Home of the Alpha Showdown, and one-stop shop for urban fantasy, paranormal romance and fantasy news and reviews.
A Thousand Pieces of You (Firebird #1)
Claudia Gray
Published:
Purchase: Book Depository or Amazon (as of this posting, the ebook was on sale for $1.99)
Review Source: Purchased
Reviewed by: Chelsea
Rating (out of 5): 4 stars
Time travel stories are tricky. A Thousand Pieces of You isn’t a time travel story, though. When this first book was first released, though, several people told me they loved it as a time travel story. As anyone who has read Harry Potter or Outlander knows, time travel stories are notoriously tricky. So I passed.
As such, let’s get this part out of the way up front: A Thousand Pieces of You isn’t a time travel story. It’s about five times more complicated, but told in a way that’s utterly clear, straightforward, and unputdownable. Read this sucker!
Claudia Gray takes some of the tenets of time travel books—the fear about what may happen in the present—and rolls them in with key pieces of portal fantasy (something I don’t typically read much of), science fiction, and romance. The finished product is fantastic. In the Firebird series, there are unending parallel universes to ours. There is another version of us there (as long as your parents in that universe ended up together at some point), and their lives could be very similar or very different. Marguerite’s family are geniuses. We’re talking they—along with their two grad students who are like family—invented a way to travel between the dimensions. Marguerite has never been interested in all that—she’s far too right-brained—but when her father is murdered and the man responsible takes off to another dimension, she’s determined to catch him.
There are some nice twists in this novel, which make writing a spoiler-free review tricky. It’s a good problem for this reviewer to have. The visuals of each location Marguerite travels to, trying to understand who she is in each world and what it means for that world’s Marguerite while she’s inhabiting her body are pure highlights. The romance gets sticky, and most certainly has a love triangle element. While I was initially wary of a situation of guy A versus guy B, the plot reveals dictate much of this and it worked for me.
Claudia Gray has crafted another must read. Once we start hopping through dimensions, there is no way to put this novel down. I had to know what happened next, and I bet you will, too. Plus, hot Russian dudes play a part and I’m never going to say no to that.
Sexual content: sex
I tried reading this one last year drawn initially to that gorgeous cover, and then after reading the blurb, I thought it really sounded interesting.
This one just didn’t click for me. I didn’t really take to Marguerite’s character right away and I think that’s what caused me from finishing the book.
Your review makes me want to give this one another try.
I can understand that. I was more interested in the plot/worldbuilding and Paul’s character, TBH.