Review by Booklist Review
Waking up not knowing who she is, a woman is startled to see that she is on a bus headed to Hanover State Psychiatric Hospital. The woman is told she is Dorothy Frasier, a young wife in 1954 Virginia who has had a series of violent episodes. The woman has a hard time believing she is a mere housewife, as her innate fighting skills speak to a different life. Suddenly, she is transported to the year 2035 and a dystopian future. She, Bix, was sent back to the past to find the key to halting a future pandemic that decimates the globe. But in 1954, the doctors and her husband give proof she is Dorothy and want her to submit to harsh medical treatments. Desperate to discover the truth about herself, the woman embarks on a dangerous path that will either prove the doctors right or save mankind. In her debut novel, Pace asks intriguing questions about the nature of reality. Mixing elements of dystopia with feminist historical fiction, Pace creates a winning psychological thriller that will have readers eagerly turning the pages.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
An amnesiac is either a time traveler or a hallucinating schizophrenic in Pace's suspenseful if somewhat overstuffed debut. When the narrator wakes in 1954 Virginia at Hanover State Psychiatric Hospital, she can't recall who she is or why she's there. Though she's wearing the patient ID of someone named Dorothy Frasier, the wisecracking voice in her head insists she's neither Dorothy nor a patient. After a fight lands her in seclusion, the woman unexpectedly journeys to 2035, where "nerds" insist she's a soldier named Bix searching the past for means to cure a deadly virus. Back in 1954, doctors deem the narrator delusional, a diagnosis she reluctantly accepts when a man identified as Dorothy's husband visits the hospital and she recognizes him. Despite undergoing electroshock therapy, however, the narrator keeps returning to the future; either she's truly Bix, or Dorothy is destined for a lobotomy. The sci-fi aspects of the plot are at once overcomplicated and underexplained, but the harrowing hospital scenes ground the proceedings and spotlight science's historical mistreatment of "inconvenient" women. There's enough here to hold adventurous thriller fans' attention. (Aug.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Virginia, 1954: A woman identified as Dorothy Frasier awakens on a bus en route to a psychiatric hospital. But does she belong there? There are signs that Dorothy may not belong at Hanover State Psychiatric Hospital, most notably her lightning-fast reflexes and her ability to quickly calculate everything from how to pick a lock to the best way to beat a creepy orderly. And then there are the flashes of "memory" that seem to jerk her back to the future: 2035, to be exact. Here she is identified as rebel leader Beatrix "Bix" Parris, and reminded that she's been sent to 1954 in order to intercept a virus that will wreak havoc in her present time, decimating 90% of the population. Back in '54, these "delusions," as well as Dorothy's general lack of compliance, lead to a "protocol" which consists of heavy sedation and multiple sessions of electroshock therapy until her husband, Paul, intervenes. In the future timeline, Bix meets her twin brother and is filled in on all the details of their lives, the virus, and their roles in the fight, including the fact that she has less than 24 hours to find her Hanover contact and take action to save the world, fighting to find her allies and evade her enemies--and possibly face some other upsets in the timeline. This novel is a cinematic ride. The genre mashup is a little daunting and overly dramatic in the beginning, but once the intrigue--and then the dystopian action--kicks in, you might as well strap in and suspend disbelief. What's real? We don't fully know--and it really doesn't matter. Dorothy/Bix is a kick-ass feminist hero, and the novel comments on the horrors of 20th-century mental health "treatments" for women as well as the anarchic ravages of a virus-infested world. The wordbedlam was derived from a mental hospital so infamous it now stands for absolute chaos. This novel is "bedlam" in every way.One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest meetsThe Hunger Games--and what an offspring! Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
