Worlds Inside Books

I loved this book! Even though it had a love triangle, I didn't dislike it for once. The circumstances of the triangle make it less annoying and make Marguerite's doubts more realistic. As both Theo and Paul forget sometimes who they are, part of her doesn't know who she likes, because even though all parallel versions of both young men are similar, there's something unique about each of them. The fact that she is not madly in love with either and that her feelings and doubts are presented in a much more mature way than usual also helped.

I found the way that the parallel universes work in this trilogy very interesting. Any person who uses the Firebird can only travel to a universe in which this person exists and is currently alive. The mind of the traveler is transferred to their parallel body and takes control of it, suppressing that body's mind.

I only disliked two things. The synopsis says space- and time-bending and there's actually no time travel at all. What happens is that some of the parallel universes are less advanced than ours and others have futuristic technology, so it seems as if the characters have traveled back or forwards in time, but nobody travels to the past or the future, nor is it mentioned that it's even possible. Not in this book anyway. It's a trilogy, so who knows what secrets will be discovered in the next two books.

The other was that I would expect someone else to question Paul's guilt as well. The problem was that we don't get the impression that Paul is the killer, because the book doesn't give us enough reasons to believe this. Seeing as this is a key aspect of the plot, it was a bit unfortunate that Mr. Caine's death -or rather what his family knows of it- wasn't explained more.

I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series, because travelling through universes adds something interesting to the usual espionage plot. I've put a word in spoiler tags because it reveals an important part of the general plot of the trilogy that is only discovered at the end. I couldn't leave it out of the review though, because it's the main reason why I want to continue reading this book series. As great as the plot was, what I found the most interesting about this trilogy is this twist and the possible consequences of it.