Last month, I read Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister. I was intrigued after reading a quick blurb about its premise on another website and even though I had/have a stack of books sitting on my dresser waiting to be read, I made an impulse buy and moved it to the top of my list.
I am so glad that I did. It’s a GREAT book. From start to finish, I could not put it down. There were twists that I did not see coming and turns that I spotted from a mile away. I loved it and was sad when I finished it.
Before I get too ahead of myself, the premise of the story is this: a woman, Jen, witnesses her otherwise nerdy, harmless son, Todd, commit a murder just after midnight on October 30, and goes to bed distraught with her husband, Kelly. When she wakes up the next morning, it’s October 29 again. She continues to wake up in reverse, needing to put together the clues that she missed in order to prevent the murder from happening in the future. It’s basically a reverse Russian Doll, which the author mentions in her acknowledgments as the inspiration behind the story.
It’s woven together fantastically from start to finish. You’re along for the ride as Jen uncovers clues that she both lived through the first time around without realizing their significance and discovers for the first time by changing her original actions. She also re-lives important moments that she’d missed out on the first time around. Jen sometimes manages to convince other characters what’s going on with her only to have them forget when she wakes up in an earlier point in the timeline, as they have yet to live that day like she has. It’s just a really great, well-executed concept.
Like I said above, there are plot twists that I definitely did not see coming, which tends to be rare nowadays (#humblebrag). There were also storylines that I saw coming from the moment a character or situation was introduced, haha, though it did not hinder my enjoyment of the novel at all. The side characters and plots are equally engaging and it all weaves together quite nicely in the end. I definitely recommend this book. I’m not sure what other type of books Gillian McAllister writes but I keep meaning to check them out. If you have any suggestions of books by McAllister or similar novels by other authors, please let me know in the comments!
