Passenger
Etta is about seventeen, lives in modern day New York and does everything she can to excel as a violin player. All she ever wanted was to become a professional, to the degree that she pushed her best friend and almost everyone else away in her attempt to succeed. Now Etta stands right before her big break, her debut a few weeks into the future, but first a warm-up performance at the Met. Little does Etta know that her night at the Met will indeed change her life – just not the way she imagined. Instead Etta learns that her mother, a woman with an air of mystery who Etta only ever tried to impress, kept Etta from the biggest secret of them all. That they both come from a long line of time travelers and are the only ones left in their family. And that the burden to save the future – and all of time – rests on Etta’s shoulders.
At the same time in 1776, Nicholas Carter has agreed to do one more thing for Cyrus Ironwood before he can finally, once and for all, break all ties with the old man and return to the sea for good. But like Etta, Nicholas' whole world is turned up-side-down when she suddenly appears at his ship and the two of them are thrust together to go on a search throughout history to find one specific thing that Ironwood has been after for years and that it's believed only Etta can find. But as Nicholas and Etta gets to know each other the barricade between them crumble and they’re left with feelings for each other. Feelings that might just be the thing that ruins everything and causes the timeline to change irrevocably.
This was a book right up my ally and I knew it from the moment I read the synopsis. Bracken weaves a lovely tale of a modern city girl with a young man from the eighteenth century who needs to work together to ensure the safety of the timeline. It’s interesting in so many ways but here’s a few that makes Passenger quite the ride:
First, Bracken’s writing is sublime. Sometimes it’s more poetry than anything and she has a nice flow in her words and a lovely way of painting every place and every moment before the reader. It’s easy to get lost in the worlds she’s created between the pages and every era seems believable in its own way. Reading is truly a joy when writing is as good as Bracken’s.
Second, Etta is a firecracker. She’s a modern girl – in every way. She knows her worth and she has no problems pointing out people around her who acts like idiots, no matter what era she’s in. Some part of me wants to say she’s something of a feminist, but that’s not quite right. If anything she’s a girl who knows that she, as a woman, have the same right as any man. She’s also incredibly brave, curious and has no problem going after what she wants. She has a spark that really made her come alive and I had no difficulty connecting with her. She managed to be down to Earth and a force to be reckoned with at the same time. Along with that she often pointed out her own flaws and mistakes as well as the flaws in different eras and had no problem questioning the politic in different parts of history. She was very open and tried to understand everyone which made her a character easy to identify with.
Third, Nicholas and, mostly, his relationship with Etta. It does move rather fast and is definitely an insta-love relationship, which is a minus for me. But if we look past that Bracken actually wove something very fascinating into her book when she made Etta white and Nicholas colored. Not only was it interesting to read about Nicholas in his own time – how he was treated because of the color of his skin – but also how that changed, for good and bad, when he and Etta traveled through history. It also arouse complication between him and Etta since Nicholas says they can’t be together since it’s illegal. Etta fought for them and told him that things will change in the future, but more than that she stood up for him always, no matter what era they were in, and that gave the book more power. I loved this, for so many reasons, and I thank Bracken for not just changing things up but also questioning not just the color of someone’s skin but also relationships between people of different origins. I think she handled this sublimely and I really think it helped take the novel to the next level, to give it more depth and make it not just a story, but a story with a point.
Fourth, Passenger has a lot of action scenes, quite a few serious topics and it will make your heart race when you read it. It’s fun seeing different parts of history and of the world and we’re introduced to more than one evil villain and characters with questionable motives. But Passenger also had the power to make me laugh. It was down-right funny at times and the banter between Etta and Nicholas was hilarious. Bracken managed to create a novel that was both serious and light in a perfect blend and it made me love it even more. It’s definitely a novel that has everything.
The only things that bothered me was the insta-love between Etta and Nicholas, as well as the ending. I for one think it could’ve ended about fifteen different ways that would’ve made me happier, or at least more content. I was mostly just annoyed when I finished reading and it surprised me because it wasn’t the feeling I expected to have when I put the book away. However, it made me more curious about the sequel and I look forward to having that in my hand. It will be out in 2017 and I suggest you pick up Passenger and give it a go before Wayfarer is out. Trust me when I say, you won’t regret it.