Review: An exciting sequel!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 16, 2014
***NOTE: This review may contain spoilers for the first book in the series.***Time Return is an exciting sequel to Time Trap! Rayen, Gabby and Tony return to the Sphere, hoping to help the MystiK children return home. But when they get there, they find that the MystiK's village has been destroyed. Rayen wants nothing more than to be back with Callan for as long as she can and to help him and his people return home. But Callan fears that Rayen's attachment to him will put her in danger - plus, he's torn between his connection to Rayen and his duty to his people. He pulls away from her, but can he bear to lose her?The negatives:Tony and Hannah.There was a romance that developed between Tony and Hannah, but it developed very quickly - in the space of one conversation. Granted, since the books in this series all technically take place over just a few days, the romances ALL happened quickly. Still, we got to see a relationship develop between the other couples so they didn't feel like instalove. Tony and Hannah weren't together much at all. So, I wasn't particularly invested in these two, and the romance really felt like a convenient plot device. Luckily, Hannah and Tony's romance wasn't incredibly central to the book, so it didn't ruin anything for me.Kaz.There was a bit of a love triangle introduced in the form of Callan's best friend Kaz. Kaz was definitely interested in Rayen from the very beginning. Again, this felt just a little bit like a plot device to me - something to increase the tension between Callan and Rayen, rather than a real attraction between Kaz and Rayen.What I loved:Callan and Rayen.The tension between Callan and Rayen was high in this book. Both Callan and Rayen wanted to protect each other - in Callan's mind, the best thing he could do for Rayen was to convince her to go home. But Rayen would not give up until she'd helped Callan and the MystiK children return home - especially now that she knew that Callan would die a horrible death if he was still on the Sphere on this eighteenth birthday. So, while Callan and Rayen both wanted nothing more than to be together, Callan kept pushing Rayen away. The push and pull between these two felt realistic, even though I desperately wanted them to get past all of the issues that kept them apart and realize they were meant to be together!The TecKnati/MystiK conflict.The conflict between the TecKnati and the MystiKs really heated up in Time Return. When Tony, Gabby and Rayen got to the Sphere, they found that the TecKnati had attacked and things were even more dangerous than when they left. The TecKnati were no longer satisfied with simply hiding the MystiK children away. They were feeling threatened by the Damian Prophecy and felt that the threat had to be eliminated ...The mysteries.We learned a bit more about the prophecy and how Callan was central to it, but there were still plenty of mysteries to be unfolded when the book ended. The biggest mystery is still who is Rayen really and why was she sent to the past? We get some tidbits of information in this book, but we have to wait for book three to really get answers!So, overall, this was a really great second book in the trilogy. The book ended on a major cliffhanger, but luckily book #3 was just recently released! I give this one 4/5 stars.