The Ruby Red Trilogy by Kerstin Gier

"Gwyneth Shepherd's sophisticated, beautiful cousin Charlotte has been prepared her entire life for traveling through time. But unexpectedly, it is Gwyneth, who in the middle of class takes a sudden spin to a different era!
Gwyneth must now unearth the mystery of why her mother would lie about her birth date to ward off suspicion about her ability, brush up on her history, and work with Gideon--the time traveler from a similarly gifted family that passes the gene through its male line, and whose presence becomes, in time, less insufferable and more essential. Together, Gwyneth and Gideon journey through time to discover who, in the 18th century and in contemporary London, they can trust".

Even though I am going to do a review of the trilogy I will talk about each book separately.

First, we have Ruby Red. It is the 1^st book of this trilogy and for me the best of the three. Is all about the world setting, the explanation of how time-traveling works (in general) and the introduction of the characters, of which Gwyneth (the female protagonist) and Lesley (her best friend) are hilarious. Although it is true that this book does not have a lot of action the reader will not get bored a bit. This book is highly addictive and there are some parts that prevent you from putting it down. Also, there is a huge plot twist, one that the reader will not see coming so as a result you feel the urgency of picking up the 2^nd book immediately. I gave Ruby Red 4 stars.

So, the second book is Sapphire Blue. I enjoyed this one a lot but I did have a few problems with it (and therefore with the third book). It was confusing sometimes when it came to the time traveling situations and the explanation of bizarre events. Is like you feel they are living in a big loop and it feels weird. In addition, we don’t get a lot of action in this book as well and what I mean by that is that things actually happen but they don’t resolve anything from the big mystery and is frustrating. However, the little adventures Gwyneth goes through are most of the time so comical and sidesplitting (believe me; the soirée party was too much for me. I was crying of laughter). Also, a gargoyle ghost is added to the list of characters: Xemerius happens to be one of the funniest characters I have ever read about. However there are a few things that I didn’t like but I would get to them at the end of this review because there were problems that I found in both the second and the third book. I gave Sapphire Blue 4 stars.

Finally, we have Emerald Green the 3^rd and final book of this trilogy. And unlike the first two books, which I devoured, this one took me a little more time to read. Why? You must be wondering… well, because of the same flaw I found in the second book: there is little action related to the main plot and the ending and how all the mess is resolved is done in a rush way. And we have the explanation of the time traveling sometimes as well, which feels a bit lacking and confusing towards the end. I gave it 3 stars.

As for the characters I have already said that I love Lesley and Xemerius because they are the funny part of this story, they relieve the tension with their sassy lines and sarcastic comments. Then we have Gwen (Gwyneth). I like her but there are some parts where I want to slap her though for being a little drama queen. As a male protagonist we have Gideon and I have the same feelings about him that I have about Gwen. Also there is Count Saint Germain, a misogynistic character that thinks women are just plain simple and stupid (yes, is true that he is from the 18^th century and the general image of women was not very positive but still, what a pig!). Finally there is Charlotte (Gwen’s cousin) and Aunt Glenda (Charlotte’s mother) and for the love of mine I really hate them. God! They are so posh, annoying and they believe themselves more superior than everybody else. I don’t know if you have seen the video where Tyrion slaps Joffrey (from Game of Thrones) non-stop (link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-SdNHq9RZc) but that kind of sums up my feelings for them. There are a few more characters but overall I like them all.

Now with the problems I had:

• There is instalove in this book and I hate that. But funnily, in this book doesn’t feel like it mainly because the reader will feel like a lot of time has happened when really the time passed throughout the trilogy was more or less a week. So, it feels weird, that’s all.

• The use of exclamation marks almost all the time which is really annoying. I didn’t notice it so much in the first book but it get worse and worse. I don’t know if it is a consequence of the translation into English (the books are originally German) or what but I thought it gave the characters a childish look.

Anyway, taking this trilogy as a whole it is a fun and quick read. I like it and I would recommend it without hesitation but I felt the necessity of telling the problems I had with it as to get it out of my chest (seriously, you had no idea how much I hated the exclamation marks). Also, sorry for this long review but there are three books so… yeah! Sorry. 

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