Gillian McAllister has been writing for as long as she can remember. She graduated with an English degree before working as a lawyer. She lives in Birmingham, England, where she writes full-time. She is the Sunday Times bestselling author of Everything But the Truth, Anything You Do Say, No Further Questions, The Evidence Against You, How to Disappear, and the Richard & Judy Book Club pick That Night. She is also the creator and co-host of the popular Honest Authors podcast. To learn more, find her online at gillianmcallister.com.
Late October. After midnight. You're waiting up for your seventeen-year-old son. He's past curfew. As you watch from the window, he emerges, and you realize he isn't alone: he's walking toward a man, and he's armed. You can't believe it when you see him do it: your funny, happy teenage son, he kills a stranger, right there on the street outside your house. You don't know who. You don't know why. You only know your son is now in custody, his future shattered. That night you fall asleep in despair. All is lost. Until you wake . . . and it is yesterday. And then you wake again . . . and it is the day before yesterday. Every morning you wake up a day earlier, another day before the murder. With another chance to stop it. Somewhere in the past lies an answer. The trigger for this crime—and you don’t have a choice but to find it . . .
This book has a really strong emotional center. Jen, a mother, is determined to do whatever she must to protect her son, Todd, from this impossible crime. And it takes her to impossible places, to uncover impossible things. Throughout it all, there's a very strong pull to understand Jen's experience as Todd's mother, and as a person who is a mother in general. It is very clear to me how this book will appeal to the book club crowd, and to mothers. While I don't really relate to those identities, I really felt that McAllister was able to capture the full range of emotions that comes with them.
Wrong Place Wrong Time is incredibly twisty! I really enjoyed that—it meant that I had a really hard time putting this one down. I also genuinely did not see any of the twists coming. I was pleasantly shocked each time something was revealed, and it was pretty often! Near the end, you may start to predict what is going on, and to start to tie everything together alongside Jen, but the initial shock factor, combined with the gratifying feeling of getting it right later on, really all works together to make for a satisfying read.
Finally, the time travel element. Time travel is so hard to wrap your mind around—it is for me, at least. Because as I'm engaging with a time travel piece of media, all I'm thinking about are all the different types of loopholes. McAllister seemed to anticipate readers like me, because even I was able to suspend reality a bit to feel how this could be realistic. The way she is able to do that is by incorporating a sort of Gandalf-like figure in Jen's journey through time, while also covering up parts of the loopholes with explanations. For me, I was just glad that McAllister recognizes the gaps in the fabric and addressed them, and that there was some science in there to pick up the rest! And of course, once you get deeper into the story, you're more concerned with how it's going to end than how it's really physically possible. (And that epilogue really will keep me up at night!)
I'm thinking that maybe I should pick up some more mysteries and thrillers after Wrong Place Wrong Time! Any recommendations? Let me know! Until then, you can find McAllister online at gillianmcallister.com.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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