Here and now and Then

By Mike Chen

To save his daughter, he’ll go anywhere—and any-when…

Kin Stewart is an everyday family man: working in IT, trying to keep the spark in his marriage, struggling to connect with his teenage daughter, Miranda. But his current life is a far cry from his previous career…as a time-traveling secret agent from 2142.

Stranded in suburban San Francisco since the 1990s after a botched mission, Kin has kept his past hidden from everyone around him, despite the increasing blackouts and memory loss affecting his time-traveler’s brain. Until one afternoon, his “rescue” team arrives—eighteen years too late.

Their mission: return Kin to 2142, where he’s only been gone weeks, not years, and where another family is waiting for him. A family he can’t remember.

Torn between two lives, Kin is desperate for a way to stay connected to both. But when his best efforts threaten to destroy the agency and even history itself, his daughter’s very existence is at risk. It’ll take one final trip across time to save Miranda—even if it means breaking all the rules of time travel in the process.

A uniquely emotional genre-bending debut, Here and Now and Then captures the perfect balance of heart, playfulness, and imagination, offering an intimate glimpse into the crevices of a father’s heart and its capacity to stretch across both space and time to protect the people that mean the most.

May 6, 2019
5 of 5 stars

Here and Now and Then by Mike Chen (purchased at Amazon.ca for my Kindle)

Thank you to P.S. Literary Agency for promoting this AMAZING read on their Facebook page back on April 16. I immediately went to Amazon and snapped up a great Kindle deal. The purchase was a bit outside of my usual genre, but I was hooked from the first page!

A few things I look for in a great read; make me believe, make me laugh, make me cry, make me think. This book did ALL of this and more.

When you think about time travel, you’d be hard pressed to make it believable, right? I was concerned I’d get lost in technicalities, the science part of Science Fiction, but it was so well written I was just truly lost in the story.

I suppose this will come off as sexist, but I LOVE it when a male author GETS the emotions of relationships. Mike Chen nailed the complexities of not just one family, but of two, in two different centuries. At no point did I get confused, have to back up, reconcile, move on. The story was seamless, and hit on all of my favourite reads criteria.

I HIGHLY recommend you buy this book today! I will definitely be watching for the next book by Mike Chen.