The River of No Return

By: Bee Ridgway

Narrated by: Samuel Roukin

Bee Ridgway’s wildly inventive debut novel, The River of No Return, blends romance, conspiracy, and time travel for a tale sure to intrigue listeners. When soldier and aristocrat Nick Falcott is sent from a Napoleonic battlefield in 1815 to modern-day London, he never expects to go back - until the Guild calls for him. Returning home as if from the dead, Nick reunites with his lost love, Julia Percy, and enlists her help in finding a mysterious object known as the Talisman.

©2013 Bee Ridgway (P)2013 Recorded Books

Amazing! Loved every second!

I loved this book! This was a perfect mix of historical romance in the Victorian era with the perfect amount of sci-fi thrown in. The time travel aspect was so good. I loved the whole story and I never wanted to put it down!

loved it

I finished this in about 3 days because I did not want to stop listening. I really enjoyed it!

Cute Period Time Travel Book

This was an enjoyable time-jumping meets period drama piece that had some interesting plot set-ups and time travel mechanics, amongst the occasional breathy Georgian costume romance tension, a similar conceit as Outlander, though less successfully done in my opinion. Unfortunately the majority of these plots never pay off. It's my understanding that this was to be a book series so the set-ups are there for the future books, but no sequels have been produced, leaving an unsatisfying conclusion to a cute book.

great book, but sudden ending ruined the good will

What did you like best about The River of No Return? What did you like least?

Interesting story, mixed with romance. Love the approach to time travel. The author spent a lot of time laying groundwork for the time travel angle. I was really enjoying and couldnt wait to get in the car to listen. All the sudden I realized there are 40 min left and we are nowhere near a.resolution to the story and I worry that this wonderful story will now end suddenly. It did. I assume there is a sequel planned, since apparently everything needs to be at least a trilogy which is really starting to tick me off. I blame twilight and 50 shades. I would have never read it had I known because I dont like waiting a year or two to find out what happened. I am love sequels and series, if the books stand on their own and we get most our questions answered. The story needs to feel finished, at least for now, with the opportunity to learn more later. Several authors do this pretty well, Kim Harrison, Jim Butcher, even Nora Roberts/JD Robb. This book felt rushed and unfinished, even one more chapter about their plans and tying up some loose ends with his family would have made me give it 5 stars, but instead I was angry a book I was enjoying just ended so overall I give it 3. Authors and their publishers need to quit this anoying tactic of forcing us to read the sequel instead of making us want to. There is even a scene in the book where the main character is forced to choose and it ticked him off and made him plan to do the opposite of what they wanted. In that spirit, I will too. I will not look for or buy this sequel because I feel like I was cheated at the end of this one. Publishers stop making your readers angry.

Did The River of No Return inspire you to do anything?

Sit in my car a little longer to listen to what happened next. Daydream about time travel.

Any additional comments?

I dont know if I recommend it right now. Its good, but maybe put it on your wish list and wait and see if a sequel comes out and then read both if you dont like to wait.

Beautiful writing

Great story. Lovely prose. My only disappointment was the ending. I wish the author would have toed up loose ends, and perhaps allowed us to accompany the main character’s explorations in the future.

I really tried

I got this book a couple of years ago. The premise was promising. I started listening to it and just could not get into it. I put it aside to pick up later. I just tried listening to it again and while I got over halfway through the book this time, I just couldn't finish it. I thought the writing was sophomoric at best. There were lots of words but very little story. And the main character vacillates between vacillating about which time period he wants to be in and raising questions or points of interest - and then dropping them entirely. He's broken every rule of the Guild that manages time travelers but with their permission, There is very little explanation of why they want him to go back, just some vague mentioning of some time travelers who are "bad". He makes two close friends who disappear one day and he says it really upset him, but he makes no effort to figure out what happened to them.

There were so many gaping holes in the plot I kept wondering if I'd fallen asleep during critical sections but no, I was awake the full time.

To top it off, I thought the narration was poor. For a good chunk of the book I listened to, the word "Marquess" is used in at least every other sentence. And the way the narrator pronounced the word was extremely jarring.

I wish I had just passed on this the first time I attempted it rather than devoting over 10 hours trying to find the plot.