Forever Layla

Forever Layla by Melissa Turner Lee
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Ah, time travel. How you vex me so.

Here is a story which tries to avoid paradoxes and treat time travel incidentally. And yet it is a huge part of the plot. Although the book is largely character driven, there is still the backdrop of that pesky time travel going on.

This book actually does have a great story. Although it sets a circular time pattern in motion, it compensates for the general lack of scientific detail by concentrating on the characters. Layla is a woman out of her own time. Part of what drives the plot is her unwillingness to talk about herself - who she is, where she's from, how she got there. This is slowly revealed as the two main characters, Layla and David, forge their relationship.

The characters developed nicely. The relationships in the book changed realistically. David and Layla's relationship takes some turns that, were they happening in real life, seem a little farfetched. Not that it never happens, just that mostly it doesn't. But these things about their relationship were what endeared me to them. The author touches on some things momentarily, but doesn't dwell. Rather, she just gives them enough of a mention to accent the story.

What's interesting about this plot is that it seems predictable and yet it's not. The ending, while it went the direction I thought it would, still surprised me slightly. Things that were on the fringes of implausible were balanced with things that were completely what you'd expect in real life.

What did bother me about this novel was the writing. It reads very much like a first novel. There are a lot of informational statements interspersed with dialogue that just don't have that nuanced "between the lines" feel to them. It was fine; it just wasn't stellar. It didn't flow. The story progressed, but it felt a bit rough. Maybe it's just the author's style. She told the story well, but she didn't write exceptionally well. Again, the flow - this is what distinguishes an amazing writer from an average one.

I will be interested to see what Turner Lee does next. She can tell a good story. I'm sure she'll get better and better with the way she tells it as she continues to write.

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