Getting a Second Chance: A Book Review of The Reason for Time

 

"...we are so caught up in the rushing river, trying either to swim backwards or to propel ourselves forward, that we forget to breathe."

 

You Should Read The Reason for Time if...

• You are interested in stories that take place in Canada
• You enjoy a feisty female protagonist
• You love the new-in-town theme

Want a short, spoiler-free review? Check out my review on Reedsy Discovery!

The Gooderham Building/Flatiron Building in St. Lawrence - Jamshed Khedri on Unsplash

NOTE: I read this book as a standalone since the author said it was possible, but keep in mind that this book is the third installment of the Maggie Dunn trilogy.

Summary 

In a Reason for Time by Deborah Court, Alison Budge and Maggie Dunn travel together from Scotland to Toronto. Alison is starting a new life and Maggie is determined to face her past and start living a normal life again. Both of them meet Wolfe Corbyn, a young banker from London, England. He is being transferred to another branch of his father's bank because he played around with the bank's money. Facing a new life in a strange city all by himself in a job he hates scares Wolfe, so he goes out of his way to be friendly to Alison and Maggie as they disembark from the plane and head to their hotels. The trio get to know each other and settle into Toronto. 

But Maggie has a secret: she was exposed to a chemical fog a year and a half ago when her sixty-year-old body slowly reverted to that a thirty-year-old. The head geneticist on the team of doctors who tended to Maggie wanted to turn her into a laboratory specimen to study, so she escaped and fled to Scotland.

Now back in Toronto, Maggie is facing her past by putting herself back on the map with a bank account, an email address and a plan in mind. However, she is kidnapped and Alison must find her and rescue her from the clutches of the mad geneticist.

-- SPOILERS AHEAD--

National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

What Caught My Eye

One thing that made me read this book is that it was categorized as a cozy mystery on Reedsy Discovery. But I don't find it quite holds that atmosphere. From what I understand, the previous book sounds like it would suit that genre. But as the podcasters of Writing the Broom know (see their fifth episode), categorizing stories into genres and subgenre is tricky. It certainly makes my head spin. 

A cozy mystery usually has a woman solving the mystery as an amateur's sleuth. That's fits with this book. Alison does (albeit minimal) sleuthing. However, it does not take place in a small town or tight-knit community; it's in the busy metropolitan city of  (downtown) Toronto. But it does let the reader feel as though they are returning home. The descriptions of Toronto had that and for me, a Canadian, it felt like home. 

But another issue is that the crime here is kidnapping, not murder. And we already know who the culprit is before Maggie/Jane is kidnapped, so the only mystery is how he kidnapped her and how Alison and Maggie/Jane's friends will rescue her. The mystery could also be as to how Maggie/Jane went form a sixty-year-old to a thirty-year-old after chemical exposure, but that's never resolved. My expectation of a mystery was not met. 

A cozy mystery also emphasizes plot and character development. That is achieved here, but not successfully, in my opinion (see the section What I Didn't Like below). It is not fast-paced aside from one or two scenes. It felt quiet slow on the whole, but enjoyable. There were two red herrings, but not in the way of clues; Court carefully worded the sentences to make readers think one thing when the reality was another. 

So, should this book be categorized as something else? I say, yes. I've read cozy mysteries and I didn't get that vibe from The Reason for Time. Maybe it should be categorized as contemporary crime fiction?

Ashwini Chaudhary on Unsplash

Characters

• Maggie Dunn/Jane Emily Brown: As Jane, she was an English teacher who grew up in Toronto through the 1950s and 60s. She had a normal life and was married for a time. A year and a half ago, she was one of many who was exposed to a chemical fog that covered the city, but she survived, experiencing an age reversal. Because she didn't want the life Matthias Oleg proposed for her, she escaped to Scotland as Maggie Dunn with the help of Dr. Richard and Leah Morris. Maggie/Jane was a tenant and employee for Alison's mother in Carbost. A murder occurred and after that was delay with both Maggie/Jane decided to return to Toronto because she wants to live a normal life. Alison goes with her to start a new life.

• Alison Budge: She is a feisty woman of 25 from Scotland who opens up once she's in Toronto. Even Maggie/Jane is surprised at the change in her. Alison says what's on her mind and is the type to take action. Alison gets a job as a cleaner, but plans to find a better job. She discovers a love for poetry and attends a night course with Wolfe who pursues drawing. Occasionally, she shows a romantic interest in him, but will put him in his place when he's out of line. Alison investigates Maggie/Jane's disappearance 

• Wolfe Corbyn: He is a well-bred man of 26 from London. It was his dream to go to an art school, but his old-fashioned father refused to pay for it, so Wolfe resigned himself to an education and career in banking. He is highly efficient at it, but considers it to be boring. He exercised some creativity at his father's bank by moving the money around, but his father found out, covered up the scandal and transferred Wolfe to the Toronto branch. He develops a friendship with Alison and hopes for more.

• Richard Morris: He is a married physician with three children. He and his wife, Leah, helped Maggie/Jane gain a new identity after she escaped the second time from the hospital and escaped to Scotland. Because she's experiencing strange symptoms, Maggie/Jane reaches out to them, but they only receive her messages too late. Richard is an admirable man who gets the "old gang" back together to locate Maggie/Jane and protects Alison against any legal action when she takes advantage of her position to rescue Maggie/Jane from a private hospital. 

• Matthias Oleg: He is the arrogant head geneticist who was studying Maggie/Jane's genetic make-up. He becomes so blinded by the potential for fame and fortune that he tries to keep Maggie/Jane against her will to gain samples from her and continue his studies. 

• Bill Ryan: He is a man of 36 from Australia who was a nurse who looed after Maggie/Jane after her accident. Bill was a witness to her age reversal and shared jokes and witticisms with her. He fell hard for her. He plans to return to Australia to help his family run their cattle station. But he helps Richard Morris and the others rescue Maggie/Jane from Matthias Oleg.

Starbucks in Toronto - TR on Unsplash

What I Liked 

The overall plot of Maggie/Jane trying to live a normal life while hiding from a greedy fame-seeking geneticist is refreshing. I would have liked to have seen Court provide the reader with an explanation for Maggie/Jane's age reversal, but leaving it unknown also works. 

The little poems throughout the book were a nice touch, giving readers more of a look into Alison's psyche and talent.  

Court provides the reader with backstory from the previous two books, however, I think more should have been provided about Bill and Maggie/Jane's relationship.

Culture

As a Canadian reading this, I enjoyed the jokes about Canada and appreciate the outsider’s view of the country. While I’ve never been to Toronto, I have done research on the area for work, so I was familiar with some of the areas. Having Maggie act as a guide and translator for the other two creates a good balance, giving Canadians and international readers the chance to relate to at least one of the trio.

It was nice to see characters with different nationalities and practices, from Bill the Aussie to Wolfe the Brit to Alison the Scotswoman to the Hindu rituals for Aisha's funeral (she was the other nurse who had originally tended to Maggie/Jane).

Characters

I like that Court removed Maggie/Jane from part of the story to have the reader guess what happened and be on the same page as Alison, Wolfe, and Richard. Additionally, we get to see Maggie/Jane's storyline from various vantage points, such as Richard's home life and his thoughts on Matthias Oleg as well as those of  Rachel, the former assistant to Oleg who married and left him in the same day after learning about his heinous plan to study Maggie/Jane. 

Alison makes for a great protagonist; she's got a Nancy Drew streak in her. She and Wolfe seem to balance each other well. Where he is polite, she is not always, where he is quiet, she is loud. When he makes a sexist remark about Alison and Maggie/Jane paying him back in meals, Alison punches him in the arm and lays down the line. Perfect reaction! But they have enough interests to still have a good connection. I just wish we could have seen more. 

Wolfe was a great character that I could relate to with his art versus a real job situation. I loved seeing his character development and that his self-confidence improves after he exposes his co-worker for fraud. His interactions with Alison were fun in the beginning as they got to know each other, but I wish this storyline had survived until the end.

The Ending

Not every bad guy gets arrested and taken to jail or prison, cursing those "meddling kids," so I appreciate the realistic ending that Oleg may not face any legal action, but his reputation will take a nosedive, which is, perhaps, the sweeter justice since he's is so egotistical. 

What I Didn't Like

As I mentioned above about cozy mysteries, this book had no mystery for me. We're told early on about why Maggie/Jane left Toronto in the first place and we're told that she plans to face her past. So, it's not hard to work out that Oleg is the bad guy and he will get her somehow during the story in order to resolve that conflict.

The other thing is that as soon as Alison is offered to change location for her job and to clean a private hospital, I knew Maggie/Jane would be held there and Alison would be the inside person to rescue her, so again, no mystery for me. Maybe I've been exposed to too many mystery stories?

Alice Donovan Rouse on Unsplash

Out of the Blue

Maggie/Jane and Bill don't interact until the end of the story where we find out she goes with him to Australia and they start a family. Earlier, Bill admits his love confidentially to the reader, but readers don't see him and Maggie interact or know how Maggie feels about him. Maybe it's mentioned in the first two books?  

Wolfe and Alison start off as passengers on a plane and learn that they will be in neighboring hotels. They decide to meet for breakfast and they develop a friendship since they're two outsiders now starting a new life in a strange country. They get a flat together along with Maggie, and their friendship grows with daily interactions and later, they sign up for a night courses at the nearby university. Amid Duncan and Maggie's stories, Wolfe and Alison are shown to be developing alone at their job; we don't see them interact with each other very much except for holding hands after seeing a movie and Alison surprising Wolfe by kissing him when she's excited about a lot of good news. However, after the kiss, the focus is no longer on them as a couple. I feel as though their relationship should have been told instead of Duncan's story. The strangest thing for me is at the end where we're told indirectly that it's been a year and Alison mentions via email that she and Wolfe are planning their wedding. For me, that was out of nowhere. I felt that we should have seen their relationship get to that point since we saw them get together at the beginning.

Pointless Character Development

While we didn't get a very good view of Wolfe and Alison's relationship blossoming up to the wedding, we saw their characters in their work environments: Alison cleaned and Wolfe worked at the bank while studying the audits where he discovers an employee committing fraud. Looking back at Wolfe's scenes at the bank, it seems to serve as a way to show who Wolfe is and what he is capable of accomplishing. As interesting as it is, I felt that it lacked a connection to the main story. His development doesn't serve a purpose since the story shifts to the Maggie/Jane's story. I was a bit upset that Alison didn't confide in him about Maggie/Jane's past and her kidnapping. We never see him confide in Alison about his crime at his father's bank. And yet, they're both getting married?

The Duncan Storyline

Court says that The Reason for Time can be read as a standalone, but it would be preferable to read the first two books to for a complete experience. I read this book without reading the previous two, so that is how I am reviewing this book. I bring this up because part way through the story, we shift to Scotland and see what's going on with Alison's uncle and mother, Duncan and Dorothy. From a standalone POV, I don't see the point of Duncan's story, which is this:

• He is dealing with the death of his son, which was in the previous book, and now his best friend has died. 
• He is taking care of scattering his friend's ashes on the water and he also reflects on his life.
• Duncan accidentally falls into the water, sees the spirits of his son, friend, and wife and feels forgiven. He is lost at sea, but found a month later, a changed man. 

Isle of Skye, Scotland - Photo: Johannes Mändle on Unsplash

This storyline is told to Alison through her mother by phone and by email, but it has no real bearing on the main story, which is Maggie/Jane's mysterious past, her kidnapping and her rescue. Duncan's story doesn't seem to have any emotional impact on Alison that affects Maggie/Jane's story, meaning that it doesn't distract her enough to make mistakes or cause issues. I don't know if it is important to have it in this book since Maggie/Jane lived in Scotland and knew Alison's family in the previous book. But looking at it from a standalone POV, it felt unnecessary. The book does not need Duncan's story and I honestly didn't care about it. I also don't know why Duncan and Maggie disappeared on the same day and were rescued on the same day. Maggie/Jane never mentions Duncan. I don't know what the significance of this connection is. 

Writing Style

While I do like the casual tone of the storytelling, I find some of the sentences could be tightened up, such as eliminating repetitive words and rearranging syntax. But overall, it makes for an enjoyable read. 

Conclusion

Overall, The Reason for Time was enjoyable and I recommend reading this book, but start with the first one. Find The Reason for Time on Amazon, along with the first two books of the Maggie Dunn trilogy.

Check out my other book reviews in the library.

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