Kate Mascarenhas

Perfect for fans of Naomi Alderman's The Power and Margot Lee Shetterly's Hidden Figures comes The Psychology of Time Travel, a mind-bending, time-travel debut.

The Psychology of Time Travel

Lindy

In the late 1960s, four women invent time travel. Fifty years later, an unidentified elderly woman is found dead in the basement of a toy museum. Time travel is necessarily involved.

The Psychology of Time Travel is okay, but could've been made much better with a little more professional polish in differentiating and combining characters, choosing a few thematic elements to bring into sharper focus, mitigating infodumps, and formatting dialog correctly. I often felt like I was reading a late draft. First novels are hard?

James Winduss

I was honestly surprised at how much I enjoyed this book! I was apprehensive about the varying perspectives and time shifts, but it was handled so well. There were just enough twists to keep me turning the page without the plot feeling too convoluted or forced for dramatic effect.

Belle

3.5 rounded up. I liked the story but found it hard to follow a lot of the time. I think there are probably lots of clever clues and connections I missed that I would pick up on a second reading.

In 1967, four female scientists worked together to build the world's first time machine. But just as they are about to debut their creation, one of them suffers a breakdown, putting the whole project - and future of time travel - in jeopardy. To protect their invention, one member is exiled from the team - erasing her contributions from history. Fifty years later, time travel is a big business. Twenty-something Ruby Rebello knows her beloved grandmother, Granny Bee, was one of the pioneers, though no one will tell her more. But when Bee receives a mysterious newspaper clipping from the future reporting the murder of an unidentified woman, Ruby becomes obsessed: could it be Bee? Who would want her dead? And most importantly of all: can her murder be stopped?

Sian Wadey

A very interesting and original idea. I enjoyed all the characters, it was nice to read a book with such strong female heroes and the idea of time travelling being part of everyday life was executed very well. My only complaint is that I wish the mystery of the body in the cellar would have been revealed a little later in the book, as I felt this mystery was the essence.

Fraser Simons

I found this to be such an interesting take on time travel. It’s invented, but the byproduct of using it takes a psychological impact. Makes sense, right? But I actually had never thought about that aspect at all, previously. 

Three women invent the technology (Helpfully, the furthest point back is when the tech was invented) but one has a mental breakdown and is subsequently jettisoned by the others to maintain confidence in their work and, well, product, essentially. 

Some time later an unidentifiable dead body is found, and things get a lot more complicated. How can you find a killer that could be anyone and in any time, practically? 

Structurally, the book jumps around a lot. Different times, different characters. Generations from the initial setup. It can be slightly overwhelming until you get your feet wet. But it is so rewarding to engage with it and the mystery as presented. The psychological aspects were just so interesting to me and I love a good mystery. Absolutely recommend it.

Ken Yuen

What if a group of Bletchley Circlesque women invented time travel in the 60s?

How would time travel affect culture? Individuals? What would time related crimes look like?

This book does an excellent job at portraying the unexpected repercussions of time travel. Its affect on the personality and group culture of time travelers and the have-nots who can't time travel. Slice-of-lifeish, thoughtful, and with a touch of queer romance and race issues.

'An astonishing debut ... Breathtakingly tender and wryly understated' NEW YORK TIMES. 'Genre-defying ... Witty and inventive' GUARDIAN. 1967. Four female scientists invent a time travel machine. But then one of them suffers a breakdown and puts the whole project in peril... 2017. Ruby knows her Granny Bee was the scientist who went mad, but they never talk about it. Until they receive a message from the future, warning of an elderly woman's violent death... 2018. Odette found the dead women at work – shot in the head, door bolted from the inside. Now she can't get her out of her mind. Who was she? And why is everyone determined to cover up her murder? 'A page-turning temporal safari. Part murder mystery, part extrapolation of a world in which time travel has become a commercial reality, it is written with an acute sense of psychological nuance' GUARDIAN. 'Intriguing and multi-layered' DAILY MAIL. 'Captivating, delightful and thoroughly original' JENNIE MELAMED. 'Troubling and inspiring, comforting and horrifying' SCIFINOW.

A time-travelling murder mystery, the perfect holiday read

Closer to 4.5 stars.

This was super fun! A bit mind-bending, since it jumped back and forth and all over the place so much, but it surprisingly wasn't too hard to keep track of things as it was very well laid out. I love how all the main characters were women and there were only a few men present in the book, and only existed in relation to the women. It flipped the trend of male-dominated sci-fi with women only in the peripheral on its head, so I really appreciated that.

The only thing that bugged me about this was actually how dialogue was written. The author would have two characters conversing, but would put character 2's answer in the same paragraph as character 1's question. It made it difficult to tell who was speaking, and I had to reread some exchanges because I lost track of who said what.

Otherwise, this was a delightful book. It wasn't super mind-blowing or amazing, but it kept me entertained and I never got bored or felt like it was tedious, which is a feat w/ my current reading habits.

Vicki Hesketh

Thanks to Head of Zeus for sending me a reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I was really excited to read this book - the concept of time travel will always be fascinating, and this book had an original premise to it. 

I'm happy to say I wasn't disappointed. The Psychology of Time Travel was original and well considered. I think it will be easy for most people to recognise some of the personality traits that are explored within these pages. I wouldn't say this book was a real page-turner throughout but it kept me interesting and I really did enjoy the way the book ended. 

One thing of note is that all of the principal characters within this book are women; which was really refreshing to read and I have to admit that it highlighted some of the gender bias that I didn't realise that I had. 

3.5 stars, rounding down because it took me a while to get attached to the main characters and there were moments when the writing felt a little bit clumsy.

Jessica Smith

A truly brilliant book. With a wide ensemble cast this is a novel with a lot going on, but it's interwoven well and told at a brisk, yet not rushed, pace.

As the title suggests, this is a story about time travel. There are a ton of interesting details about how that works in this universe: for example, there are no paradoxes, you can't go back and change time, every action that future time travellers have taken in the past is already accounted for. You also can't travel to before the existence of time machines, or to after their presumed destruction in the twenty-fifth century. Time machines in this universe are all under the control of a bureaucratic organisation called the Conclave, with a callous and somewhat sick culture. As you might also expect from the title, the effect that time-travelling has on an individual's psychology is also a big focus of the book.

But it's not just a book with some fascinating premises at play – it's also a book with strongly-developed, compelling characters and an intriguing plot. The main plotline concerns a murder – a twist on the "someone is shot dead, clearly not by themselves, in a room locked from the inside" trope. The victim of the murder isn't even known until over halfway through the book. There are a number of other interesting subplots too, dealing with work, family and love (the latter particularly in regards to a lesbian main character).

The only criticism I can really make is that it wasn't exactly a page-turner; with so many bite-sized chapters I felt pretty comfortable putting this book down at any old time before diving in sometime later. As such this is perhaps more of a commuters' book than one you'd sit down to read in one sitting. In case it's not clear, this is a very weak criticism; lots of meritorious books lack that compulsive, "I must binge this whole thing now" quality and sometimes it's nice to have one you can savour (and commute with without anguish). Highly recommended!

Paige Morgan

I went into this book with no expectations, and came out really pleased. In a forenote, the author described wanting to write sci-fi with more women, more queer women, and more women of color, and her debut does just what she claims. 

It was strangely and powerfully refreshing to read a book that was ... not absent of male characters, but where the male characters took up very little space, and were never in the spotlight -- once again, I realized how uncommon that is, how the reverse is so often true.

I'm going to avoid details, but this is the story of four very different women who become time travelers -- and then, it's the story of several more women who become connected to them in various and sundry ways. There were times, as I was reading, when I thought that Mascarenhas' writing was a tad thin, a little bit more "tell", rather than "show" -- but the book made up for that with her really excellent characterizations of all the distinct women, and their different personalities and goals, as well as with the thoughtful and half-creepy half-hilarious worldbuilding around the culture of time travel.

I would especially recommend this title for fans of Kristin Cashore's Jane Unlimited; and I would seek out more work from Mascarenhas in the future in a heartbeat. Many thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read an advanced copy.

The Psychology of Time Travel

Reviews