Return Once More by Trisha Leigh 
(The Historians #1)
Published by: Bloomsbury Spark
Publication date: September 29th 2015
Genres: Science Fiction, Time-Travel, Young Adult

Purchase Links:

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My Review:

Kaia is an apprentice learning to become a Historian.  In her society, that means traveling back in time and observing historic events that occurred on their original planet, Earth.  Earth is no longer habitable by humans.  Kaia’s ancestors found it necessary to leave Earth and find new planets to inhabit.  Science has made great strides and now they are able to travel through time and space.  They are also able to determine who would be your true love, but most of the time your “true” lived and died in another time.  Kaia only knows of one couple her age that were identified as “trues”.  On your 17 birthday you can find out who your “true” is if you want to.  Kaia decides to find out.  She finds out that her “true” is from Ancient Egypt and died as a teenager.  She should just let this information go, but she can’t and when the opportunity arises she breaks every rule in the book to meet her true love.  Along the way she finds out that one of her apprentice friends is also breaking the rules.  She starts following him and discovers secrets in the historian society itself that could forever change the world they live in.

I wasn’t sure at first whether I was going to like this book or not, but I liked it very much.  I am not one of those people who believes in soul mates or love at first sight.  I think you can be attracted to someone at first sight, but you have to really know someone in order to love them.  I’m talking about romantic love here and not seeing your niece or nephew for the first time, or your son or daughter, and loving them instantly.  Because that kind of love at first sight I definitely believe in.  Soon after the beginning of the book, Kaia goes back in time to meet her true love.  It was definitely a case of instalove, but I kept reading and I’m very glad that I did.  It takes a little while, but soon things start heating up and nothing is what it seems.  Strange things are going on in the Historian society and Kaia doesn’t’ know who she can trust.

The book started out a little slow but once it picked up I had a hard time putting it down.  I loved the characters and I think the author did a good job with her world development.  I liked the little trips to the past and how descriptive the author was.  I also liked the interaction between the main character, Kaia, and her friends.  Kaia is a wonderful character.  She starts out very immature and selfish and grows throughout the book into a more mature and selfless person.  I liked her very much by the end of the book.  Another character that I really liked was Oz.  He and Kaia butt heads a little, but he is always there for her when she gets into trouble, which happens frequently.  The relationship between Kaia and Oz makes me wonder about the whole “True Love” thing.  There is definitely something going on between those two.

There are only a few things that I didn’t like about the book.  Sometimes the author got a little too descriptive.  In the beginning of the book when the author was setting the stage for the story, I got a little bored.  I almost put it down, but I’m glad that I didn’t.  I had a hard time buying into the part of the story line where they could predict who your soul mate was.  I don’t think it is possible to predict who your soul mate is and I found the love story with Caesarion in Ancient Egypt  a little sappy and cliche.  But that story line was only a portion of what was going on in the book.  I do think the trips into the past were necessary for Kaia’s development.

Over all, I really liked this book and I would recommend it to anyone who likes a good mystery with a little sci-fi thrown in for good measure. I will definitely read the sequel, because there are so many unanswered questions and it will be interesting to see where the author takes the story line in the next book.  I give this book four out of five stars.

Author Bio:

Trisha Leigh is a product of the Midwest, which means it’s pop, not soda, garage sales, not tag sales, and you guys as opposed to y’all. Most of the time. She’s been writing seriously for five years now, and has published 4 young adult novels and 4 new adult novels (under her pen name Lyla Payne). Her favorite things, in no particular order, include: reading, Game of Thrones, Hershey’s kisses, reading, her dogs (Yoda and Jilly), summer, movies, reading, Jude Law, coffee, and rewatching WB series from the 90’s-00’s.

Her family is made up of farmers and/or almost rock stars from Iowa, people who are numerous, loud, full of love–the kind of people that make the world a better place. Trisha tries her best to honor them, and the lessons they’ve taught, through characters and stories–made up, of course, but true enough in their way.

Trisha is the author of THE LAST YEAR series and the WHITMAN UNIVERSITY books. She’s represented by Kathleen Rushall at Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.

To learn more about Trisha Leigh, please visit her at trishaleigh.com.

If you enjoy New Adult books or a good contemporary romance, please check out my pen name, Lyla Payne!

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