The Continuum

Nikel’s debut takes the reader on an exciting journey through time with Elise Morley, an agent with the Place in Time Travel Agency, who rescues clients who have stayed too long on their vacations to the past. When she is kidnapped by a secret U.S. government organization, she is forced on a mission to rescue an agent who has jumped into the future. Meanwhile, an errant passenger from the Titanic leaps forward in time, desperate to find his fiancée, a tourist from 2012 whom Elise had retrieved from her sojourn in 1912. Nikel’s inventive spin on time travel and eye for sumptuous detail make her writing a treat to read. While her cast of characters is strong and likable, the narrative at its most climactic points veers towards the melodramatic (“I thought it would be an adventure, but I realize now what a monster I’ve become”). Nikel’s tale, which wrestles with complex themes of memory and fate, will appeal to the casual speculative fiction reader. (Jan.)