Here and Now and Then

A Novel

By: Mike Chen

Narrated by: Cary Hite

Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

To save his daughter, he’ll go anywhere - and any-when....

Kin Stewart is an everyday family man: working in IT, trying to keep the spark in his marriage, struggling to connect with his teenage daughter, Miranda. But his current life is a far cry from his previous career...as a time-traveling secret agent from 2142.

Stranded in suburban San Francisco since the 1990s after a botched mission, Kin has kept his past hidden from everyone around him, despite the increasing blackouts and memory loss affecting his time-traveler’s brain. Until one afternoon, his “rescue” team arrives - 18 years too late.

Their mission: return Kin to 2142, where he’s only been gone weeks, not years, and where another family is waiting for him. A family he can’t remember.

Torn between two lives, Kin is desperate for a way to stay connected to both. But when his best efforts threaten to destroy the agency and even history itself, his daughter’s very existence is at risk. It’ll take one final trip across time to save Miranda - even if it means breaking all the rules of time travel in the process.

A uniquely emotional genre-bending debut, Here and Now and Then captures the perfect balance of heart, playfulness, and imagination, offering an intimate glimpse into the crevices of a father’s heart and its capacity to stretch across both space and time to protect the people that mean the most.

©2019 Mike Chen (P)2019 Harlequin Enterprises, Limited

Time

New take on time travel paradox! Really enjoyable, and while I usually listen on trips, I stayed up until 12:30 am to finish
Since it was so engrossing.

Good story - problematic performance

The narrator was good for the main character but terrible for the two main sub characters. They were English and the narrator's attempt at an English accent was appalling.

Love Time Travel

Mike Chen did an amazing job. it is hard to write about time travel and make it seem possible. But Mike Chen did. I was hooked from the prolong to the very end!

Cary Hite did an outstanding job narrating the book. Easy to follow and stay engaged.

Loved It!

My husband and I listened to this as our "walking book" and we really enjoyed it! It was a little slow in the middle at times, but both the beginning and the ending were very good. The readers were very good, as well. The ending brought a smile to our faces. We have since recommended it to friends of ours who subscribe to Audible and at least one of them has downloaded it. I definitely recommend it!

Awesome

I loved how the plot developed, pace of the story and the ending was wonderful. The narrator, all my senses were engaged , sight, smell. taste and hearing every descriptive detail in the story. I would listen to Cary Hite again and read another book by Mile Chen.

A Near Miss

Time-traveling family drama with a lot of interesting ideas. Problems: the women feel underwritten, every character feels a little stupid, and the narrator does an appalling British accent that destroys the gravity of his scene-setting. Painfully irritating. Picks up in the third act. Glad I finished, but was a slog.

Not a bad time traveler adventure

The book was ok. The first half hooked me in and wanted me to keep reading. The second half was a little dull with me just trying to predict how it would end.

Great Time Travel Story

One of the best time travel stories I've read. Rather than focusing on the technology of time travel and the possible paradoxes the story presented was logical and understandable with a focus on relationships and emotions. Highly recommend this as a great listen.

Not the story you expect, for better and worse

So, I really wanted to love this story. I feel like the bones of the story are perfect. The conflict that is set up is strong and the emotional stakes are high. But, even with incredibly strong bones, the story comes off feeling flat. Some emotional beats were missing or just felt off for some reason. The dialogue (and all the talk about agent training) just felt a little tedious.

I will say that I give this story a ton of credit for never being the story you expect. It starts out as one thing and then subtly moves away from that. I think that maybe part of my disappointment was due to the fact that it kept hinting that it was going to turn back into an action packed spy novel, but never really did. The climax of the story is very subtle and soft and nice. But also never reaches any true emotional highs. It fits what this story IS, but doesn’t feel like it fits what the story could have been.

Overall a perfectly adequate novel. Not a waste of time, but also nothing to get super excited about.

Good Story with a hint of sci fi

ok so I started this book bc I thought the cover was beautiful and I am a fan of Sci fi. the story was a lot less sci fi than I expected, it revolved more around the love of the main character and his family, but it was a sweet, happy story. good pick me up, if you're feeling the winter blues!