Hello everyone!
I also said I would be returning to the series sooner rather than later.
And so, here I am!
Rebecca Hefner has quickly risen up the ranks of authors who I love to read books from and I can't WAIT to get my hands on the third and final book int this trilogy. Prevent the Past has definitely struck all the right chores for me thus far and it looks like number three might be the best of all.
But before we can get to the last book, we have to bridge the gap of course, with a little help from Booksirens (again).
Which means it's time to pick up the good fight once more and see whether or not we can help our heroes in changing the past.
A Destiny Reborn, book two in the Prevent the Past series, is up next.
You can of course find the link to my other review, A Paradox of Fates, at the bottom of this page to catch up, because this is a cohesive trilogy and you need to read the previous book to understand what's happening in the current one you're reading.
VERY briefly, however: in A Paradox of Fates, we learn that Lainey Randolph's grandfather detonated the nukes back in 2035 which plunged the world into chaos and allowed a new order, the New Establishment, to rise to complete power. Lainey and her team are trying to create a time sphere that will take them back so they can stop this from happening, but of course it isn't quite that easy as they figure out they're in a continuous loop, and their adversaries know this, too, so it's a race against the clock to try and finish what was started back in 2035.
Or, as it turns out, even sooner.
Because A Destiny Reborn touches base with Cyrus and Claire, who go even FURTHER back into the past, to 2002, and discover that there were seeds of the New Establishment even then.
This is how it happens.
After Lainey and Hunter successfully manage to time travel, Cyrus and Claire's turn is interrupted by the leader of the New Establishment, Eli Hernandez, though their co-workers still send them back, but much too far into the past. Cyrus gets hurt and Claire remembers Marie, the old cook from their compound, telling her all about her mother who used to help underprivileged, so they end up seeking her help for his ankle as well as some basic housing from where they can then do their job.
Even though they're pretty far back in the past and don't know whether or not Lainey is coming for them, they realize they can still help the cause by trying to figure out how it all actually began, seeing as the president who pulls the trigger isn't POTUS yet at this moment in time.
So they discover that the New Establishment as an order doesn't actually exist yet - but a form of Knights does, and they're funding Randolph, which actually makes him just a scapegoat and the person who made lots of promises to people with money, but then couldn't back out, not to mention lost sight of what was actually important and lusted for more and more power.
Not only that, but the duo discover that there's a plot to get rid of the good doctor who helped them - and her daughter, Marie, who, as they figure once they team up with a PI named Zander (initially recruited by the Knights but eventually turned against them and working to stop them), actually had a relationship/affair with Randolph while he was still just engaged, and they suspect Marie might be his daughter, which would make her Lainey's aunt.
This is all well said and done, but their process is interrupted when Claire gets abducted by Sebastian, who was sent back to prevent her from saving Marie, and she ends up stabbing him through the groin and rescuing herself, because she turns into a pretty badass chick in this book.
Booyah!
Anyway, throughout these investigations and discoveries - including the fact that Lainey probably isn't coming for them so they have to set up their new lives here instead - Cyrus and Claire dance around the subject of their own attraction. Cyrus believes he's too old and scarred for someone as vivacious and sunny as Claire, but she nixes that idea and nips it in the bud, convincing him that they deserve a chance to fight for their relationship, and love.
And as the action reaches its peak when Sebastian actually goes after Vivian and Marie to kill them, things definitely all converge on the same spot when Claire shoots him dead to protect her friends, and Cyrus proposes a few days later, after a visit from Laney who tells him all he needs to know about the visit he pays her in 2035 and what he has to tell her.
But even though it LOOKS as if they might have done what they came back to do, it turns out there's another twist to it all: Victor Hernandez, the man PROBABLY actually behind the New Establishment, meets with his younger self to instruct him, and also to explain they might be in the final loop - and that Sebastian was actually needed to push Cyrus to marry Claire, because their daughter becomes a vital part of Randolph's campaign, helping him get the votes he needs to win.
Unbeknownst to them, said daughter - Elaine, named after none other than the protagonist and hero of the first book - is listening in on the conversation and has plans of her own, because she's fighting the good fight on the side of the scientists.
And as the book draws to a close, Vivian approaches Lainey's father with an envelope, regretting not contacting him sooner and telling him the truth about it all, because now with cancer, and her husband Zander's own health problems, they'll both be dying sooner rather than later (it turns out she passes away next January), but she needs him to know Marie is his half-sister, confirming even though she lied earlier that she is Randolph's daughter, born out of wedlock.
With Cyrus and Claire then established in the past with their new lives, and their children going on to fight the fight for them, the stage is set for the final confrontations - because it looks like the New Establishment still doesn't know Eli, their future leader, is actually a dark horse and is working to dismantle everything from within.
Or do they?
For that and answers to all your other questions, pick up the final book in the trilogy, title, so we can see for ourselves!
Slightly removed from the rest of the action given it happens so far back in the past from what is present-day in the book, Cyrus and Claire's story is still significant because it sets everything up and shows that maybe, MAYBE, Randolph isn't the real bad guy in this, and that there's a more complicated answer to it all, especially with Elaine, Claire's daughter, actually working for the man.
But overall, what we uncover about the overarching plot is definitely important and this makes this book worth a read, plus if you liked Cyrus and Claire before, you're bound to fall in love with them now, too.
I will say I wasn't the biggest fan of Claire when the book begins - she struck me as a bit too childish (even though that seems to be a driving trait for her throughout) and so incredibly naive it was a miracle someone before Sebastian didn't just pluck her off the street. Cyrus is very right to be mad about her not telling him something that pertains to their safety - aka Randolph actually seeing them and the potential of them being followed - but it turns out that there ARE authors out there who stil believe in actual, sensible character development.
Claire undergoes a metamorphosis where she sheds all the insecurities and drawbacks that held her back in the future where she was just another cog in the wheel, and she becomes her own person with her own motivations, who knows what she wants and fights for it. She also brings the unique perspective of someone who didn't actually have a choice about the fight itself, and who wants a normal life if she can have it.
Cyrus also develops more from the stoic soldier we meet in the first book, because he opens himself up to the possibility of love and family with Claire, despite the fact he's so against it at the start, thinking himself too old and much too damaged from fighting the war that's been going on in their reality. Still, the biggest changes are definitely Claire's, because she becomes an amazing PI, working with Zander, and she's the one who blackmails one of the Knights in the timeline so that they can get information and try and head off Sebastian.
All in all, it's a nice balance between romance and action, and I will admit I was more interested in the plot of the overarching storyline than the love story, myself, because we learn that Vivian fell in love with a Randolph who had some moral stance, and left him because he was beginning to change. She herself has a rigid moral code that doesn't align with the Knights OR the New Establishment, but it does show us where Marie got it from later.
And with Lainey now owning a functional time machine that can send her wherever she chooses, obviously, it's time to see whether or not our heroes will prevail.
I can't wait!
xx
*image not mine
No comments:
Post a Comment