The Ancestor by Lee Matthew Goldberg
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Title: The Ancestor
Author: Lee Matthew Goldberg
Series: n/a
Pages: 348
Publisher: All Due Respect
Date: August 21, 2020
Summary:
A man wakes up in present-day Alaskan wilderness with no idea who he is, nothing on him save an empty journal with the date 1898 and a mirror. He sees another man hunting nearby, astounded that they look exactly alike. After following this other man home, he witnesses a wife and child that brings forth a rush of memories of his own wife and child, except he’s certain they do not exist in modern times-but from his life in the late 1800s. After recalling his name is Wyatt, he worms his way into his doppelganger Travis Barlow’s life. Memories become unearthed the more time he spends, making him believe that he’d been frozen after coming to Alaska during the Gold Rush and that Travis is his great-great grandson. Wyatt is certain gold still exists in the area and finding it with Travis will ingratiate himself to the family, especially with Travis’s wife Callie, once Wyatt falls in love. This turns into a dangerous obsession affecting the Barlows and everyone in their small town, since Wyatt can’t be tamed until he also discovers the meaning of why he was able to be preserved on ice for over a century.
A meditation on love lost and unfulfilled dreams, The Ancestor is a thrilling page-turner in present day Alaska and a historical adventure about the perilous Gold Rush expeditions where prospectors left behind their lives for the promise of hope and a better future. The question remains whether it was all worth the sacrifice….
Review:
This book has two of my reading preferences: time travel (but not really) and an Alaska setting, both present day and historical. This should have been a four or five star review. As it is, I gave it three stars and I feel like I’m being generous. I liked the premise of the story and it is not something I have read before.
So what didn’t I like about the book? It dragged . . . painfully. I normally read a book in two to three days and this one took me weeks. I couldn’t make myself stick with it. My main problem with the book is none of the characters were likeable. I can understand their motivations, but there was no growth, no improvements. Wyatt was selfish and self-centered in his former life and he carried on the same way in his new life. Travis was no better.
I really wish I had not received this book as an early reviewers copy. Once I started it, I felt obligated to finish. It was not worth the time.
This book was sent to me by NetGalley in return for an honest review.
Elaine Reads . . . constantly! 