Book Review #67: The Crossing Hour By Quoleena Sbrocca

Title: The Crossing Hour

Author: Quoleena Sbrocca

Publishers: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Genre: Science Fiction

Pages: 430 (PDF edition)

Source: Review copy by author

“Time travel used to be thought of just science fiction, but Einstein’s general theory of relativity allows for the possibility that we could warp space-time so much that you could go off in a rocket and return before you set out”    

       - Stephen Hawking

  

    “The Crossing Hour”, a novel that has kept me hooked for whole 2 days. Author Quoleena Sbrocca, a first time writer that wrote this excellent novel. It is really hard to believe a first timer can write something like this. This novel is an excellent work of imagination. Bundling fiction with few historical characters to create a magical time traveler’s story is something really a commendable job.

Stanley Graf, a retired NASA employee has believed in something extraordinary. He has created a device, called “Gramameter”, through which one can find any signs of the possible time travelers. Stanley worked relentlessly along with his son Thomas to witness this magic happen. This event happens once in every 4 years. A time traveler will appear once in every 4 years and according to Stanley’s theory, these time travelers will have 4 years of timeline to go back to their original time. He longed to prove his theory as a practical phenomenon, which was backed by Thomas Graf. After studying and documenting all these things for his entire life, Stanley passed the baton to his Granddaughter Leigh, a psychology graduate, to carry out the research and possibly receive any time traveler. Entire Stanley Graf’s family members are well educated of this time traveler’s event.

So, as the story progresses further, Leigh, now all set to receive the time traveler. She prepared well enough to witness this magical event happen right before her eyes. She sets all the black hole coordinates and waited. One fine day, a woman, probably in her late twenties, appeared out of blue. Leigh, who was witnessing this event made sure she was recording everything. Leigh was not sure of, whom this woman was or from which century she belonged to. She followed this mysterious woman and with help from her brother Stan, she collected enough information about this mysterious woman called “Harriet Tubman”.

The interesting part of the novel was the differences in the ways that 21^st century people talked and the people from Harriet Tubman’s time used to talk. Author had clearly mastered in choosing the right kind of grammar and vocabulary, and the salutations that people used to refer back in the days, so that it adds more weight to the time traveler’s character.

There is an important character in the novel called John Brown, a time traveler, staying in Stanley’s house for over 3 years. This part of the story in the novel where there are twists and turns, that sets the stage of the novel for its climax.

What worked in the entire novel is, the way the story is built. Readers can actually read effortlessly. There are some light moments when the earlier century people discover the modern technologies such as cars or mobile phones. The way it amuses them is exceptionally written. Hope one day, we all can witness such phenomenon in theory, proved in reality.

The writing style of the novel is lucid and engaging. There are no boring chapters as such. Each and every chapter makes sense. Breaking the entire novel into short chapters has really worked here. The dialogues differentiation between the earlier century people and the current generation people is just splendid. The scientific details and technological explanation just makes it more real than fiction. I recommend this book to every other reader who is interested in time traveler’s story.

Note: I received this book by the author in exchange of an honest review.

My Rating:

5/5