A Murder in Time/ Julie McElwain / 320 pgs

I haven't read a time travel in quite a while so decided to give this a try. Kendra Donovan is an FBI agent in the midst of a big raid to bring down a couple of bad guys. Only, one of their own betrays them, resulting in the deaths of fellow agents and gunshot wounds that leave Kendra rehabilitating for months. When she's finally healed she doesn't return to work, instead she secretly sets off to assassinate the one bad guy who's been turned into an informer. She tracks him down to a castle in England and is all prepared to poison him with ricin when someone else shoots him dead. When that mysterious killer then fires at Kendra she stumbles down a secret passageway and ends up traveling back in time to 1815, where there just happens to be a serial killer on the loose. How Kendra fits in, and doesn't, and how she ends up leading the investigation are the meat of this story.

This book is a strange bird. The author head hops--switches points of view--every few paragraphs, often unexpectedly. This is a huge pet peeve of mine and I almost quit reading this book because of it. But I kept going. Kendra is not a warm fuzzy heroine but I was okay with that. She's friendly and grateful when she needs to be. However, it's mentioned at the outset that she is a eugenics baby, apparently bred by two of the smartest yet coldest people on earth. Aside from this small tidbit, nothing else about it was mentioned. Was this a real government program? Or was this just two people experimenting? I have no idea. Also, Kendra is purportedly very smart, but admits she "doesn't know much about this time period," and then proceeds to spout all kinds of facts--awkwardly--about this very time period. In addition, while the author gets so much of the Regency time period correct, she also still gets some things very wrong

All in all, it's difficult to judge this book. Kendra does not get back to the present by the end and there is a sequel that just came out. I may read it down the line, once I've forgotten all the things I didn't like about this one:-)