Book Review: The Syndicate by Sophie Davis

The Book:

The Blurb:

In a future where time travel has been outlawed, a black market exists for anyone with the money, connections, and nerve to request items from days past. As a Runner for one of the underground syndicates that now controls the timewaves, Stassi 2446-89 has seen it all: the fall of Rome, the rise of Hitler, the end of democracy, the establishment of time tourism, and the devastating consequences of it. Her job is to seamlessly slip through the past, in search of items of value to the syndicate's clientele.

Stassi's next assignment takes her to Paris in the 1920’s, in search of a lost manuscript by one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers. She and her partner, Gaige, are swept up in the City of Light during the height of fashion and culture—as alluring a locale as they’ve ever visited. But a seedier side of life lurks beneath the glamorous façade, and the pair quickly learns this run is more dangerous than any of their previous missions.

Because history isn’t playing out as it should be—a first for the syndicate. When the stakes are raised and it becomes a matter of life or death, Stassi and Gaige must ultimately decide how far they’re willing to go to ensure the future as they know it.

The Review:

Received from NetGalley for my Honest Review
Completed May 12, 2016
586 page Kindle ebook

The Syndicate is about a time traveling company in the future. It’s actually a black market type thing. In their time, time travel is banned, and only those in a syndicate can do it. They are tasked with going into the past and retrieving items for wealthy clients. In this book they are tasked with getting an unpublished manuscript that’s only mentioned once. They have a limited time in which they need to go back and get into the circle of friends of the author so they can figure out where the manuscript is.

The start of their mission starts out well enough but soon they find out about a serial killer who they had not been told about. As they are briefed before the mission on anything and everything about the time and area, they feel something is wrong with this and are pretty uncertain about things, as they continue to work their way into the circle. Soon they are on the mission for the manuscript but also trying to figure out why there is a serial killer never heard of before and what it has to do with them.

The book took some time to get going for me. It starts out with meeting Stassi and Gaige on another mission and then some down time at their base of operations before learning about this mission and learning about it and then leaving. The book is a little long and they don’t actually get to the time they are going to (Paris in the 1920s) until 17% into the book. Even when they were first into Paris and their mission it was still a little slow going for me, but once it really got going and things started happening around them then I really started to enjoy it.

It was definitely a different take on the time travel story and quite enjoyable. While they were only going to scan the manuscript, it’s still that they are meeting people, befriending them to search their possessions and try to find the lost manuscript. They are lying to everyone around them, something Stassi has an issue with though she states she hasn’t before. They made it sound like this mission was different though, a lot longer than what they normally do. Normally they get in and out, and this time they are staying a while and making friends and she has a problem with it. So it’s a really weird dynamic.

I really liked Stassi though it took me a while to get on her side. I got behind her after that though, and liked her spunkiness and can do attitude. She let very little affect her, and I really liked that about her.

Once the story got going, I liked it all. It was a good mystery and I couldn’t figure it out, though when the killer was revealed there was a reason for that. I definitely wasn’t expecting the end and that’ll be different to see with the next book.

I definitely would recommend it to fans of time travel. It was unique and though slow at some times, the overall story was quite enjoyable. I like most of the characters, though the main alchemist that helped them out I really didn’t like at all, but she was pretty much the only one. A fun and enjoyable book!

Setting = A
Plot = A+
Conflict = A
Characters = A - B
Theme = A+

The Rating:

LOVED it, a fantastic book! (4.5 stars)