Easton Gray lives in a dystopian future that has been reuined by nanotechnology. As an agent of Ministry of Discourse, she’s sent back in time to stop the problem before it starts. Dr. Tess Nolan’s life is pretty lonely. She’s got her rescue dog and her vet practice, but when Easton Gray shows up in her life, she finds something she didn’t even know was missing. As Easton also starts to fall for Tess, she has to navigate the sticky situation of her assignment, to kill Tess’ brother (and technically Tess as well). Plus, there maybe something else going on. Someone else has been following Tess’ brother, and the three will have to ban together to save themselves and the future.

This one was a thrilling and quick read. I was a little pissed at the end, but only because it made me want to continue the story. I liked the twists and turns, and the romance was paced well and had plenty of steam. Some of the time travel elements also made the relationship tension build in an interesting way, and I appreciated that.

This is one amazing story. The only thing is......I would love to see how it really ends 😁
The back and forth makes sense. Maybe not on the beginning but later on.
The connection between characters is strong from the beginning.

This book is very well paced and thought out. The characters are compelling and well-rounded.

I especially liked the flashbacks (forwards?) to before the jump, it flushed out motives and made it seems more realistic, despite being sci-fi.

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys time travel, well-rounded characters, and wants to just escape for a bit. It was very enjoyable!

“Edges of Yesterday” by CJ Birch is a dystopian, time travel/sci-fi romance. This is not my normal genre but I read the blurb and thought it sounded interesting.

Easton Gray is living in a future where civilization has had to move underground to survive. She’s sent to the past to kill the inventor of nanotechnology that is trying to take out the human race and has forced them underground. Not only is she tasked with killing him, but also his sister, Tess Nolan.

This was a wild ride from beginning to end and I liked a lot of it. Birch is fantastic at describing the setting and atmosphere and I sometimes felt like I was experiencing the same things Easton was. She’s never seen the real sun or felt wind and I loved how it was written. This has a bit of a Groundhog Day theme that I wasn’t expecting but I loved how even the smallest change could have such a different impact on Easton and Tess’ relationship.

Their romance is one of the things that I’m not sure absolutely worked for me. Because of the way the story is set up it’s very insta-love and they don’t spend a ton of time together overall, especially when time gets reset and Tess has no memory of the previous times. It was interesting how Easton would change her approach the more she learned about Tess and I had a better time believing in her feelings as she actually remembers all their time together.

The sci-fi aspect felt a little lite to me and while I understood everything, I wish there had been more background information on a lot of things. Some of the details felt a little glossed over and I just went with it to enjoy the book but I feel like I could have really loved it had there been more detail.

I recommend this to fans of time-travel and open-ended endings. Speaking of, I’m kind of hoping there’s a follow up to see what happens next.

I received an ARC from Bold Strokes Books via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this story. It was such a great balance of both the sci-fi and sapphic romance genres. The characters were great and well developed and I really enjoyed the pacing of the story and the jumping between timelines. A really fun and interesting read! My only critiques would be that I wish the book had been longer so that it could have gone into even more depth with worldbuilding and backstories, and also that I found the ending to be very abrupt. Whilst I understood what the ending was aiming for, it felt a little rushed in comparison to the rest of the book. I would absolutely pick up future books by this author.. or a sequel to this! 4 out of 5 stars.

4.5 stars!

This was genuinely such a wonderful book! The characters felt realistic, the plot was captivating, and the romance made me swoon more than once. It would have been nice to get an explanation on how the time travel worked, but I understand that time travel is a messy and confusing thing to write about! Overall CJ Birch did an amazing job and I’m excited to read some of her work in the future!

NetGalley ARC Educator 550974

A futuristic, mind bending romance. Concept is similar to Groundhog's Day but more intriguing. You will have to keep up with the direction of the story and may find yourself rereading pages. Good story, wondering if they'll be a part 2.

Easton Gray is born in a future where humanity has been forced to live in underground cities to avoid extinction at the hands of the technology they invented. In order to create a better future, she travels to the past to kill two people linked to the creation of the technology before it can be released. Things get complicated when Easton finds herself drawn to one of her targets, Dr Tess Nolan, and questioning if there is another option.

This is a time travel story with a side of romance. Both are types of stories that I enjoy reading. Unfortunately, this story fell a bit flat on both elements for me. The relationship felt a bit contrived, and when it came to the details of changing the past, the story side stepped answering questions of how it would work.

It was a bit slow to start, though I found myself a bit more engaged for the last third. I was keen when I read the premise, but in the end this one did not resonate with me.

This sounded like something I would love but unfortunately, it missed the mark. It was still an enjoyable read and there were elements I really liked but overall I can't say that I loved it and I struggled to keep going in places and it took a lot longer to finish than it should have.

There are a lot of elements here I usually adore- sci-fi, female leads, sapphic romance but altogether it just didn't click for me. My biggest issue was the characters, I couldn't connect properly and that therefore affected how I enjoyed the story as a whole, I just didn't care enough. The writing was excellent though as were the descriptions. The plot was intriguing but personally, I don't think it was executed as strongly as it could have been.

Overall I liked this but didn't love it and found it difficult to stay interested in places. I would check out more by this author though.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this in exchange for an honest review.

The premise of The Edge of Yesterday by CJ Birch sounded right up my alley; Easton Grey, an agent from a dystopian future, is sent back in time to eradicate all traces of a dangerous technology—up to and including targeting Dr. Tess Nolan, a woman tangentially involved with its creation. To some degree, the novel delivers on its premise, but an overly confusing structure, lack of tension, and spotty worldbuilding kept this one from reaching its full potential.

To start with the good, I really enjoyed both Easton and Tess as characters, and their chemistry, when they were on the page together, was solid (even if it felt a bit instalove to me, but I’m beginning to think most romance feels instalove to me, so I don’t hold it against any novel). The sci-fi worldbuilding we did get was interesting to me, and as mentioned above, I only wish we had gotten more of it. And of course, for the parts set in the modern-ish day, I loved seeing Canada used as a setting. Canada is a real place that exists, I swear!

The structure really held this novel back. In addition to flashbacks of Easton’s past woven in (or flashforwards, chronologically), there’s also a groundhog day-adjacent effect happening where the novel repeatedly jumps back to a certain point in time. The execution of this was clumsy in places to the point of being unintentionally confusing, which detracted from both pacing and plot execution.

In addition, I didn’t feel enough tension for what should have been a very tense situation. What intrigued me was the enemies to lovers vibe this promised; after all, you learn early on in the novel that Tess is a potential target for Easton as she is trying to save her world. While Easton does a lot of internal angsting over this fact, it doesn’t translate to a lot of external escalation. There is a LOT riding on these interactions for Easton and her world, but those aspects get displaced by internal monologues and a relatively straightforward contemporary romance.

While I can certainly appreciate and applaud what The Edge of Yesterday was attempting to do, this seems to be a case of trying to do too much and each element—romance, present-day plot, past/future plot, and character development—suffering for it. For fans of lesbian romance who would enjoy a sci-fi backdrop, this novel might work better for you!

Thank you to Bold Strokes Books for an advance reader copy. All opinions are my own.

I am a fan of these types of books about dystopian/sci-fi types and this book definitely took me on a ride that I wasn't expecting but enjoyed! It focuses on time travel and the reasons why changing the future through time travel would be complex and not always go as planned. The main message I feel I got from this book was the importance of first impressions which impacted the relationship of the two main characters in Tess and Easton.

This was a unique book that had a great storyline with twists and turns and a romance that I wanted more of.

I finished this book in a couple of days. I was completely captivated by the story and I was surprised by the plot twists that took place. I really enjoyed the character development of Easton and her internal turmoil with her moral conscience and the mission she was sent to complete. She is from a dismal future and has time travelled in the hope of preventing the creation of nanotechnology which has caused the destruction of normal life. The story follows her mission and how it is impacted when she meets Tess.

The story jumps between time frames which is effective in keeping you intrigued. I also really liked the different versions of Tess we met and how each action caused a reaction.

Though there is WLW romance and some spice it is not the main theme of the story and it is driven by the mission; though I was rooting for them. There were a couple of missing letters and incorrect formatting on the ebook, though that did not impact on the story.

The ending was very good and could be left there, however I definitely have a lot of unanswered questions. I hope it is not over and eagerly await the hope of a sequel.

This was sent to me through netgalley and Bold Strokes Books Inc

Well, I'm not sure what I expected, but here it is. I am sometimes wary of time travel types of romances, because it can devolve into an excuse for romances that are a little more violent than I want, or do a fish-out-of water story that can get a little repetitive if it isn't done well. And the actual time travel mechanic is not always explored in these types of romances. This one kind of does this, and gives enough of the lore to keep you hooked on Easton's story, even though it is basically Groundhog's Day, but the person reliving that time frame kind of knows what's happening from the word go. Of course there's some twisty things happening that are expertly alluded to, but for the most part that's exactly what you get.

I love Easton and Tess Nolan, even though, by definition their relationship can't really be well developed. It is interesting to see different Tesses learning to fall for Easton, over the course of the book. The mechanics are explained early on - every different decision Easton makes can cause a change in the next timeline, so one Tess might be a little more open to having a relationship at the point in her time that Easton pops in, or she may not be. Easton has to navigate all that. It's a simply explained thing, but allows for some complexities that makes each jump back interesting.

There is intrigue here, too. Easton knows she has to go after Tess and her science brother, Zach to stop Zach from inventing technology that drove Easton's civilization underground. She gets why Zach has to be eliminated, but not Tess. Then there's other fun twists like other agents working in the same timeline that Easton is, but she can't know about them. So much good stuff in here. I had a lot of fun with it.

I am being intentionally vague here, because there are some hefty spoilers for the last half of the book. I enjoyed the heck out of most of this book, but had a little trouble with the pacing. I know it had to be slower in the beginning, because the need to give enough worldbuilding to make Easton's motivations make sense, but compared to the turbo charged last part of the book, the front end crawls at times. Also this book ends on a pretty big hook, where I got there and was like, 'wait, there's more, right?' So if you don't like those types of endings, you'll probably get frustrated, yet that I was desperate for more just proved to me how well Birch brought me through the story. I hope any sequels can come out soon.

*I received this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

This is definitely a very different lesfic novel. Science fiction (time travel) with someone from the future, Easton, sent back to kill a scientist in our current era in order to save the world. Coming back, we see the world through Easton's eyes and find it wondrous. Coming from a time when humans are living underground, seeing sunlight and trees and animals are new experiences. The world-building is good, as we are introduced to Easton's world through flashback chapters. There's also romance as Easton finds herself falling for Tess, who is the twin sister of Easton's objective. A lot of reviews have mentioned Groundhog Day, as Easton finds herself travelling back to the start of her mission again and again. We don't not know why this is happening. Easton doesn't either. These little plot twists and turns are unexpected. But, I guess in a book about time travel, a plot that is not quite so linear is to be expected.
**Thank you to Bold Strokes Books for giving an ARC in exchange for an honest review.**

I enjoyed this book because it was a bit different from the usual lesfic fare and had elements of thriller mixed in with the science fiction. It is sort of Terminator meets Groundhog Day and I’m seeing Linda Hamilton in a vest while reading it - which is not a bad thing. The plotting is clever and it addresses the simplicity of “if I go back and change an event in the past then I can predict what will happen in a future timeline”. We are given lots of possible outcomes and how a small change can effect massive differences.

Easton is sent back to kill Tess and her brother. She has clever gadgets but no clothes and has to find a way to blend in and survive until an opportunity arises. But blending in means Easton gets to know Tess, a local vet who cares too much about her community and the animals and maybe not enough about herself. They connect and that makes the whole mission so much more complicated. I will not put any spoilers here but the story night not be what you are expecting - and I liked that.

I was given a copy of the book by Netgalley

An interesting book about time travel. I enjoyed the premise of the novel. People from the future sent back to save humanity. There are some nice twists and turns in the plot.

3.5 stars. This was a fun read. It has a nice flow and even when I had some issues with it, the overall feeling I got was good. Especially during the last 25% I couldn’t put it down.

Time travel is always an entertaining, but often confusing, subject. Here we have Easton who is from the future where the living circumstances are dismal, so she travels to the past in order to change the future. But when she meets Tess, the town vet, her objective becomes hard to fulfill.

Ok, so the bad gut here is nanotechnology. This happens to be partly my field of expertise, so I was looking forward to the technology and the science part of this book. And that’s unfortunately my first issue. So many things are not explained. What is happening exactly above ground in the future, what are the dangers, what exactly is this nanotech (yes nanobots, but doing what exactly and how?) and I think the tech part is confused with AI. Some light explanations are given, but my nerdy self would like more info on this. Also, I didn’t quite understand some things that happened during the time jumps, like what if you’re injured in one timeline, does it carry over to the other timeline and why (not)?

The timeline is not chronological, I understand the choice for this. The book starts right in the middle of the action with Easton’s time jump. Flashbacks (to the future timeline) show Easton’s story leading up to the jump. I was ok with the jumps in time, I could follow it without much problems, but there was one instance were something critical happened in the future timeline that was completely skipped. This information was just dropped and I wondered if I had missed a chapter.

The chemistry between Easton and Tess was excellent, I liked how Easton discovers the world above ground and how Tess was loving the almost child-like wonder of Easton without understanding where this came from. I was rooting for them, but there was definitely a case of instalove after only a couple of days. The focus in this book is not solely on the romance, so I didn’t need I love yous, but at the same time I found that it didn’t really bother me either.

As I mentioned the last 25% were awesome, all of the sudden there was a completely new dimension to the story and I was glued to the book. The only thing I wished for was….more. I had the feeling there was so much more to tell at the end, but maybe that was intended? I was not totally convinced this is the end so can we get a sequel?

So yes, I had some issues, but I enjoyed reading this book. This was a new author to me and I would like to read more by Birch.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

A fantastic well written science fiction with beautiful dialogue.
Easton is an agent sent from the future on a mission to eliminate Zach Nolan who is developing Nano Technology. On her arrival she meets Dr. Tess Nolan a Vet in a small Town and the brother of Zach.
Easton is torn between completing her mission or following her heart.
4.5 stars, I recommend.

Thanks to the publisher Bold Strokes Books and NetGalley for this ARC.

Ok, so I have been patiently waiting for a new science fiction novel to fall in love with and I think I may have finally found it.

I’ll give the run-down. Easton Gray is sent from the future to eliminate an inventor, Zach, and his development plans in nano technology as it will eventually lead to the revolution of nanobots and the annihilation of the human race. Enter Dr. Tess Nolan, a small town veterinarian and Zach’s sister. Now Easton must decide whether her mission is more important than the doctor she is starting to fall for.

CJ Birch masters the art of storytelling in this ingenious take on time travel and whirlwind romance. The writing is riveting, the story captivating, and I found myself sucked in from the first chapter. I had a couple of minor nuances with the flashbacks as I found the time jumps a little disorientating at first, but after a while I didn't mind so much. I suppose you could call them flashforwards actually, but nevertheless, there was a moment when a timeline ended and a new loop began and a flashback in between that was a little confusing at first, but I did rather enjoy the moments in Easton’s future life. I found there was a lot, and I mean a lot, of worldbuilding, which was fabulous considering the genre, but sometimes a little too dense for me.
Aside from this, I adored the leads, their chemistry and development was something thoroughly enjoyed reading about, especially as perspectives switch throughout the novel and we get both of their experiences. I loved being inside Easton’s head as she battled with her moral conscience and the complexity of her mission, particularly with Tess’ involvement. The story was immersive and the pacing of it was just right, even with the twists and turns, and the implosive ending that left me speechless. The novel itself toys with the difference between morality and humanity, primarily in the structuring of the future world where humans become dependent on bots and are increasingly itching towards full-blown warfare.

So, yes, this book… I highly recommend it with flying colours. It’s queer, it’s addictive, it’s full of adventure and revelations, and CJ Birch is definitely an author to watch out for.

4.75/5 stars.


Netgalley provided me with an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review,

After reading the description I knew I would love this book. In this novel, we follow Easton Gray who was sent from the future to prevent the end of the human race. I could go into more detail, but I think this sentence should be enough, since I don’t want to give anything away.

I loved CJ Birch’s New Horizons trilogy and also loved this one. Her stories are always original and entertaining, sometimes I think I’m watching a movie.

I would love a sequel, but I think this book is perfect as a standalone.

This was a great read!