Paris Adrift by E.J. Swift #bookreview #fantasy #scifi

Title: Paris Adrift

Author: E.J. Swift

Publisher: Solaris

Publication Date: February 6, 2018

Page Count: 420

My rating:  2 stars

About the book:

The Time Machine meets Midnight In Paris 

Determined to escape her old life, misfit and student geologist Hallie packs up her life in England and heads to Paris. She falls in with the eclectic expat community as a bartender at the notorious Millie’s, located next to the Moulin Rouge.

Here she meets Gabriela, a bartender who guides her through this strange nocturnal world, and begins to find a new family. But Millie’s is not all that it seems: a bird warns Hallie to get her feathers in order, a mysterious woman shows up claiming to be a chronometrist, and Gabriela is inexplicably unable to leave Paris.

Then Hallie discovers a time portal located in the keg room. Over the next nine months, irate customers will be the least of her concerns, as she navigates time-faring through the city’s turbulent past and future, falling in love, and coming to terms with her own precarious sense of self.

Paris Adrift by E.J. Swift is a science fiction fantasy read that features time travel through various times in Paris. This one was a book that I had high hopes for when I saw the beautiful cover and learned that it would be about time traveling but unfortunately it fell a bit short for me.

The story started off seeming to be promising with a look at the future that had me salivating for some good old saving the world reading. But then we get introduced to Hallie as she’s working in a bar and that is where things just sort of stalled out for me. I think really at that point my mind was the one going a bit adrift to be honest.

By the time the time traveling began in the story I was losing hope for falling in love with the book but I had hopes it would still catch my attention a bit more than it did. I think though that what I missed was some really good character building to get a better connection and a bit more happening than what I was finding. I suppose the best way to put it was I’m sure for some this will be a great read but it just wasn’t what I expected it to be and not really my cup of tea in the end unfortunately.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Find this book online: 

Goodreads  /   Amazon

About the author:

E. J. Swift is the author of The Osiris Project trilogy, a speculative fiction series set in a world radically altered by climate change, comprising Osiris, Cataveiro and Tamaruq. Her short fiction has appeared in anthologies from Salt Publishing, NewCon Press and Jurassic London, including The Best British Fantasy (Salt Publishing, 2013 and 2014).

Swift was shortlisted for a 2013 BSFA Award in the Short Fiction category for her story “Saga’s Children” (The Lowest Heaven, Jurassic) and was longlisted for the 2015 Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award for “The Spiders of Stockholm” (Irregularity, Jurassic).