Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier

Gwen's life is pretty normal - for the most part. She lives in London, goes to school, has a best friend, Lesley, and lives with her extended family, including her aunt, great aunt, and her cousin, Charlotte, who is a day older than her.

Normal, right?

Not exactly. See, the women in her family carries a gene - a time traveling gene. Not every female gets this gene; in fact, it skips certain generations and the fate is in the stars as to who is supposed to carry the next gene.

Charlotte has known her entire life that she was going to start time traveling around the age of 16 or 17, so she has been preparing for that fateful day. Instead of hanging out with friends and watch bad tv shows like Gwen, Charlotte has been learning how to fence, ball-room dance, speak in numerous languages, and basically never having any teenage fun.

So it was a bit of a surprise when Gwen time-travels into the past!

Apparently, Gwen's mother decided to fib about the day that Gwen was born. Her and Charlotte were born on the same day. Instead of telling anyone that, Gwen's mom (Grace) hoped that Charlotte would have the gene to time-travel and pretended that Gwen was normal.

Not the brightest idea since Gwen traveled back into time and didn't know where she was, what time she was in, or anyone around. She was basically a new-born in the past and, thankfully, left just as quickly before she got into too much trouble.

After finding this news out, the "Order" who handles the two families that can time travel rushed to get things ready for Gwen when she time-travels with her companion, Gideon.

Gideon is part of the family where MALES time-travel throughout generations. He has been practicing and has actually time-traveled for 2 whole years now, since he's 19, so he's a natural, but he wasn't excited to get paired up with Gwen since he's been working with Charlotte all of these years.

Also, Gwen doesn't take orders as well as Charlotte, so that might be another reason he's a little upset about the switch in time-traveling companions.

Now Gwen and Gideon are on a mission to collect their ancestor's blood to complete the circle of 12 - all of the family members who had the ability to travel through time. Gwen is the 12th, and last, time traveler, but they need a drop of blood from all 12 to complete the circle.

However, things are not as simple as that seeing as how the other 2 time-travelers before Gwen and Gideon (Lucy and Paul) are trying to STOP the completion of the circle.

Will Gwen and Gideon succeed in their mission or will Paul and Lucy outsmart them? Read Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier to find out!

My Thoughts/Reflections
I saw this novel at the public library and was instantly attracted to the storyline of this novel. So of course, I checked it out without seeing if it was part of a series.

It is.

So now I have to wait for the other two novels in the series (Sapphire Blue and Emerald Green) to come out in the U.S. These books are international best sellers so they, unfortunately, did not come out first in the U.S. making me wait awhile :/

However, I completely fell in love with this story and with the concept of time-traveling. It's been awhile since I read a book about time-travel so it was all new and exciting for me!

I admire Gwen. She knew she was not normal because of her family history (and because she has the ability to see ghosts at random times) but she also knew she was not special Charlotte. And Gwen was okay with that.

But when Gwen found out that she was the one that was the time-traveler? She took it in stride and she quickly tried to learn what was happening and what she was supposed to do. Not that it was easy, seeing how the "Order" was trying to keep things from her but still expecting her to understand every little detail.

Gwen was a survivor, though, and even tolerated Gideon and his smart-alack remarks toward her naiveness about time-travel.

When Gwen meets Lucy and Paul during one of their "blast to the past" moments, everything starts to change and Gwen wants to find out why Lucy and Paul are trying to destroy years of hard work.

Kerstin Gier leaves us in a pivotal moment between Gwen and Gideon in the last scene of book one, but she also leaves a lot of questions that are dying to be answered, so I'm really anxiously waiting for the other two books to come out in the U.S.

I would definitely recommend this book to teens. Maybe to teen girls as the narrator is female and it revolves around her more than Gideon, but there is a lot of mystery and suspense in here that will keep the reader wanting more (just like myself).

So if you're looking for a mystery with some time-travel mixed together, go pick up this book today!