Review: Renegade by Laura Wilcox

Posted on April 9, 2014 Updated on April 9, 2014

Title: Renegade

Author: Laura Wilcox

Publication Date: NA

Genre: Fantasy/ YA?

Overview: Andrew Simmons is a time traveller who has broken two of the biggest laws of time travel: don’t interfere and under no circumstances should you lose your talisman, the means by which time travellers travel. Now, he’s stuck in 1770, trying to get his talisman back. He has five days to find his talisman and get back to his home or he’ll be stuck in 1770 forever and his family will forget he ever existed.

World-Building: The time travelling community is laid out in the novel as extremely self-contained. It’s an ability passed through recessive genes and those who have it are regulated through a shadow government that works more like a noble society than a bureaucracy. This made sense enough to me.

It got a little crazy when Andrew goes back in time. He is stuck in 1770 Boston and the world is foreign to him. There were some very interestingly described scenes that take place in the woods. It felt secluded then, which was appropriate. However, when outside of those scenes there are some continuity issues (at least some things that seemed out of place).

The narration Wilcox uses to construct the world sometimes bleeds into the conversation when a larger narrative passage would do just as well without making the conversations seem unnatural. This isn’t always happening, but instances are throughout.

Character Development: I really liked Daniel and Andrew was fun. I especially liked their interactions and Andrew’s interactions with his best friend. I think there could have been more time building the relationships between characters; it would have added to the overall need for Andrew to get back and the sense of urgency he feels when he realizes that his family will think he never existed.

As an aside, I was surprised Andrew was shocked when he realizes what’s going on with Richard. He seemed to have pointed it out in an earlier scene and then forgets he made the connection.

Plot: The plot moved at a decent pace and, with a couple of exceptions, the events moved well. The last seventy or so pages really picked up speed. The cliff hanger made sense, though I kind of wished Wilcox would have gotten to it more quickly and some of the events were a bit odd. In particular, I thought it was interesting that there wasn’t even a whisper of the time traveller history that Andrew (or the society as a whole) seemed to know about.

Rating:3.5. It was fun, just could have done with some tweaking.

Amazon Link: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=renegade+by+l.+a.+wilcox

Book Depository Link: NA