Series: The Historians

Synopsis:

If you could learn the identity of your one true love—even though you will never meet— would you?

Years have passed since refugees from a ruined earth took to space, eventually settling a new system of planets. Science has not only made the leaps necessary to allow time travel, but the process engineered a strange side effect—predicting your one true love.

If you could save your one true love from an untimely death, would you be able to resist?

Sixteen-year-old Kaia Vespasian is an apprentice to the Historians—a group charged with using time travel to document the triumphs and failures of the past—and she can’t resist a peek at her long-dead soul mate in Ancient Egypt. Before she knows it, she’s broken every rule in the book, and the consequences of getting caught could destroy more than just her new romance.

Or would you have the strength to watch him die?

But when Kaia notices a fellow classmate snooping around in a time where he doesn’t belong, she suspects he has a secret of his own—and the conspiracy she uncovers could threaten the entire universe. If her experience has taught her anything, to changing history means facing the consequences. The Historians trained her to observe and record the past, but Kaia never guessed she might have to protect it— in a race across time to save her only chance at a future.

Review:

I actually had read this book for the first time a few years ago, but I feel like it hasn’t reached nearly enough people for how good it is!  Check it out ASAP!

Wowwww. Going into this book I had mixed thoughts. I had read some really great reviews and the premise looked great but I was worried about the time travel aspect. Ever since I started watching Doctor Who I have standards on what I think does and doesn’t work when it comes to time travel–I feel like it mostly can be messed up pretty easily. I was very pleasantly surprised that what Leigh did in this book worked out tremendously.

But I wanted to live moments, not just record them.

The main character, Kaia, is training to be a Historian. She lives in different solar system, Earth having been abandoned at least a generation before due to a depletion of resources. In her lifetime they have perfected things like time travel to the past, calculating who a person’s “True One” is, and how to life in a peaceful society with next to no weapons. As a Historian, Kaia and her classmates are charged with traveling to the past to observe and record certain moments in the past to reflect back on and decide how things could have been different in society (which is way cooler than just reading about certain events in a textbook). 

Kaia is mostly an average teenage girl who mostly follows by the rules. After her brother runs off their planet and joins with a band of space pirates, she and her family are more closely watched. Her first bout of trouble comes when she turns seventeen and finds out who her “True One” is. A True One is essentially the person who is the most compatible to you in every way. The tricky part is that they could have lived in the past, could live in the present, or could be born in the future. Kaia’s is Caesarion, son of Cleopatra and Caesar. She decides that she wants to meet him–just once, just to see. When she does it’s like nothing she has ever experienced before and she in instantly enamored with this young man. She leaves thinking that she will not return, satisfied to at least meet him once.

Meanwhile, she discovers that Oz, a classmate of hers and “True One” of her roommate, is also going along to other time periods and feels that something is not right about it. She begins to realize that something big is going on that the Elders have been keeping them all in the dark about. Something that could terribly impact all of their lives.

“Tell me a story about the sky.” 

Okay feelings timeeeeeeee.

I LOVEDDD this book. Like I said, this was a good example of time travel that makes sense. They can only travel to the past, and they have to make sure to be extremely careful because even bumping or talking to one person could have terrible consequences (WHICH MAKES SENSE!!!). The romantic parts between Kaia and Caesarion were incredibly swoon worthy. Yes, there might have been an insta love connection BUTTTT because they were “paired” as being the most compatible people for each other, you can forgive that. Plus, even though Kaia would like to bring him back with her, both of them realize that that is impossible and accept that. They take the short time that they have together and enjoy it, which I love. 

Kaia in general is also a character that I felt like I could easily relate to. She loves her family and friends and wants to do things by the book but also wants to live her own life and take her own risks. I wouldn’t say she is foolish with all of her decisions (even though she should have known better with returning back to her True Love) because I would have made those same decisions too.

Oz and the whole plot about a return to Earth grabbed my attention right away. Leigh gave us just enough to be hooked on the plot and to ensure we come back for the rest of the series. I really hope we get a lot more back story in book two. I was fine with not having it in this one because I felt like we needed to find out about how jumping back in time can cause such consequences and because we had to find out who the characters were in the grand scheme of things. By the end though, Oz was no less a mystery and I’m excited to learn more.  Overall I was very impressed and I can’t wait to pick up book two.

It was something we’d lost along the way—the ability to be awed by the unknown, to create myths that made sense of the inexplicable, instead of boiling mysteries down to their basest components.