Return Once More by Trisha Leigh Series: The Historians #1
Published by Bloomsbury Spark on 10/20/15
Genres: Science Fiction, Young Adult
Pages: 289
Source: Blog Tour
My content rating: YA (Nothing more than kissing, though there is some talk of more)
My rating:
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.
Return Once More is a YA time traveling sci-fi adventure book of the best kind! This book will get your heart beating faster and bring tears to your eyes. It’s the type of book that will get you thinking about all of the moral and practical implications of time travel (without making your head spin).
What fed my addiction:
- Time travel! I’m a sucker for time travel stories when they’re done right. Sometimes they can get confusing or unbelievable, but that wasn’t the case here. Kaia is an apprentice Historian – tasked with searching the past to help ensure that her own society does not repeat history’s mistakes. The biggest rule of all is that they can observe but never interact. Any slight change in history could affect the world in unpredictable ways. So when Kaia discovers that someone is altering the past – and that the Historians she learns from may not be telling the complete truth about time travel, she’s shocked.
- Kaia. It was easy for me to connect with Kaia – she’s an average girl – not a typical save the world type – but she’s willing to dig in and even get herself in trouble in order to find the truth about what’s going on with her people. She has a sense of loyalty toward her people, but also toward her brother, who has broken away from them and insists that they aren’t telling her the whole truth.
- The romance. And then there’s Kaia’s True – the one person in history who matches up with her perfectly and who is meant for her. Kaia can’t resist finding out more about her true love, and once she meets him, she struggles to let history play out the way it’s supposed to – with her true love’s untimely death. Now, I will say that there’s definite instalove involved here, but the whole true love thing made it okay for me, and I definitely felt a real connection between the couple. Usually instalove turns me off, but Leigh made it really work and I was completely behind the romance!
- The moral implications. I loved Kaia’s struggles with the moral implications of all of her decisions in the past and in the present. She knows that her meddling with the past could be disastrous, but she struggles to overcome her emotions once she meets her true love. At the same time she realizes that someone else is meddling with the past and she’s rightfully concerned – but also knows that her own guilt in this area makes it kind of hard for her to judge!
- The ending. There’s a reveal that definitely took me by surprise, but I won’t say anything more!
What left me wanting more:
- True love? Okay, so I did have a slightly hard time swallowing the idea that a computer could find your one true love in all of history – and understanding why anyone would want to know that in the first place. There was a message there about how your “Chosen” love could be almost as good as your True, but then Kaia didn’t really seem to believe that, and the strength of the connection between Kaia and her True did make that hard to swallow.
I absolutely can’t wait to see where Leigh goes with this series. So many exciting things happened toward the end of the book that were completely game changing! Actually, this reminds me that I started another of Leigh’s series (a self-pubbed one) that I really enjoyed and I need to pick that one up again too! Overall, I give this book 4.5/5 stars.
***Disclosure: This book was provided to me by the author in exchange for an honest review. No other compensation was given and all opinions are my own.***
About the Author
Trisha Leigh is a product of the Midwest, which means it’s pop, not soda, garage sales, not tag sales, and you guys as opposed to y’all. Most of the time. She’s been writing seriously for five years now, and has published 4 young adult novels and 4 new adult novels (under her pen name Lyla Payne). Her favorite things, in no particular order, include: reading, Game of Thrones, Hershey’s kisses, reading, her dogs (Yoda and Jilly), summer, movies, reading, Jude Law, coffee, and rewatching WB series from the 90’s-00’s.
Her family is made up of farmers and/or almost rock stars from Iowa, people who numerous, loud, full of love, and the kind of people that make the world better. Trisha tries her best to honor them, and the lessons they’ve taught, through characters and stories—made up, of course, but true enough in their way.
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29 responses to “Return Once More by Trisha Leigh – Review & Giveaway”
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This was a great book. I won a copy in a contest and loved reading it. She did a great job describing the new world and lifestyle without overwhelming you.
I totally agree! Glad you loved it too!
Return once more sounds great, I love Time travel books. Thank you
If you’re a fan of time travel books, you should definitely check out this one! It was done incredibly well!
I too am a HUGE sucker for time travel stories but like you said, they have to be done right! So it’s AWESOME that this one is done right! The whole thing with the instalove does kindly turn me off girl. 🙁 but nether less I’m still happy that you enjoyed it so much!♡♡
Instalove is usually a huge NO for me, but Leigh managed to make it work somehow. Just goes to show how good the story was!!
Looks great!!
It was!
Great reviews! I’ve been waiting for this one for a while ever since seeing the cover a year or two ago. Nice to see it out and the reviews rolling in. I’m definitely intrigued by it, I like time travel too but you’re right, it can be daunting at times if not done right. The only thing I’m not sure about is- how can someone be your “true” if you would never actually encounter them (unless you time traveled?). But maybe she explains that…
Anyway I probably will read this one and glad to hear it’s good!
It was kind of strange. The idea was that they could determine your true love out of all of history, but most people would never even meet theirs. It was treated almost more as a fun party game – who would your true love have been if you lived at the same time as them?
Wasn’t this a great story – I love the mix of historical and time travel in it?!! And, I agree that ending was a surprise so I’m definitely needing the second copy soon.
Lovely review, Nicole 🙂
Yes, I wouldn’t have thought that I’d be all that into a book about ancient Egypt, but the combo of history and futuristic time travel made it a real win!
This sounds so cool. I love time-travel books.
Then you should definitely check this one out!!
Thank you for hosting! I love your review!!
You’re very welcome! Writing this review made me realize that I’d missed the release of the follow-ups to Gypsy (which I read and reviewed way back when). I really enjoyed that one too, so I’m definitely going to finish up that series!
Oh, wait! I guess I only missed one book in the Cavy Files so far!!
Yes! The third one is scheduled for January 12th!
i am going to be reading this for a tour, SO excited. I love a good time travel story and this sounds wonderfully done.
Yay! I’m glad you’ll have the opportunity to read it!
YAYYY I am so glad that you loved this one too! I just adored it so, so much. THE FEELS. Oh my goodness, I did NOT expect all the feels! And I agree- I never thought I would be okay with the romance, but somehow, it worked! And it worked WELL. And I never saw ANY of it coming, it was amazing! I need the next book SO badly! Great review 😀
It takes a sort of author-magician to make me okay with instalove, but she did it!
I love the sound of this novel! Honestly, I am always on the look out for a good time travel novel, which is exactly what this book sounds like. I’m not sure about the one true love aspect… but I think it’s something I will be able to handle so I can read about all the other epicness that happens in this novel!
This actually sounds like such a good book to read. A very light read as well!
I don’t have a lot of reading experience with time travel books, but this sounds like a lot of fun. Your talk about the average heroine and true love makes me think that this would be a good fit, since I love those aspects. Can’t wait to get to this book!
I can never resist a good time travel story – there’s so much room to play around with all the implications! Kaia sounds like a solid character too. Added this to my TBR 😀
I love reading a book that I can get lost in! I think this one will do the trick!
I am looking forward to reading this book. I have an up and down relationship with time-travel books, but I like the idea behind this one so much. I think it might be an up!
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