Will and Mara Sterling are already living their dream. After surviving a campus shooting, they both went on to finish college, fall in love, and start a new life together as husband and wife. That’s not to say things have been easy: Will suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and Mara has debilitating chronic pain from her gunshot wound. Despite it all, they feel lucky to be alive and even … even luckier to be in love.
Then a new initiative from the Justice Department offers Will and Mara the chance of a lifetime. The shooter has been rehabilitated and his crime qualifies for a timeline rectification. With Will and Mara’s consent, they can all travel through time back to the original scene of the crime, giving the gunman a chance to put things right.
It sounds like a dream come true, but both Will and Mara have their doubts. Timeline rectification—called “time wrecking” by its critics—is at the center of a politically charged debate. Will and Mara aren’t entirely sure where they fall on this issue and the clock is ticking for them to decide. Is it moral to change time for the rest of the world, just to undo one crime? Is it moral to deny the gunman a chance to correct his past crimes? And what if this one ripple means that they never meet . . . or fall in love?
Set in 2011, Every Last Minute is the first book in the Time Wrecker Trilogy.
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5 (4.5 / 5) rounded up!
Wow you guys, if I knew I was going to love Every Last Minute by Ellen Smith as much as I did, I would have read this book a hell of a lot sooner!
What it’s about: Will and Mara Sterling are survivors. After being shot in the shoulder in college, Mara lives after Will calls 911 and holds her until the ambulance comes. Years later, now married, Mara is dealing with intense pain and needs a plethora of medication to help manage her shoulder pain from the crime. Plus Will is struggling with both nightmares and PTSD. Luckily (?) enough for them, they live in a world where something called a timeline rectification is legal. This stipulates that if a criminal is remorseful for their crime and adheres to a strict program, they can in fact go back and redo the crime removing it from history. None of the parties taking part know what happens afterwards, and none of them have any memory of the crime. Will and Mara have an opportunity to take part, but their respective families are not fans of timeline rectification, and call them (along with other opponents of the law) time WRECKS. Now Will and Mara need to make a decision, do they move ahead with it and make their families mad, plus potentially not meet and lose the love they have? Or do they not go through with it and suffer?
I really like the idea of any book that speaks to time travel, especially when it is as well written as this one. While the focus isn’t so much on time travel itself, the aspect of timeline rectification was fascinating to read and think about. I really felt for Will and Mara and what they were going through. Smith absolutely knows how to write her characters and make them feel real. I felt like these two and their dilemma were jumping right off the page at me.
Although Every Last Minute was on the longer side at 424 pages, it reads really quickly and I found myself not wanting to put it down. This is book 1 in a trilogy and I was so happy that it didn’t really end with a cliffhanger. However, it definitely left me wanting more, and I can’t wait to see how the rest of Will and Mara’s story unfolds.
Final Thought: Every Last Minute touches on relationships, family, trauma, and social issues. There is enough going on that you shouldn’t be bored, and if you like books that deal with characters internal struggles this is a good one. The flow of Smith’s writing was perfect, and I found myself loving every minute of this book. You can be sure that I will snatch up book 2 as soon as I possibly can.
What would you do if you were offered a chance to go back and remove pain like Mara’s from your life? Would you take it?
Thank you to the author, Ellen Smith, for providing me with a review copy of this book!