Angela Rae Harris, $0.99, ISBN 978-0463370681
Paranormal Romance, 2018

Okay, so Angela Rae Harris’s Stolen Time is marketed as a young adult romance, so I’m not surprised when the opening chapter tells me that everyone is in college.

Looking over at Keaira, who was sitting in the passenger seat of his 1976 Chevy truck, Shane felt overwhelmingly in love with her. She glanced at him and grinned. Keaira’s whole face lit up when she smiled. Her blue eyes and blonde hair made her outward appearance soft, hiding her I-can-weather-anything attitude. It had been over a year since the first day of senior year and the first time he’d laid eyes on Keaira. His memory went back to that day. It was a day he loved to revisit….

Uh, who the hell is Shane and why am I subjected to his flashback right after the opening paragraph of this story? Why can’t the story start right away at whatever point in time that the flashback was taking place in? Why is it that so many authors think throwing flashback scenes at readers is a cool idea? Flashbacks and other narrative gimmicks should be used only when they add something to the story.

Here, I don’t know or care who and what these people are, and I’m subjected to this random dude’s flashback the moment I open this thing? Is he an ancient geezer about to die and he wants to share with some dark secrets, like the time with those terrified livestock in his daddy’s ranch? No, he’s a young dude, so oh come on.

So, Shane met Keaira that day and he’s infatuated ever since. Great use of the flashback device there, bravo.

And then Shane dies at the end of the prologue and we fast forward to the present, when Keaira is mourning him. What? Then what’s the point of the whole flashback in the prologue?

Anyway, who cares about that dude. He’s dead, plus he’s just a puny human. Look at Keaira. She knows Filipino martial arts! She throws knife like some sexy ninja babe! She has a scar under her left eye, which she uses as an excuse to act melodramatically like never wanting to look into a mirror ever. Well, except when she needs to put on make up, because a lady has her priorities.

Oh, and she can shift shape into a falcon, but falcons are considered weak in the Shifter community, which I guess is why the big bad, the General, is forcing her to carry out his nefarious bidding. Why coerce strong minions to do your bidding, after all, when you can get a weakling instead?

Naturally, Keaira starts feeling this thing with the General’s son Carson, and it’s definitely that thing as well as that thing.

Okay, let’s get to my thoughts about this thing. It’s a mess. Just like how the author tosses in a prologue that ends up having nothing to do with the rest of the story, the rest of this thing has various moments that pull me out of the whole story, making me wonder why the author would do this or include that when it adds nothing and instead serves as a distraction from whatever the main story arc is supposed to be.

What this story could have used is more… structure, if that’s the right word to use here. Every component of the story should have a purpose, to drive the story and the reader in a direction intended by the author. Here, plot devices like Shane only makes me wonder why they are even here and why the author would even plop them into the story, and that’s not good.

Perhaps I could be misjudging things, though, as this story ends on a cliffhanger. Yes, this is the first in an ongoing series, and nowhere in the synopsis or other marketing material tells me that. For example, maybe Shane will show up as a horny ghost later in the series for a threesome or a love triangle? Who knows, but even if Shane would be showing up later, then he should be present in some form in this story more. Let me develop a sense of anticipation, or make me guess. Instead, here, I just get this impression that he’s just here and then out and forgotten, serving no real purpose at all, and that’s due to the author’s chaotic crazy structuring of her story.

Oh, and remember the laundry list of Keaira’s awesomeness in the first chapter of this thing? Well, our heroine spends the bulk of the story wailing and flailing as she plays the victim, crying for good measure and needing Carson to be her emotional tampon and rock. Stolen Time isn’t a kick-ass urban fantasy with a action-driven female lead, it’s a freaking soap opera featuring a heroine that spends the bulk of her time in the story lamenting how much of a victim she is.

When I first got this thing, I didn’t realize that it is the first entry in an actual, ongoing series. Still, no matter, the story could still have lured me in and leave me wanting more if it had been put together better. Instead, never mind that my expectations have been subverted, I’m not even given a compellingly narrated story or even a strong female lead, ugh.

Hence, my reaction upon closing this thing is to give Keaira the side eye and mutter, “Girl, you could at least kick a trash can forcefully…?”

Needless to say, I am not at the edge of my seat to add the next entry into the shopping cart.