Review: Overseas

Title: Overseas
Author: Beatriz Williams
Publisher: Putnam Adult
Genre: Romance
464 pages
Release Date: May 10, 2012

When twenty-something Wall Street analyst Kate Wilson attracts the notice of the legendary Julian Laurence at a business meeting, no one’s more surprised than she is...Why would this handsome British billionaire—Manhattan’s most eligible bachelor—pursue a pretty but bookish young banker who hasn’t had a boyfriend since college? The answer is beyond imagining . . . at least at first. Kate and Julian’s story may have begun not in the moneyed world of twenty-first-century Manhattan but in France during World War I, when a mysterious American woman emerged from the shadows of the Western Front to save the life of Captain Julian Laurence Ashford, a celebrated war poet and infantry officer. Now, in modern-day New York, Kate and Julian must protect themselves from the secrets of the past, and trust in a true love that transcends time and space.

-taken from Goodreads

I've had this book on my to-read list for a while, simply because I love time traveling stories. However, I'm also very picky about time travel novels because they can so easily be done wrong. Time travel is tricky.

I know that it's technically impossible* in and of itself, but I don't like it when a book gets it wrong, when the time traveling doesn't make sense. Although Overseas keeps its timelines in order, it does the other two things I don't like in time travel novels: when the characters don't seem to understand it and when the how of it, the explanation for it, makes no sense.

Without spoiling the plot, in case anyone does decide to read this book, the characters make choices to try and change events, even though, if they were successful, it would make sense that they would suddenly lose certain memories,etc. For some reason, the characters don't seem to grasp this and continue to forge headlong into crazy plans that could affect them in way they don't think about that should be obvious.

The romance of it is weak. Julian is a bit overdone - a strange mix of some Jane Austen hero and Edward from Twilight with his flowery words and control issues. Kate was annoying in her hesitance to commit. Their relationship felt forced and not very believable.

Basically, Overseas felt like a letdown for me. It had a lot of potential and didn't deliver. However, I wouldn't say for sure not to read it - the basic story is a fun idea and just because I'm neurotic about time traveling, that doesn't mean everyone is. And hey, if people like the romance of Twilight, it's likely they'll like the romance of Overseas.

*for now...right? RIGHT?

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