Ruby Red (The Ruby Red Trilogy, #1)

by Kerstin Gier

Anthea Bell (Translator)

Although I had never seen him before, I recognized him immediately. I'd have known his voice anywhere. This was the guy I'd seen on my last journey back in time.

Or more precisely, the one who'd kissed my doppelganger while I was hiding behind the curtain in disbelief.

Sixteen-year-old Gwen lives with her extended - and rather eccentric - family in an exclusive London neighborhood. In spite of her ancestors' peculiar history, she's had a relatively normal life so far. The time-traveling gene that runs like a secret thread through the female half of the family is supposed to have skipped over Gwen, so she hasn't been introduced to "the mysteries," and can spend her time hanging out with her best friend, Lesley. It comes as an unwelcome surprise when she starts taking sudden, uncontrolled leaps into the past.

She's totally unprepared for time travel, not to mention all that comes with it: fancy clothes, archaic manners, a mysterious secret society, and Gideon, her time-traveling counterpart. He's obnoxious, a know-it-all, and possibly the best-looking guy she's seen in any century...

• ISBN10: 0805092528
• ISBN13: 9780805092523
• Publish Date: 10 May 2011
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 16 June 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Henry Holt & Company
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 336
• Language: English

Reviews

[alindstadtcorbeax]

Star Rating: —> 4 Stars rounded^

Wow!! Wow ! WOW.

WHAT A UNIQUE, FUN FREAKIN’ ADVENTURE!!!! Time travel novels are always great, in my opinion, but this was... exceptional !

And what a strong female lead in Gwyneth! !

Also, as an awesome.bonus, her family kind of reminds me of the women of 300 Fox Way.

[Nicole Lynn]

For this review and more check out PopCrunchBoom!

I wasn’t exactly sure how much I would end up loving this story when I decided to read it. Time-traveling stories never really piqued let alone kept my interest. However what kept me reading with Ruby Red was the mystery and the main character. Most time-traveling stories have some puzzle that needs solving, but this mystery was in the middle of a wonderfully believable world that Geir created.


Set in London, England, Gwen is a somewhat regular girl growing up trying to bare her family’s oddities. They have a secret gene passed down to certain females in the family that allows them to time travel. This isn’t by a device that’s created, but an ability in their blood. The hard-part: they can’t control when they time travel without a device. What’s more weird is that there is a prophecy along with it all. Cue in Gideon the second half of this puzzle. His family has a connection with Gwen’s over multiple generations. Both families have learned to deal with this gene and have tried to some how complete the prophecy.

But Gwen wasn’t supposed to be the last time-traveler, her cousin Charlotte was. Unprepared and confused, Gwen is quickly thrust into her family’s secrets and past worlds. Soon she finds her self falling for Gideon, trying to survive surprise attacks in the past and wondering how to keep her ability to see ghosts a secret. Luckily her best friend Lesley is right alongside her trying to make sense of it all and helping her figure out who to trust and who is actually dangerous.

Clearly, this story could become cliche real fast. However, Geir’s writing was superb. She made this time traveling world come alive–allowing me to believe a lot of research when into writing it. When there’s reach involved, it shows the author really cared in making this story as accurate and as real as possible which keeps me as a reader interested and thankful. So many stories lack accuracy which can kill the believable factor for a reader.

Aside from the setting, Gier also created an interesting villain. Gier sets up two possible evils, but the reader gets a somewhat clear idea of who the real villain is of this story by the end of the first book. What is left a mystery is how many people are helping the real villain and just like Gwen, readers are left questioning who to trust.

A small problem that I had was how quickly Gideon turned his attention to Gwen. I’m always a realist when it comes to how quickly characters fall-in-love with each other. However, by the second book their relationship develops on a more realistic level and certain things are explained to help make their relationship for me more believable.

The end of the first book left me craving more and I instantly got my hands on book two. Gwen, the main character, was very well written and had me rooting for her during the whole novel. If this story gains more popularity, I can see it being as hot off the shelves as The Mortal Instruments or even The Hunger Games. If you’re in the mood for a story filled with adventure, some humor, romance, and a little mystery than pick up this story right away. It’s a definite recommend from me!

[Laurie]

DNF at 50%, couldn’t take it any longer. It’s too immature for me to be YA and Gwen annoyed me.

[lauriesbookshelf]

DNF at 50%, couldn’t take it any longer. It’s too immature for me to be YA and Gwen annoyed me.

[tweetybugshouse]

This is the great start to a series the plot moves along at a nice pace and their never seemed to be a dull moment.  Charlotte is the one who been destined to be the time traveler but it turns out that not true instead its Gwyneth who is the ruby in this story.  It the perfect series to listen to as an audio book i was thoroughly able to escape and hours have gone before i know it.  Excited to continue the series. 

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

I adored this book! Gwyneth is the funniest, silliest thing and I absolutely loved her banter with Lesley and the way she doesn't let anyone push her around. She's curious and smart and observant. All in all, I had a delightful time listening to her babble and sing "God Save the Queen."

The writing in this book is quick, witty, and delightful. Nothing seems to have been lost in translation from German to English. There was never a moment where I wanted to put it down and do something else, or fast forward it to "the good part". The flow of information is very good, and the reader learns about things at the same pace as Gwyneth, but there are so many secrets still in play and so many questions left unanswered at the end that you can't help but to run off and pick up the next book in the trilogy.

All in all, RUBY RED was a treat and I will be adding it to my library and reading SAPPHIRE BLUE.

[liz089]

I enjoyed this book more than I expected haha ^^ I read some mixed reviews about this one, but wanted to give it a try anyway. It was not heavy or complicated, but just a nice light read full of adventure. Great for in-between, just flew throught the pages. Love the time-travel world and even though the main character was not spectaculair, she was easy to relate to and not overly annoying. So this is more like a 3.5, but I will round it up to 4 because well, I liked it and want to continue with this series.

[Terri M. LeBlanc]

When Second Run Reviews first started I had devoured this series and I was delighted when I saw my library had it available on audiobook. And after finishing a re-read of Ruby Red via audio, I wish I wouldn’t have been distracted by other shiny books becoming available on my library wish list as I probably would have continued the series.

This time travel series for young adults is wrapped up in a mysterious society connected with the Count of Saint Germain (fan of Outlander will recognize the name). The main character Gwen has a wonderful, vivacious friend, Lesley, who plays Gwen’s Girl Friday. Lesley’s enthusiasm pours off the page when you read the book and Marisa Calin, the audiobook’s narrator, did an excellent job conveying it. There is at least one scene where Lesley and Gwen sneak off to the girls restroom to look at Lesley’s research and I felt like I was in the stall with them paging through papers and listening to Lesley chatter on. It was great fun!

As a word of warning, little is revealed about the purpose of the secret society that Gwen’s family is involved with, but the novel is a quick read and a quick listen—it clocks in at just under 9 hours. It’s one of the shorter books I’ve listened to. So moving from this book to the following two books in the trilogy is a great idea especially if you want to know what happens to Gwen and Gideon. In fact, if this wasn’t a re-read, I probably would have jumped into book two because I wanted to experience the revelation of the secrets that happen as the series progresses all over again.

Re-reading time travel novels that involve changing or manipulating the time stream has proven to be an enjoyable read for me. You start to pick up on the mysteries, the secrets and the motivations of the characters on the second read through. Once I finish up this wish list of new audiobooks that suddenly became available at my library, I do see myself returning to this series and finishing it out provided the audiobook is available at the library. Or maybe I’ll just dust off my copies of the physical books. Can’t wait!


This review was originally posted on Second Run Reviews

[wyvernfriend]

Not bad, fairly predictable in parts. A girl, Gwyneth, discovers that she is in fact the chosen one and that her cousin, Charlotte, who was thought to be the chosen one and taught everything she needed to know to time travel now loses her status and is no longer special. Meanwhile Gwyneth is trying to work out what this means for her future and how she's going to deal with all the complications. there are also layers of secrets that she has no clue about and no-one appears to be willing to fill her in, which is one of my least favourite tropes in this genre. Teach dammit.

All-in-all I found it quite readable and look forward to reading more in this series.

[paperbackjedi]

Gwen’s life was going pretty well until she finds that she’s inherited her family’s time travel gene that everyone thought her cousin, Charlotte had. Charlotte is beautiful and perfect and has been training for this her entire life so it comes as a shock when Gwen accidentally travels through time. Gwen, who doesn’t know much about history, who’s clumsy and awkward, who sometimes talks to people that aren’t there. As everyone races to get Gwen caught up to speed to take on a dangerous mission from a shady secret society, she starts to wonder what exactly she’s being trained for.

GUYS THIS BOOK WAS SO MUCH FUN. It’s got a lot of things I love in it: time travel, spunky heroines, ghosts, talking statues, a handsome guy who wields a sword, and MAGIC. This book was originally published in German and it’s hugely popular in Germany even spawning two movies (and there will be a third) and I can definitely see why. Gwen is a great character because she’s incredibly easy to relate to. I even featured her in my Top Ten Favorite Heroines From Books post a few months back. I love how she questions everything and sets about finding things out for herself while still trying to help people in any way she can. She’s not just automatically good at things and has to try very hard to not die or mess up an operation and it’s so refreshing. Gideon is a pretty great character too. He starts out really annoyed by Gwen because she doesn’t have the training she needs to carry out these missions and he doesn’t want to have to babysit or take care of her, but over time he comes to really respect her and her overwhelming capacity for compassion. He sees how hard she tries to help everyone even though she’s ill equipped and he can’t help but sort of fall for her. Gwen also has one of the coolest best friends ever, Lesley, who never questions Gwen’s weird destiny and sets about being her personal Google while she’s traveling through time. I wish I had a best friend this cool (sorry, Beth!) and she’s one of my favorite parts of the story.

The world is intriguing and has a secret society whose mission is beyond hush hush. See, each time traveler (and there are twelve) comes with a prophecy attached to them (and some even have powers) and Gwen’s prophecy is VERY IMPORTANT. The whole mythology of the time traveling gene and the history of time travelers is thoroughly described. The lore is consistent and explored in a manner that is both exciting and just a little bit mysterious. Between chapters, there are often excerpts from texts the society has written and other small tidbits that relate to the main plot in ways you don’t understand until later. The writing bursts with energy. Seriously, I had so much fun reading this book. The plot moves at a very fast pace for the most part with some of the slower sections taking a few minutes to explore Gwen’s thoughts and emotions and I found the balance pretty well-maintained. I liked how we got both action and introspection and there are a lot of twists that you think you’ll see coming, but won’t (at least I didn’t). Most of the story doesn’t come together in the way you expect and this is the first book in the trilogy so you won’t get some answers until you’ve read to the end.

This book features a lot of different relationships. You have Gwen and her family (some of which are supportive and others not so much), Gwen and Lesley (so much win right here), Gwen and the secret society members (really interesting take on trust and how to earn it), and Gwen and Gideon (hello, swooning over here). Gwen and her family is a complicated situation because some of them have been preparing her cousin Charlotte for this life and they’re not happy that Gwen has usurped her purpose. But her mother, brothers and sisters, and grandmother are truly wonderful and supportive. Gwen and Gideon’s relationship felt very authentic to me as it grew throughout the pages into something very different than what it started as. It was a very organic progression and you understood every second of it (except for when you weren’t really supposed to). I feel like Gideon came to really value and adore Gwen in a way that marked her an an equal and not just a love interest and though he wanted to protect her, he didn’t dismiss her which was important. And Gwen came to understand Gideon as more than the cute guy she was stuck with. The relationship frustrated me in the best ways and made me smile a lot while reading. They’re both sort of sarcastic and funny so it was enjoyable to witness.

Again, this book was an adventure, but I do recommend getting all three books at the same time because you’re gonna want to jump right into the next one as soon as you finish. There isn’t really a gap between books either so all the events take place one after the other which can be frustrating if you wait between reading each book because you might not remember what happened before and it’s pretty important that you keep details fresh in your mind to understand some of the developments. I highly recommend this book (and series) to anyone looking to have a good time with a pretty awesome main character who feels a lot like someone you could actually know in real life. It’s intriguing and the dialogue is particularly enjoyable as it’s sassy and always good for a laugh.