Review: Time and Again (History Mystery #1) by Deborah Heal Narrator - Michelle Babb : #Blogmas Day 18

Title: Time and Again
Series: History Mystery #1
Author: Deborah Heal
Audio Narrator:  Michelle Babb
Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery, Science Fiction, Time Travel
Format: Audiobook

My Rating: ★ ★ ★

Goodreads Summary: 
Time and Again
book 1

An old house + A new computer program = The travel opportunity of a lifetime…to another century.



Abby Thomas is spending the summer in a run-down old house with a bratty pre-teen named Merrideth she is supposed to tutor. Not a dream job. But it does come with perks.

There’s John Roberts, a devastatingly attractive neighbor who is almost too wonderful to be real.

And there’s the new computer program Beautiful Houses—also too amazing to be real. No one knows how it works, but with it she can rewind and fast-forward the lives of all the people who ever lived in the house, including Charlotte Miles.

In 1858, the house is a train stop on the Alton & Chicago Line. And Charlotte is stuck there serving meals to the passengers, wondering if she’ll ever get to have any fun. And then she meets two travelers who change her life forever.

There’s James McGuire with whom she falls in love. And there’s his boss, a young Springfield lawyer named Abraham Lincoln. His debate with political opponent Stephen Douglas catapults him onto the national stage. And it inspires Charlotte to take up the cause of abolition.

The House

A stop on the Alton & Chicago Line. A stop on the Underground Railroad.

Watching the house’s history unfold, Abby and Merrideth gain a new perspective on their own lives as time and again they see God’s loving hand in the lives of its inhabitants.
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 My Review:

“Desire to learn is one of the things that distinguishes man from other animals. And when that desire is completely gone, that person has become something less than human.”   




Overall I did find this to be an interesting story. In the beginning it was very slow and was kind of information overload especially about stuff that later on had nothing to do with the story. Towards the last two in a half hours of this audio book it got really interesting as we got to Time Travel and see what had happened there in the past.
Abby and Meredith had a rough start to their summer together. With Meredith feeling abandoned and unloved by her parents she's stopped with her grades and her own personal health. Slowly though Abby gets to her with the help of time traveling and learns why she acts the way she does and what's going on that makes her so closed off to the rest of the world. Through learning the history that had happened there in the past Abby gets Meredith to start caring again not only about others, but about herself as well and shows her that just because her parents aren't noticing these things doesn't mean that she should stop doing them. Instead, she should keep excelling for herself and maybe one day they will notice and if not than at least she is bettering herself.
I would highly recommend the audio book version of this just because of how slow it is in the beginning and without it I doubt you will want to know what happens when the time traveling starts. Michelle did an amazing job of distinguishing between the different character voices and I always knew who was talking.

	Thank you to Michelle Babb (audio narrator) for giving me the opportunity to listen and review this book in return for my honest review.