because it’s the day before the murder! Can Jen alter the past to prevent the future?

This book examines the love of a mother and how far she will go to clear her son’s name. It also shows about mom guilt even though her son is older. But it also shows how much you never really know what’s happening in someone’s head. Jen thought she knew her own family, but each chapter revealed more that she was shocked to find out.

You can absolutely see why this book was a @reesesbookclub pick! It’s definitely one you want to discuss with friends! I loved the very unique storytelling and it was just a complete page turner. I had to know what happened next!

5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️