A well-written science fiction thriller with enough twists and turns to leave you breathless and guessing.
A really interesting take on time travelling and quantum entanglement.
Loved this book!

Dr. Sam Anderson’s world is turned upside down when he wakes to find the woman he loves murdered, and even worse, he’s accused of the crime. The twist? In this future, criminals are sent to the past—into the age of dinosaurs! It’s a wild concept, and the way the book unravels the mystery of his exiled fate is thrilling.

But what truly stands out is Adeline, Sam’s daughter. Her determination to prove her father’s innocence is inspiring, and watching her uncover secrets while facing the odds makes for a captivating read. The layers of mystery, the emotional stakes, and the unexpected twists kept me on edge the whole time.

If you're into fast-paced sci-fi with a heartfelt twist and a strong lead, this book is a must-read!

I really wanted to like this book. It includes time travel and having to deal with dinosaurs! What a cool premise.

Unfortunately, the premise was as good as it got.

Lost in Time was hard work to get through. For the first half of the novel, I was bored. Despite time travel, dinosaurs, and throwing in a murder mystery with multiple suspects, I couldn’t care less. It was a lot of effort to keep reading and I came close to DNFing.

It was the characters that did it. The first half is split into two narrations: Sam – the man sent back in time – and Adeline – his daughter trying to bring him back and solve the mystery.

Sam was useless. He’s such a flat, nondescript character, that the reader certainly doesn’t care where or when he ends up, even if the other characters supposedly do. Everything was a little too convenient for Sam. Sent back to the past, he still manages to stumble upon whatever he needs in the nick of time.

Adeline wasn’t a lot better. She’s confrontational and doesn’t trust anyone. While circumstances make that somewhat understandable, the young adult Adeline is not a likeable character. You’re not rooting for her any more than her father.

The team around them are all perfectly flawed individuals, with their tragic backstories supposedly adding depth. I’m not sure any of them were relatable. Plus, there was Adeline’s little brother. 90% of the book, everyone – including the reader – forgot he existed.

The second half was fractionally better. Reducing to one narration certainly helped (maybe because I didn’t care what Sam was getting up to). Adeline becomes more likeable. The continuity improves, which helped draw me into the world a little more.

But it still didn’t make up for the first half. If part one was boring, the second part made your head spin. As soon as time travel is included, you’ve got a bunch of complicated notions that need to be considered. But the way these were repeatedly discussed made them more complex than they needed to be. Never mind the characters messing with time, the reader felt they were stuck in a time loop given how the plot didn’t seem to move forward.

In fairness, I stuck with it. I did want to see how everything was going to come together. It was the murder mystery element that drew me in more than anything: I wanted to know how that was going to play out and be resolved. Not even that was straight forward, though!

Lost in Time was a disappointing read. It had the elements to make an exciting story, combining past, present and future with notions of justice and accountability. It lacked the depth of characters needed to draw you into this complicated world, though, and tried to make up for it with scientific jargon. There’re better time travel stories out there.

I love all the work that this The has done and this one was no different. I always feel like I’m having so much fun reading these books matter how dark and twisty they get the characters are so well developed but it really makes you root for them and feel involved in the story, I cannot vote riddles writing and worldbuilding and this book was really fantastic

Have now read since publication and thought it was pretty rough for the first 40% but after that got dramatically better!!

This started off well. A capital crime and a novel punishment, a father taking the blame in order to exoneratehis daughter. But WHO actually committed the crime and how would that be revealed? Time travel is a large component but is overdone. Sam's arrival in the Dinosaur era has less than nothing to recommend it, just page filling. Adeline travels back to a different era in order to live out a life already lived and Not change it. Having worked her way back to the original time the author just seems to go mad moving people around in place and time. I simply lost interest at this point. Finished the book without needing to understand the events which frankly were inexplicable.

Like many of the other reviewers said, this book was amazing! I love time travel, and I love books have historical moments explored in them as well. Great book!

Not exactly what I was expecting when I started reading this book. I was attracted to it as I'm a fan if sci-fi, time travel and thriller books and this promised all three.

Although it was eminently readable I'm sorry to say that, for me it didn't quite hit the mark. Yes, there was time travel but when Sam goes to the triassuc period, he somehow seems to get abandoned half way through the book until he turns up in the present day later on. I was expecting to learn more about how he survived.

Some aspects of the story just didn't hang together for me and the murder early on in the story which causes so much angst turns out not to have happened anyway.

Readable but not top of my list.

Stars: 1.5 out of 5.

Pfew, glad I'm finally done with this book. It's not particularly long, but boy it dragged. Truth be told, I only picked it up because the blurb promised time travel and dinosaurs. Unfortunately, there is precious little of them in this story. And that timeline is completely ignored for the last 50% of the book, much to my disappointment. Also, how can you make a story of survival at the time of dinosaurs boring? I thought that was impossible.

The characters are also nothing to write home about. And what I mean by that is that they are lifeless. They are just concepts with a few distinct traits and flaws to differentiate them by, not real fleshed out characters. Adeline is the worst offender in this department. Too bad she is the one we follow the most in this book. By the time the author completely drops Sam's story at the time of the big reptiles and focuses solely on Adeline and her valiant attempt at making her life even more boring than it was, I was sorely tempted to just DNF this book. But I had already read about 67% of the story, so I felt bad for my time investment and wanted to at least see this through and find out what this murder mystery was all about. 

Spoiler alert - it makes no sense whatsoever. Turns out the murder is not really a murder, so all the pain and suffering for Sam and Adeline was for no good reason at all. Also, that whole plot twist with Adeline's time travel served no particular point either. And the ending... don't start me on the ending. Are we really supposed to think that his little utopia island of theirs is supposed to be a paradise on earth? These people are effectively prisoners there until they die. How long before some of them decide they had enough and stage an insurrection? 

Also, what was the point of this story? The murder wasn't really a murder, so the driving factor behind all this is moot. The end result is also deeply unsatisfying. The writing stile was also very dry and impersonal. That coupled with one-dimensional characters made it very hard to stay engaged in the story or to care about what was happening at all. I don't think I will pick up another book by this author.

PS: I received an advanced copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I’m sorry, I didn’t get on with this book at all. Mostly the writing style annoyed me, and I found it a bit cheesy in places.

The storyline is excellent, but I only managed to maintain interest in the last 20%, and even then I still found myself putting it down a lot and going off to do other things.

This is one of those “it’s not you, it’s me” situations, it just couldn’t hold me interest and everyone got on my nerves.

My thanks to Netgalley and Head of Zeus for the copy.

I'm a big fan of A.G. Riddle and this book was no exception- very immersed in the story and will definitely be reading again!

Lost in Time by A.G. Riddle

This author's books, for me, teeter on the edge of what I'm prepared to accept in thrillers - they can be quite outrageous in their ideas! Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I really enjoyed this one. It features dinosaurs, which made it especially appealing, and I love time twisters.

Lost in Time

Oh my gosh I wish I had read this book sooner ! The twists in the book had me 😱 I loved it.
Time Travel, Murder and Dinosaurs what more could you want from a book! (The Dinosaurs don't play a big part in the story so don't go into expecting that)

Thank you to Netgalley, Head of Zeus and A.G Riddle for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest Review

A wild ride of a science fiction thriller. I found myself drawn into the character stories very quickly. I found the explanation of the plot to be a bit confusing as parts didn't seem to be consistent within the internal logic of the story, but that didn't really stop me from enjoying the story and thinking about it for a long time after finishing.

This is the type of book that anytime you finish a chapter, You HAVE TO keep reading to find out what happens next. only for the end of that chapter to end in a cliffhanger, so you HAVE to keep going. That's how I felt while reading. I'm not sure what it took me so long to finally sit down and get into the book, but man as soon as I was maybe 15% into the book I didn't want to stop.

Dr. Sam wakes up and finds out that the woman he's been with was murdered... His daughter (Adeline) and him are accused of the crime since they were the last ones to see him alive. Dr. Sam gets sent to prison which looks different than this time period. Rather prison is getting sent back to a random date in the past... this could be with the dinosaurs or even further back. However, no one knows where the prisons go, all they know is they won't be coming back to the present timeline.

Adeline is convinced she will find the murderer and bring justice to her father's name... holy geez , this book thought.I never thought I would be a fan of time travel books, but THIS ONE RIGHT HERE WAS perfect!! I always thought I would become confused when it came down to a book revolving around time travel, however the author made it so easy to follow. There wasn't unnecessary jargon used to describe how time travel is possible which cut out any excessive points that other books may contain.

There are only two POVs, one taking place in the past and the other in present time. I wasn't sure what to expect when I received access to this book, but I'm so happy I was able to escape into this world. It's such an interesting concept to be able to send prisons to the past, but everyone would react to this differently if it ever was to become real.

Overall, I HIGHLY recommend if you're looking for a fast-paced time travel novel! Once I became involved in the story, I didn't want it to end. Maybe A.G. Riddle will be on my horizon for future books.

Dr Sam Anderson has been part of the team that worked on the Absalom Project. Set in the near future, those accused of the most serious of crimes are not imprisoned or executed but sent to the past- back millions of years to live out their brief lives in the time of the dinosaurs. When the police arrive to arrest Sam & his daughter Adeline for the murder of Nora- Sam's colleague & lover. Everything points to them, so to save his daughter he confesses. Adeline may be only nineteen but she is made of strong stuff & after Sam is sent back she hatches a plan that may take a long time to come to fruition but will save her father.

I don't read much sci-fi butt this mix of sci-fi, whodunnit and general unbelievable-ness completely captivated me. It must be one of the strangest books I've read this year but it was one that will stick in my mind. Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read & review this book.

Scientist Sam Anderson and his teenaged daughter Adeline are arrested for the murder of Sam’s colleague/lover Nora. Sam confesses to the murder to spare Adeline. As punishment he is sent millions of years into the past, using Absolom the time travel device invented by Sam and his colleagues. Adeline promises Sam that she will find a way to prove his innocence and bring him back.

Each of the characters in the book has one habit or trait that defines them, but none has anything approaching a personality. How Absolom works is pretty sketchy. Admittedly, time travel stories always confuse me, but this one seemed to be at the high end of illogical plots. I expected more dinosaurs. Don’t tease me with the Jurassic period and then leave out most of the beasties. And I didn’t like the ending at all. However, the book did hold my interest. 3.5 stars.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

The premise was not something I have come across in the past, the idea of punishment being prehistoric in its nature was fascinating. As a personal lover of dinosaurs I was so excited to see where this went. I was hooked from the get go, the story was fast paced and unique. I could not put it down!

3.5

I have never read any of A.G. Riddle's work, but I loved the idea of a time travel thriller and that is exactly what I got here. Though the prose was fairly simple and straightforward, the plot was very fast paced and twisty and exactly the kind of read I needed for a long plane ride.

There is a strong focus on characters, specifically on Sam and Adeline and the question of what would you do/how far would you go to save someone you loved. There were also dinosaurs and some twists that had me very shocked.

That being said, I there were some aspects of the story that I struggled with, like some of the secrets the Absolom Six had seemed to only exist so that Adeline would think they might be guilty and didn't feel fully fleshed out in their reveals. And how did <spoiler>Sam get and know how to use the pieces the team sent back for him and also why did they ever have to fake Nora's death in the first place?</spoiler>. The ending I think will be divisive. I'm not exactly sure where I land on the ending myself but this was definitely a book that made me want to keep turning the pages.

I think this would be good for fans of Michael Crichton or Blake Crouch or anyone who is looking for a fun sci-fi thriller type of read.

QUICK TAKE: I love the idea of a time-travel prison, but I ultimately struggled with this one as the scifi was not as grounded as i was hoping it would be (too many dinosaurs). Still, an interesting author to watch, and I probably went into it with higher expectations.