Book Review: The Memory Collectors

Elizabeth aches for one more precious hour with her son who died in a senseless accident. Andy is desperate to find his first love who vanished after a whirlwind romance. Logan craves the rush of surfing and mountain climbing, yearning to reclaim the freedom he lost after a misstep landed him in a wheelchair. Brooke is looking for an hour of relief from the guilt of an unforgivable mistake.

Enter Aeon Expeditions, the groundbreaking time travel invention of Mark Saunders, which allows some lucky clients the chance to spend an hour in their past. Even though Aeon’s technology ensures time travel can’t alter the future, all four clients, including Mark’s ex-wife Elizabeth, yearn to revisit the hour that changed their lives forever.

But when their “hour” extends beyond sixty minutes, they find themselves stranded in the past. As their paths intertwine unexpectedly, they unearth shocking secrets hidden in the shadows of their shared history: all their lives were shattered the same night on a secluded highway by the beach. As they delve into the hidden truths of that pivotal hour, a startling revelation emerges. They were not alone. Someone else was present, harboring deadly intentions.

The Memory Collectors by Dete Meserve will be published on May 20, 2025. Crooked Lane Books provided an early galley for review.

I've been on a time-travel track this year with this being the fourth novel to deal with aspects of it in three months. And each had something very different to offer.

Meserve does not spend a lot of time overall explaining the hows and whys of the time travel process. We get a few brief details, but the focus is mostly on the four characters whose lives were intertwined due to the events on a fateful day. The characters are the strength of the piece, the core that binds the story. And because something is "not right" with their jumps, it keeps the reader engaged in the story to find out what is going on and why.

The themes are what I expected, with endings for each of the four protagonists falling perfectly in line. I would have liked to see a bit more variation, just to make the story a tad more interesting and unexpected. Still, it was an engaging story that kept my attention.