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Womack has come up with quite an ingenious idea and used it to bring us a very entertaining novel.

Roan West was born with a unique gift given to him by nature. He can hold an object in his hands and glean it’s history back as long ago as the time the piece came into being. In his lifetime Roan has personally made a fortune but more important has devised a method of helping people by examining a valuable object, detecting where it originates and if feasible returning it to its rightful owner or their descendants. He has also met a few other individuals with the gift and is part of an international organization they belong to.

The problem for Roan is that he feels alone in life since there are no women he has met that can live with him and the gift he possesses on a one to one basis.

By sheer chance he comes upon a young lady, Melicent Tilpin, who has earned more than a million dollars selling a priceless pocket watch which she admits she has discovered by “sensing it”. Roan seeks her out to warn her to hide her gift since there are people that would love to use it for their own purposes and possibly do harm to Melicent.

The two meet and become involved with a problem involving an associate of Roan who has used his own intuitive powers to obtain a ring owned by the famed mathematician and philosopher Rene Descartes. The ring was found in an area that it should never have gotten to which brings up the concept of “out of place artifacts” or “ooparts.” These occurrences provide puzzling circumstances for Roan and his group. Since Stuart, the associate and friend of Roan, has disappeared when the ring was publicized, it is feared that he was kidnapped to obtain it.

The novel certainly presents the circumstances and events surrounding the search for both Stuart and Descartes’ ring but it also sets up a well described romance between Roan and Melicent. The difficulty and finally joy in finding a person with the same gift as each possesses is very logically handled by the author and if two people with the same gift got together, they would most likely handle the relationship in the manner described. Hopefully, the stage is also set for additional works about the two and it would certainly attract a wide audience.

4/19 Paul Lane

THE TIME COLLECTOR by Gwendolyn Womack. Picador (April 16, 2019). ISBN 978-1250169235. 368p.

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The third novel in Peter Clines’ bestselling Ex series.

The Mount has grown into a flourishing community in spite of the horde of undead that clamor at the gates. As they ready themselves for their first official election, it seems the population has begun to split into two factions: those who believe the undead should be put down and those who believe they are still people.

The friction only grows worse when a girl with a very unusual power arrives. At the same time Barry seems to be coming under extreme stress, talking to people who aren’t there. When George learns the truth, it’s something of a blessing and a curse for the heroes who have worked so hard to keep their little settlement alive and well. And with Legion still planning his big revenge, it seems likely things could take a turn for the worse.

Peter Clines never ceases to amaze. Each new installment of the Ex-Heroes series is a new and unique chapter in the story. The characters continue to grow as they face new hurdles brought on by the zombie apocalypse and Clines always has something unexpected to add as well. This third book offers up not one but two “new” heroes, each with super cool back stories

1/14 Becky Lejeune

EX-COMMUNICATION by Peter Clines. Broadway Books (July 9, 2013). ISBN 978-0385346825. 352p.