Saturday, January 11, 2014

Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier Review

Ruby Red (Precious Stone Trilogy, #1)

Summary (via Goodreads): Gwyneth Shepherd's sophisticated, beautiful cousin Charlotte has been prepared her entire life for traveling through time. But unexpectedly, it is Gwyneth, who in the middle of class takes a sudden spin to a different era!
Gwyneth must now unearth the mystery of why her mother would lie about her birth date to ward off suspicion about her ability, brush up on her history, and work with Gideon--the time traveler from a similarly gifted family that passes the gene through its male line, and whose presence becomes, in time, less insufferable and more essential. Together, Gwyneth and Gideon journey through time to discover who, in the 18th century and in contemporary London, they can trust.
Review: This book was so much fun to read. I loved Gwen. She was such an interesting point of view and was really fun and quirky. Having the world revealed to us through her was a really nice touch, especially seeing Gwen's funny reactions to somethings (like when she starts singing the national anthem around the mind readers!) Gideon was okay, but he seemed a little bit shifty. I don't know about his character or not, I guess he has to be a good guy... My other favorite character was Lesley, Gwen's best friend. They both had such a good relationship. I loved how protective Lesley was over Gwen and they always seemed to know what was going on with each other. The other adult characters in this book got a little confusing - there are multiple family lines and people in the Temple. Sometimes, it was hard to remember who a certain person was. However, there is a list of characters in the back of the book which would probably have been helpful if I knew it existed before I finished reading. *sigh*
The book was well paced, but the beginning did start slow. I really wished she would just tell her mother at the beginning and the explanation of the world took too long. It needed to happen for world building purposes, but it seemed too dragged out with all the multiple characters. They were all introduced at once and that was when it started to get confusing. Once the action picked up, it did start to get better - all the time travel was super fun and I loved the scenes where she got dressed before then. Halfway through, the action and the premise really picked up with all the collecting blood. I just wish that it had started a bit sooner. 
Ruby Red was translated from German, which I didn't have too many problems with. Sometimes, translation got a little bit fancy, but that normally happens. The translator took a very straight-from-the-German approach which led to fancier words and degrees than we would normally use in slang English. It wasn't exactly like reading a book originally written in English because of all the high language, but it was understandable. 
Overall, this book was an exciting and fun read with a slow beginning! I am going to read the next two books in this series sometime soon. 
4.5/5 stars 

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