Excellent book with humor, suspense, well done investigation and great characters. I was actually physically showing signs of stress while reading the last suspenseful chapters: don't remember that ever happening before! Definitely looking forward to the next one. ( )

A Rip Through Time is the first novel in Kelley Armstrong's time-travel series of the same name. The third book, Disturbing the Dead, was recently published. Grab all three fantasy books, you will not be disappointed.

While visiting her dying grandmother in Scotland, Mallory Atkinson decides she needs a break and goes for a jog. Being a Vancouver Detective, she thinks she can handle herself, and when she hears a woman's cries down a dark alley, she instinctively goes to investigate. What she finds is a girl in Victorian dress being strangled, when suddenly someone comes up behind her and starts strangling her. The next thing she knows, she wakes up in the woman's body...in 1869 Scotland.

The book is a little slow to start while building the foundation of the time-travel and getting Mallory settled into the life of housemaid Catriona. Once it is established that Mallory is there to stay, the rest of the book is told from her point of view as Catriona. A former thief given a second chance by lady of the house Isla Ballantyne, Catriona hadn't given up her wayward ways, she had only gotten better at hiding them. Now that Mallory has taken over Catriona's body, she can read, write, and is extremely articulate, making the people of the house suspicious of her. When Catriona takes an interest in Dr. Duncan Gray's forensic science experiments, he accepts her help and insights into his case. Not being able to stifle her detective instincts, she investigates on her own, putting herself and others in danger. Can she solve the crime and get back to her own time?

A well-researched and written mystery, seeing the difference between what we now know of forensics and the fledgling ways that Victorian Scotland solved crimes was rather interesting. Seeing how Isla and Gray interacted, knowing that in those times women weren't educated or seen as intelligent people who could handle any type of work, Gray and Detective McCreadie are very open-minded for the times, accepting Catriona and Isla into the investigation.

All in all, a great time-travel mystery filled with suspense and intrigue. The writing really puts you into the environment of Catriona, Isla, and Gray. For anyone who enjoys historical fiction mixed with murder, this was a great beginning to the series.

Thank you to @Minotaur_Books and @NetGalley for a digital copy for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own. ( )

A fun time-travel mystery. ( )

Canadian author Kelley Armstrong is new to me, probably because she writes primarily fantasy novels. I stumbled across this one while surfing my local library audiobook selection while looking for books that would fit the November SeriesCAT. Yes, I have a TON of books already lurking unread on my Kobo that would fit the category, but I wanted an audiobook. I am getting lazy with my reading. That, and I wanted something I could listen two while doing household chores.

First book in a new series - and as luck would have it, available for immediate borrowing - I decided to give this one a go. Time travel stories can be hit or miss with me, depending on how the author balances the juxtaposition of "traveller from the future" and the period setting. I like that our protagonist faces the double challenge of getting her bearings in the past AND having to try and keep Catriona's employers and acquaintances from suspecting anything is a miss with Catriona. Good luck with that! The fact that Mallory finds herself, as Catriona, in the employ of a well-to-do bachelor brother and his widowed sister who have their own eccentricities and passion for amateur investigating that make them somewhat outliers of acceptable Edinburgh society works to her benefit, I think. The potential serial killer murder mystery angle is a good one with some great suspense scenes and wonderful plot twists! I like how modern police detective Mallory is horrified by certain policing practices of the time period and tries to figure out which modern day forensic tools were known in 1869 (for obvious time travel reasons).

Some downsides, for this reader anyways: I found the story spends a bit too much time on Mallory's ruminations, leading me to sometimes say to myself "Come on Mallory, get on with it." There were also some bits of repetition of thought. I felt the story dipped a bit on the intrigue meter when Mallory comes clean to one of the characters about who she really is and where she is really from. Yes, that does aid things when we get to the suspenseful climax, but I noticed that after that reveal, I was not as riveted to the story as I had previously been.

Overall, I enjoyed this murder mystery time travel story enough to place a hold for the next audiobook in the series... but I struggled a bit to give it a star rating. Not sure If I am satisfied with my choice. Star rating may change by half a star upon further reflection. ( )

(2022) A Vancouver detective, while in Scotland visiting her ailing grandmother, is attacked in Glasgow. As she is attacked, she is transported back to 1869 in the body of a young house maid. She is being cared for by her employers, a undertaker and his sister. She becomes quickly aware of her surroundings and tries to adapt to the situation while trying to solve the mystery of the transportation and of the attack on her. It leads her to the conclusion that the attacker has also been transported back with her in the body of a police officer. She manages to track the killer down and eventually kill him as he has kidnapped the sister and undertaker. She later decides to stay in her new time, but aware that she can go back to normal times only with the death of the woman whose body she now occupies. Pretty good yarn and fun to read.KIRKUS: A Vancouver police detective visiting Edinburgh is magically transported back to 1869, where she gets involved in a murder case in which her avatar is deeply implicated.One moment Detective Mallory Atkinson is getting throttled by an identifiable man; the next she's awakening as Catriona Mitchell, who's been similarly strangled and left for dead in the same spot. The second attack turns out to be useful for Mallory, who uses Catriona's trauma as an excuse for forgetting lots of things she ought to know as housemaid to undertaker Duncan Gray, whose medical degree sharpens his interest in the death of Evening Courant crime reporter Archie Evans, a victim of what only Mallory recognizes as waterboarding. What did Archie know that someone wanted to torture out of him? Partnering alternately with Edinburgh Detective Hugh McCreadle; her employer; and Gray's half sister, shrewd herbalist Isla Ballantyne, Mallory peers into Edinburgh's seamy underside as she struggles to uncover the truth. It's a tough job because the most dramatic discoveries she makes are that the woman whose body she's inhabiting is a bully and a thief and maybe worse and that Evans' killer, who goes on to stage another murder that uncannily foretells the work of Jack the Ripper, may well be another visitor from the 21st century. Armstrong handles the time-traveling problems concerning Mallory's disjointed consciousness and other characters' awareness that she's not your typical housemaid with unusual resourcefulness and dexterity. Although the heroine is desperate to return to her own time and place by hook or by crook, the fade-out presents a future that's pleasingly ambiguous.The murders are the least mysterious aspect of this clever time-traveling thriller.Pub Date: May 31, 2022ISBN: 978-1-2508-2000-6Page Count: 352Publisher: Minotaur