Release Date: February 28, 2017
Publisher: Greenwillow
Series: Girl From Everywhere #2
Genre: Young Adult, Historical Fantasy
Description
“Some things should not be stolen.
After what seems like a lifetime of following her father across the globe and through the centuries, Nix has finally taken the helm of their time-traveling ship. Her future—and the horizon—is bright.
Until she learns she is destined to lose the one she loves. To end up like her father: alone, heartbroken.
Unable to face losing Kashmir—best friend, thief, charmer extraordinaire—Nix sails her crew to a mythical utopia to meet a man who promises he can teach her how to manipulate time, to change history. But no place is perfect, not even paradise. And everything is constantly changing on this utopian island, including reality itself.
If Nix can read the ever-shifting tides, perhaps she will finally harness her abilities. Perhaps she can control her destiny, too.
Or perhaps her time will finally run out. ” (via Goodreads)
My Thoughts
Sequels are risky business, especially in duologies. Not only do they have to best (or at least match) the first book, but they also have the heavy-lifting of wrapping up a series. Lucky for us, Heidi Heilig’s The Ship Beyond Time sails (pun!) past any and all concerns of a sophomore slump.
Slate is finally teaching her how to Navigate and captain a ship, and as you know, with great power comes great responsibility. Before, Nix wanted to run away from everything and become someone new. But now, running away is no longer an act of freedom but a move of cowardice. To save the people she loves, she must stay and fight.
What Nix wants, what she’s offered, and what she eventually takes for herself are drastically different from each other. After all, this series is at its heart a tale about growing up. Where The Girl From Everywhere is about confronting your past, The Ship Beyond Time is about facing your future. For Nix, that means travelling to a past far from her own, a fictional past with very real consequences. Just like her father with his obsession with the map that might have erased Nix from the timeline, she has a terrible choice of her own to make. Choosing between what’s right and what’s just isn’t an easy thing to do, especially when the life of your first great love is on the line.
The twisty-turny plot keeps you on the edge of your seat and eager for more. And despite a large cast, Heilig makes sure they all get enough characterization to feel like people rather than filler. Heilig’s writing is astonishing and powerful. She is a force to be reckoned with, an author who writes layered, textural stories brimming with passion, determination, and heart. There’s a reason she’s one of my favorite working authors – not just YA fantasy, not just YA, but all authors – and if the excerpt below doesn’t convince you then I don’t know what will.
Tears filled my eyes; I tried to wipe them away, but they flooded in, too fast to bail. My breath hitched in my throat, and I shuddered like the ship in a storm. A terrible weight crushed the air out of me, and sobs struggled up through my chest like bubbles from a rift in the floor of the sea. When she wrapped her arms around me, I clung to her as though she were a raft. The world spun inside my head, and fragmented thoughts popped up like flotsam from a wreck. She smelled like cream and incense. Her arms were cool. She was crying too.
Finally the tide of my own tears ebbed, and I blinked away the last of them. My face was hot and I felt strung together with loose twine. I lifted my chin and took deep tremulous breaths. The others had followed them to the bailey, I realized – Blake and Kash, and Dahut too. Over my mother’s shoulder, I caught her yearning stare before she turned away. Distantly, I realized I had told her an untruth, though not on purpose – I had missed my mother after all.
Check out my review of the entire duology over on Tor.com.
Do the world a favor and buy this book from your local indie bookstore or get it from your public library.
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