BLOG TOUR/BOOK REVIEW: "All The Butterflies In The World" by Rodney Jones

With her senior year looming, Tess McKinnon has two goals: hanging out with her best friend, Liz, and avoiding her judgmental, alcoholic mother. Then yummy John Bartley arrives—to tell Mrs. McKinnon that her daughter is dead. Distinctly still alive, Tess is baffled by John’s tales of 1800s time travel, rewritten lives, and love. She knows she’s never seen him before, but her feelings refuse to be denied.
When Tess and John discover an aged newspaper clipping that indicates John’s uncle was hanged for Tess’s murder in 1875, John decides to return to his time to save his uncle’s life. Not really sure she even believes in this time travel stuff, Tess checks the article after John leaves. The words have changed, and she is horrified to find that John has been hanged instead.
Armed with determination and modern ingenuity, Tess must abandon her past and risk her future for a chance to catch her own killer and find her first love for the second time.

Picking up after the first book left off (spoiler alert; sorry, I couldn't avoid this one), we find John Bartley once again trying to convince a living Tess McKinnon that he's really from the year 1875, and traveled through a time-loop to 2009.
John thinks that this time they might both live happily ever after, never going back to his time...as long as Tess doesn't call the psych ward on him!
But a trip to a local museum of their town shows him that his uncle was wrongfully hanged for Tess's murder, and he had vanished. He wants to go ball and make things right, but in order to do that he might never see Tess or 2009 again.

Just like its predecessor, All The Butterflies In The World is a fictional masterpiece. Combining historical fiction, romance, upoer-YA/NA themes and sci-fi, you won't find another book similar to this on Amazon!
What I love most about it is the emotion behind the words, the conviction the characters have. You don't feel like you're reading a fictional account of fictional characters, but rather the story of good friends for whom you hope there's a happy ending.
The biggest difference between the two books is that, What book one was solely from John's perspective, this book alternates between his POV and Tess's. It clearly displays the differences between the two characters' mindsets, and also the sweet similarities. You get to experience first-hand as Tess falls in love with John, while you live with John in the jail, before his trial.
This book has something for everyone: sci-fi fans, romance addicts and historians specializing in the 19th century. It's one of my new favorites!

5/5--a fictional masterpiece!

Purchase All The Butterflies In The World via:

Official site (has all purchase links)

BLOG TOUR/BOOK REVIEW: "The Sun, The Moon, and Maybe The Trains" by Rodney Jones

John Bartley is a teenager in the year 1875. He lives with his aunt and uncle and has a very typical life of a young man in that time. When he was younger, he found a ribbon made of a very odd material. Years later, he gets lost in that very spot. When he finds his way back to the road, it's not 1875. It's 2009. He needs to get back home, and 21st Century teenager Tess is determined to help.
What do you do when you're lost in the wrong century?

I've read over a thousand books in my life so far. I've read a few books about time travel, and none have drawn me in like this since Stephen King's Dark Tower series (though it's a vastly different story). You get to know John, his family and his time first, before you join John as his world gets turned upside down.
The characters, each and every one, no matter how brief their appearance is, are integral parts of the story. Each of them are full of originality and they all make the story that much richer.
There's a lot more going on than just an interesting plot. There's the noticeable differences between the times: electricity, cell phones, the Internet, soda, cars and television are just a few things that confuse John. Tess can't wrap her head around the fact that women in 1875 wear dresses down to their ankles, can't vote and most can't even work.
The story is also a reluctant love story. John is at the age where he needs to start courting women, and Tess is a modern American teenager. The reader knows immediately what they realize quite late, they love each other. This is a tale of love that transcends through time and space, literally. 
Science fiction mixed with historical fiction, with an added a dash of romance and a heap of suspense, all culminating to one of the most unexpected endings in literature make this a book you can't afford not to read!

5/5--a masterful piece of work!

Purchase The Sun, The Moon and Maybe The Trains via:

Red Adept Publishing (has all purchase links)