A Gift of Time by Jerry Merritt

Read by Christopher Lane

The time travel tale that the love child of Robert A. Heinlein and Dean Koontz might have written--if that love child had a lighter and more deft hand with the quirky character types and folksy turns of phrase than either of his parents. You could almost call this book a ripping yarn, but the bad stuff that happens is too horrific. You could almost call it a gripping horror novel, but it refuses to descend so far into the depths of horror that one despairs of redemption.

The tale follows the sorts of twists and turns I expected and hoped for--the roller-coaster-ride sort that keep me coming back for more time travel tales--but in ways that were unexpected enough to keep me completely entertained. Most of the side characters are very one-dimensional, to a pulp-fiction extent--but the three (or four, depending how you count it) central characters are fully-fleshed and, within their context, entirely believable. I needed to know what would happen to them.

The reader of the audiobook version, Christopher Lane, does a fantastic job with the accents and just in general. The one exception--as with most male audiobook performers, especially those with deep voices, his impression of female voices sounds like he's mocking the women whose lines he's reading. But I think that can't be helped, given his vocal equipment. It wasn't bad enough to be distracting.

Masterfully written and totally fun. I want to read more books by this guy.