Downtime by Tamara Allen

You know, it's funny. I find it's harder for me to write about a book that I liked than one I didn't. I'm not sure why that would be, but I'm certainly finding it to be the truth as I sit here and try to think about how to talk about Tamara Allen's Downtime.

When my book group was doing nominations for this month's book, I perused the blurbs for all the suggestions and I'd stuck Downtime on my 'to-read' list then, based mostly on my own fondness for time-travel stories. I had a mental mix-up about what book was actually our book of the month—the group has two 'featured' books, generally, the Book of the Month and the Featured Author book and I got them crossed—and so I didn't actually acquire or start reading Downtime until a couple days ago.

Getting the book in an ebook version was actually rather tricky. None of my usual vendors carried it and I ended up having to go through Smashwords, which was my first time at that site. Nonetheless, the book was worth the little extra effort for acquisition.

Downtime is the story of Morgan Nash, an American FBI agent in London, who gets sucked back to 1888. And, as it's a romance, there's obviously a love story there.

I'm looking at those words and they sound terribly dry, but it's safe to say that Allen infuses the premise with a lot more life and color than I do by that description. (spoilers beneath the cut)

The modern-time book ends are actually the least interesting—and the least convincing—parts of the story. The motivations behind Nash's presence in London are rather pasted on and somewhat unconvincing, but as they're just there to get Nash in place for the rest of the story, I'm inclined to overlook it, especially since the juicy middle of the book is such a pleasure.

As well, I had a slightly difficult time buying that Nash was so easily distracted from the means to get himself back home (a magical tome that goes missing, creating a need for Nash to stay longer than anticipated) in favor of investigating Jack the Ripper. I feel like it eventually makes sense, once Nash's interest in Ezra (and Ezra's return interest) becomes obvious; Nash is an unreliable narrator when it comes to his own feelings and it makes sense that, once his motivation to return home lessens because of his attachment, he'd focus more on the Ripper case than the efforts to get him back home, but I felt like the shift came slightly too early in the book, before Nash's motivation was in place. But again, not a deal breaker and, in the end, I do think it fits with Nash's character and the overall story.

I'm reading Allen's other book, Whistling in the Dark, at the same time and, in both books, there's a slow build to the chemistry and the relationship that I really enjoyed, especially when so many other books try to sell not only attraction, but love, on first sight. Morgan and Ezra's relationship was as gradual but inevitable as a flower blooming and I found myself similarly as gradually swept up in caring about the relationship to a point where I had to put the book down a couple times at crucial moments to both calm myself down and laugh at myself.

If you're looking for smut, this probably isn't the book for you; most of Allen's sex scenes are fade to black or play coyly with romance novel euphemisms, but honestly, I will trade all the porn in the world for emotional porn, and Allen delivers in spades on that front.

As well, she gives Morgan and Ezra a pantheon of equally fleshed and interesting characters to play off of, each with their own thoughts and agendas that don't always fall in with those of our protagonists, even when the character in question is a friend. I came to adore Derry and Hannah and Kathleen and I was surprised at both the charm she infused into Sid and how much I felt for him by the end of the book, a truly charismatic 'villain'.

My biggest complaint about Allen's writing is that, although she demonstrates great talent at world-building, juggling a historical narrative for a modern audience, dialogue and overall story, her ability to convey physicality is not equal to her other abilities. In both Downtime and Whistling in the Dark, I find myself often confused as to where her characters are in space and in relation to each other and her action moments—as in an bodily attack, or a crowd situation—are even muddier, meaning I had to sometimes read passages more than once to figure out what had just happened. And I feel like Allen must be aware of her shortcomings in this area as she often tries to shortcut the action by skipping to the moment just past it and then fill in the blanks with exposition…but, for me, it's not a successful strategy and only adds to the confusion.

…and now I feel like I've damned Allen with faint praise, but all of my issues with her writing are minor, at best, and dim in comparison to how much I was involved in the story itself—not only the very sweet, quite adorable romance between Morgan and Ezra, but in the entire world she creates around them. As well, one of the difficulties of time-travel stories is how to deal with the potential for time-tampering and, in the case of a romance, how to deliver an HEA when the protagonists 'exist' hundreds of years apart from each other but Allen manages to resolve all her plotlines in a way that supported the suspension of disbelief, made sense for what had already been written and was, in all ways, satisfying.

I recommend Downtime to those who like plotty, sweet romances and, as soon as I finish Whistling in the Dark, I expect I'll be recommending it, too.