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Review

Ruby Red

by Kerstin Gier

German cover

English cover

First sentences:

As she fell to her knees and burst into tears, he looked all around the park.

Summary:

Gwyneth Shepherd's sophisticated, beautiful cousin Charlotte has been prepared her entire life for traveling through time. But unexpectedly, it is Gwyneth, who in the middle of class takes a sudden spin to a different era!

Gwyneth must now unearth the mystery of why her mother would lie about her birth date to ward off suspicion about her ability, brush up on her history, and work with Gideon – the time traveler from a similarly gifted family that passes the gene through its male line, and whose presence becomes, in time, less insufferable and more essential. Together, Gwyneth and Gideon journey through time to discover who, in the 18th century and in contemporary London, they can trust.

source: Goodreads

My opinion:

As you might know German is my native language and normally books are written in English and than translated into German. It doesn’t affect me and my reading because I read 95% of my books in English but with this particular trilogy it is the other way round.

Kerstin Gier is a German author so we received the books in the Ruby Red trilogy years before it got translated into English. She wrote Ruby Red in 2009 and it was a huge success. The covers are gorgeous, the story is new and unique, Kerstin’s style of writing is funny and entertaining, the characters are extremely well portrayed and the story is set in London – present and past due to the fact that Ruby Red is a time-travel story.

One main difference between the German and the English version, which I only discovered because I read the Goodreads synopsis for the English book, is that the main character is called Gwendolyn in German and Gwyneth in English. That doesn’t matter much because in both cases her name is shortened to Gwen.

Gwen is a wonderful main character. She always thought that her cousin inherited the time travel gene but unfortunately she got it and now has to take her place, without any preparation. If that wasn’t enough she also has to deal with Gideon, the male time traveler of her generation, who is such an arrogant and annoying guy.

Gwen and Gideon have to visit some long dead people and jump in time to fulfil the destiny of the circle of the Count of Saint Germaine which nobody knows what this destiny is exactly. Gwen, the outsider of this whole operation, has no idea what to do and nobody tells her anything so she tries to decipher all the things that are going on with the help of her best friend Lesley.

Ruby Red is a quick paced story you fly through in no time at all and which grabbed me instantly with the bits of mystery. We, as readers, know as much as Gwen does and every now and than we get some more information to solve the puzzle.

In my opinion Kerstin Gier created a wonderful world with characters I would love to know personally.

 
The books in the Ruby Red trilogy are:

• Ruby Red
• Sapphire Blue
• Emerald Green (will be published in English on October 8th, 2013)