Review: Future Threat by Elizabeth Briggs (Future Shock #2)

Future Threat (Future Shock #2)
Elizabeth Briggs
Published: March 1, 2017 (Albert Whitman & Company)
Purchase: Book Depository or Amazon
Review source: copy provided by publisher in exchange for an honest review

Reviewed by: Amy

Rating (out of 5): 4 stars

Note: While this review will be spoiler free, it will reference previous books. If you haven’t started this series yet, check out VBC’s review of book 1, Future Shock.

It has been six months since the Aether Corporation sent Team Delta into the Future with a mission to bring back information on technology. Six months since the team discovered that, upon their return, they’d all be killed by one of their own. And six months since Elena Martinez stopped the real murderer and saved herself plus two other members of her team, while unfortunately losing two.

Elena is not dealing with the present very well. On the surface her life seems perfect: she’s going to school, living in her own apartment, and in a steady relationship with Adam. But inside, she’s still dealing with what happened six months ago. She’s filled with guilt over the loss of her two friends, and she’s still horrified at the murder she had to commit to keep the rest of them alive. She’s just waiting for Adam to leave her–like everyone else in her life—so she pushes him away. Plus, Aether has been keeping tabs on the three survivors, and Elena can’t figure out why.

Well, as it soon comes out, Aether needs the remaining team to head back to the future in order to save another team gone missing. Once there Elena, Adam, and Chris discover there’s more going on than a simple extraction of missing persons. This time around, the team discovers just how much their actions (or inactions) can affect the world.

Future Threat hit its stride as far as tackling the whole time-travel concept. It expanded so much on what was started in Future Shock and added so many layers and possibilities. I would say none of the concepts were completely shocking but the way Elizabeth Briggs presents the timeline is clear and easily accessible to those who are maybe less familiar with time-travel reading.

The feeling of the ticking clock is amped up in Future Threat as the group has less time to find the other team. In the first book, they were in the future for 24 hours. Here there’s only a hand-full, so this limited time frame really drives the story forward and makes it easy to read through very quickly.

I’d say the only issue I had was, unfortunately, with Elena. Who, when not being the smart-thinking woman we know her to be, was berating herself for having failed everyone by not being able to predict the future (ha ha). I grew tired of it very quickly. And the fact that this causes her to push Adam away kept me from being able to care about their relationship, which is a problem because a lot in the story revolves around their relationship.

As stated above, I really liked the way Elizabeth Briggs handles the future timeline. Expanding upon this is the idea/message that all of our actions have reactions or consequences. The smallest change in one timeline can have a major effect on another. I loved that these ideas were introduced in this book and I look forward to seeing how these are further built upon in the last installment in the trilogy. I loved that this story has a clear ending, no cliffhangers, but you can definitely see where the conflicts might crop up next.

Sexual content: references to sex, kissing