Author: Kerstin Gier
English language publisher: Macmillan
Rating: WORTHY!
Ruby Red was originally published in 2009 in German as Rubinrot with the subtitle which is evidently common to each book in the trilogy: liebe geht durch alle zeiten (love goes through all times). This is book 1 in the Ruby Red trilogy (also know as the Edelstein trilogy) and is followed by Sapphire Blue (published in German as Saphirblau in 2010, and in English in 2011), and Emerald Green (published in German as Smaragdgrün in 2010, and in English in 2013)
The English language translator is Anthea Bell. I detest book trailers, but for those interested, there's one here (German with English subtitles), with a movie tie-in (in German) here. Note that Gwen's name is Gwendolyn in the German original.
A 16-year-old English girl, Gwyneth, also known as Gwenny or Gwen tells this story. She's living in wealthy circumstances in London, but under the shadow of her supercilious cousin Charlotte, who is imminently expecting to be time-traveling both because of a rare gene and of her particular age (which is the same as Gwen's, don't you know?
Out of the blue (or out of the ruby red, if you prefer!), Gwen accidentally discovers that it is she and not Charlotte who has this gene. She subsequently learns that she's now expected to fulfill her cousin's destiny: a role which for which Charlotte had been extensively trained and educated all her life (and doesn't everyone know it‽), but for which Gwen is entirely unprepared.
This lack of preparation derives from the fact that Gwen's own mother deliberately concealed the truth from everyone about Gwen's candidacy for time-travel and it's exacerbated by the fact that, even after Gwen's true nature is revealed, no one, not even her own mother, is willing to tell her anything useful about what's going on or what's really expected of her. I have a theory about this, which I'll reveal in my review of Sapphire Blue.
So Gwen gets to travel in time with Gorgeous Gideon, meet an evil count, and learn about the dastardly duo who stole the original chronograph (which is the flux capacitor of the Ruby Red world - it's what makes controlled time-travel possible!). More on that duo in the review of Sapphire Blue.
Detailed plot (stop reading here if you don't want any spoilers!):
As the story begins, Gwen is in high school with her kick-A best friend Lesley Hay (No word on whether her middle name is Whatthe). It's an ordinary day (if you discount the fact that Gwen is on first-name speaking terms with the school ghost, James, which no one but she can see) except that Gwen feels rather queasy, and then she has to leave early to take her cousin home. Her cousin doesn't feel well either, and this appears to be presaging Charlotte's first anticipated time jump, so taking her home in order for her to be conveyed to a safe place to jump is important.
That taken care of, Gwen is sent on an errand to Selfridge's to buy some sherbet lemon candies (shades of McGonagle opening the entrance to Dumbledore's office!) Unfortunately, right at the end of chapter 2, Gwen finds herself unexpectedly and entirely inconveniently flipping back into the past.
Rather than tell anyone (except for Lesley with whom she shares everything), Gwen keeps mum and doesn't tell mum. Why? No explanation! Shades of Harry Potter again. So Gwen ends up flipping back in time three times before she finally 'fesses up to her mother. On the second of these trips she sees herself with a guy whom her other self kisses in order to distract attention from the time-stamped version of Gwen who is hiding.
Everyone but her mother (and Lesley) is either disbelieving, dismissive, or derogatory about Gwen's ability, but Gwen is hastily taken by mum to the HQ of a super-secret society which is trying to plumb the mystery of what will happen when the circle of the time-traveling twelve, which Gwen now completes, is closed and their blood samples entered into the chronograph.
We learn that the chronograph is a duplicate - the original having been stolen by a romantic pair of runaways, Paul and Lucy (Beatles reference anyone?!) who are acting in opposition to the society for reasons unknown and currently hiding somewhere in time. More about those two in my review of Vol 2.
This is where Gwen meets Gideon, a member of a rival time-traveling family which dominates the society. He's a de Villiers, Gwen is (ancestrally) a Montrose and never the twain should meet! So of course, they do. The society bigwigs don't believe Gwen or her mother at first and they're determined to track down the midwife who helped Gwen's mom to forge the date on Gwen's birth certificate to find out exactly what's going on and why Gwen's time-travel potential was hidden. More on that very midwife in my review of Vol 2!
The time-traveling twelve have all had their dates of birth calculated, with a certain amount of gravity, by none other than Sir Isaac Newton, no doubt on his apple computer.... It was this forgery which disguised Gwen's potential for time-travel. However, they eventually accept that Gwen is a time-traveler and they want to send her back to visit the Comte De Saint Germain (a real person historically), 200 or so years in the past. He's evidently the time-traveler overlord (no that's not the same as a time lord!).
Gwen's mother flatly does not want Gwen to meet him, but rendered into a distinctly contrary frame of mind by all the secretiveness and everyone's snotty attitudes, Gwen resolves to go. Dressed in authentic period costume created by the society's French seamstress who bears an Italian name, and accompanied, of course, by Gideon, Gwen meets the count. She sees only an old man and wonders why her mother was so scared of him; however, shortly before they travel back, the count grabs her by the throat and threatens her, unknown to the others in the room - and he's standing several feet away from her at the time, not even touching her physically! Creepy!
On the way back from that visit, the duo discover that their carriage has taken a wrong direction, and when they stop the driver, they're set upon by three sword-wielding and pistol-toting men whom Gideon fights off, assisted by Gwen, who stabs one of them, thereby enabling Gideon to dispatch the last of them and for the time-travelers to escape to a nearby church where they await being whisked back to their present. It's whilst they're in the church that Gideon kisses Gwen. And the ghost of a gargoyle talks to her. And then we have to wait for book 2 before we can learn what happens next!
I happened upon this book in the library because it had been put on prominent display on top of one of the stacks. The bright red cover, and the title, caught my eye initially. Being a lover of time-travel stories I was drawn to it and I found myself intrigued by the plot and amused by a brief perusal inside. Once I began reading, I became quite engaged and sped through it quickly; then I had to wait until Xmas to get the second volume. At that time, I bought both volumes in hardback, having decided that this would be a keeper which (hopefully) my children would read in time.
This is how I was able to read volumes one (for the second time) and two for the first time, back-to-back which made for a fun read and took almost no time at all to get through. If you're planning on embarking upon this trilogy, and you have iron willpower, I'd recommend waiting until autumn of 2013 when the final volume is supposed to be released in English; then buy or borrow all three of them at once; in that way you can plunge recklessly through them one after another and have a whale of a time-travel.
If you like this kind of a story, you won't regret that, since volume two continues precisely where Vol 1 left off and Vol 3 promises to do the same. They could have been written as one book since neither of the first two volumes is self-contained; they both have cliffhangers which may well leave you frustrated if you can't dive into this with all your books in a row!
So what's right with these novels? They have a light tone and make for an easy read, although some may complain they're devoured too quickly or they're insubstantial. The main character, Gwyneth, (called Gwendolyn in the German original) is charming, if a bit lacking in self-possession. She's a decent person, fun and friendly, and not at all mean like her cousin. She steps up to the challenge of time-traveling when she has to, despite being kept in the dark and lacking in preparation; all-in-all, a pretty decent protagonist, although at times a bit annoying.
The time-traveling portions are engaging, if a little frustrating, and they do build some mystery - certainly much more of a mystery than in figuring out what's likely to go down between Gwen and Gideon. Gee! Or double gee! So tight-lipped are the characters about what's going on, you may find yourself wondering if Gier isn't channeling Rowling's Harry Potter series with all the secrets and evident revelations being held back for a future volume, but it's as frustrating as it is disheartening to see people doing plainly dumb things for no other purpose than spreading a plot.
I don't know any 16-year-old English girls, so it may be that Gier has a better handle on them than I do, but I had to wonder about some of Gwen's conduct and behaviors. While I think that she would be a fun person to know and to spend short periods of time with, especially discussing novels and movies, for me she seems a bit shallow and limited at times and she's given to digging unfortunate holes for herself. OTOH, she probably wouldn't be head-over-heels about me either!
It was painfully obvious, of course, under the 'opposites attract trope' of giddy romance novels, that she would end falling for Gideon, the leading male protagonist (or antagonist - I have yet to read Vol 3!), but I found myself being dropped unceremoniously out of my suspension of disbelief into wondering why she puts up with him after reading Vol 1 and especially after Vol 2: he's downright unpleasant if not manic depressive, yet Gwen almost literally swoons over him. Seriously?
It's the 21st century. Must we continue to mislead our young women into thinking that they have to put up with what is nothing short of mental abuse from a partner? Do smart women really want that, even at sixteen? Is it necessary for her to enslave herself to his passive aggression? It's not a stretch to see Gideon's behavior as cynically taking advantage of a rather rudderless younger girl who already has been deprived of defenses because of her blinkered upbringing, or had those defenses weakened by her recent circumstances. There is some confirmation that this isn't solely my imagination, in Vol 2.
For all I know, her relationship with Gideon may well be the norm for the English (or German?) mid-teen girls. I hope it's not, because the relationship was sadly lacking in substance to my mind. She wasn't drawn to him in any way as a real person; quite the opposite in fact: she was often repelled by his character traits, but was helplessly and consistently drawn to his unnaturally good looks. That's pretty shallow. Would it honestly be too much to ask for a story where the protagonist was perfectly ordinary and average in their looks, but who won the attention and devotion of their partner because they were a really fun, interesting, and truly warm person?!
Enough said about that. Just be aware of where this novel is coming from with regard to some of its roots, and then you can try to ignore that and enjoy it for its other qualities! Not that good science is one of those: I found myself a bit depressed that once again we have a writer who posits an 'X' gene where X is the ability to do something wonderful for its owner which the genomes of others fail to offer them.
We see in TV shows like Heroes and Alphas that there is a magic gene that conveys powers. In Ruby Red, it's the time-travel gene. The sad fact is that (aside from any rational issues about how it's supposed to work!) a single gene rarely does anything special by itself. Yes, there are instances in nature of a single gene being responsible for something significant, but the norm is that it's a gene network, consisting of protein coding genes and regulatory genes which actually do the really important work, so if Gier had mentioned a gene network, or a gene complex rather than a single gene, I wouldn't have had to roll my eyes quite so energetically! But that's just me.
I also had some issues with the time-travel, but these are not confined to Gier's novels; they're common to all-too-many time-travel stories. For example, in Gier's story, Gwyneth is often told that something has to be hurried along. In Vol 2, we learn that there's no time to properly train Gwen because she has to attend a soirée (in the past) two days hence! Hello! She's a time-traveler! She could train for another ten years and still go back to that same date and attend that same soirée! That's what the chronograph does! Maybe there are actually valid reasons why it can't be put off, but it appears we readers can't be trusted with the knowledge of what those are.
On the positive side, it was interesting that Gier didn't set some of the usual limits on what could be done. Yes, there was only so far back into history that they can travel (four or five hundred years - we don't learn why), and they can only be gone for two or three hours before being pulled back (why and by what is not explained), but they can control exactly when and where they go, and for how long they stay (within those limits). And meeting yourself in the past is not forbidden! Gier actually puts this to good use in the first volume but by the end of the second we still haven't seen that same scene from the other perspective.
It may well be that the third volume neatly ties all the loose ends up, but as of the end of Vol 2, there is a heck of a pile of unanswered questions, and a lot of things which make too little sense. Having said that, I'm still interest in reading Vol 3. Maybe that's the power of writing a series as opposed to single, stand-alone novels - once you get your audience hooked, you have ready-made captives, and so you can get away with a lot more than you could by having only stand-alone titles out there. Not that his did David Weber any good with me with his Honor Harrington series, but therein lies another review!
One final gripe - we have already the technology to sequence the genome, and in Ruby Red, they have blood samples from at least eight of the twelve they need to close the circle. Clearly the secret society is rolling in wealth, yet somehow they were unable to divine that Charlotte was not the gene carrier? Hmm!
Okay, enough sniping. If you're interested in young adult sci-fi and time-travel, and perky girls and fun adventures, then you should like this series. As I said, despite some issues and reservations, I'm on-board enough with Gier's characters, mysteries, and story-telling that I'm looking forward to the third volume.
She also has other novels out there, including one titled Männer und andere Katastrophen (Men and Other Disasters) which sounds like a riot (although not necessarily YA), so I may check out some of those, too, as funds, time, and English translations permit, which they rarely do!
