The Ancestor

The Ancestor is a hard book to pin down, it has some elements that you could describe as science fiction, or perhaps even fantasy, yet has such a grounded and human story mixed in too. If you were to force me to pick one category to put it into it would have to be speculative fiction, even though that's such a broad term. It's a fantastical book for those who don't normally read that kind of thing, and literary fiction for people used to reading sci-fi. It mixes together so many genre's and styles that I really believe that everyone can pick up and enjoy this book.

The story follows Wyatt, a man frozen through time. Having come to Alaska in the 1890's, searching for gold, something awful happens to him and he becomes frozen in time. He wakes up in modern day, with much of his memories missing, and unsure how he got there. Lost in the wilderness he discovers a pair of hunters and follows them back to town when he sees that one of them looks just like him. He discovers that this man, Travis, shares his surname as well as his face; and Wyatt becomes convinced that he's Travis' ancestor.

Wyatt becomes drawn to Travis and his family, drawn to Travis' wife and son. Seeing his family helps to bring back memories of his own wife and child, and he quickly becomes obsessed with them. When he and Travis finally meet the both of them find something that draws them to the other, and the pair quickly form a friendship.

I won't say much more about the plot and what happens with the two characters, because I don't want to spoil what happens or where the story will take the characters, but I will say that Lee Matthew Goldberg always keeps you on your toes, that he keeps the story shifting and changing right up to the tense conclusion. Even in the final pages I didn't know how the book would end, because he manages to make a narrative that could go more than one way, that doesn't feel predictable or locked on a certain course; which is the sign of an amazing writer.

He also manages to make the world of The Ancestor feel really real and lived in, and all of the characters are interesting. Travis and his immediate family get a big focus, but there are so many characters in the periphery and background that grab you too. Some of the supporting cast in this book are more realised and well written than some lead characters I've read. They have backstory, they have complex motivations, and they feel so real. I'd have been happy to read a book that was twice as long as this to have more time with these characters, or books centred around them that didn't even involve Wyatt and his travel through time. I'm normally aren't drawn to literary fiction as I like to have something a bit more fantastical in the books I read, but the characters here are so engaging I'd be happy to read stories about them just living their lives.

I honestly didn't expect to enjoy this book as much as I did. When I realised that Wyatt's story of travelling through time wasn't going to be as front and centre as I thought, that it would be more about the lives of these people, I was worried that my interest would wane. But I was so wrong. I found everything about it fascinating. I kept reading long past the point I should put my book down and go to bed. This kept me awake way longer than it should have, which I always take as a sign of something special.

If the blurb for this book captures your interest in any way, do yourself a favour and pick it up. Give it a read, because you'll end up being sucked into this amazing story.

I wasn’t sure exactly what I was getting into before I read The Ancestor. Upon completion, I’m still not sure what to make of this book. I liked it more than I expected to. This was unlike most any story I’ve read. It wasn’t difficult to suspend disbelief with the well-thought out plot that mixes mystery, the mystical, spirit, and science fiction. Wyatt is a man who awakens in snow after being frozen since the 1890s while searching for gold in Alaska. His memories return very slowly as he thaws and returns to his body, hunts, and communes with his spirit animal. He finds a family he can relate to and believes he is related to and gloms onto them, desperately wishing to be included. The characters and subplots were well fleshed out; even with many different characters it wasn’t difficult to keep them all separated. This story slowly unwound, and was told beautifully along with much ugliness. Somehow it all meshed together quite well, making for a fascinating read. I was ready to not finish because I felt uncomfortable with the way the story was headed, then realized I was 90% done and did finish and am glad I did. This was a very good and very curious read. If you’re looking for something completely different than most of what’s out there to read, you will enjoy this book.
Thank you to the Netgalley, the author and publisher for an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

I liked this book more than I thought that I would have. I really kind of went in blind to what I was reading and I’m I did.
So, this book has a different aspect that I haven’t really looked at before. I really enjoyed it. So, the story covers two men Wyatt and Travis. These men are from two different time periods one from 202 and the other from around 1860. Wyatt was frozen in the snow since the 1860s looking for gold to provide for his family. I like how Wyatts memories slowly resurface and then how he communes with his spirit animal, that is a really neat aspect of the book and his character! Travis is like your average guy with average problems like he is struggling and finding himself over his head for the most part trying to provide for his family. I liked the whole time travel aspect, I think the plot was well thought out and I enjoyed it. At times it was slower than I would have liked but I am glad I stuck with it because the ending was amazing. This is one of those books that you will keep thinking about it days after you finish it! I recommend this book for books about family and sci-fi lovers too! This is the first that I’ve read by this author and I would definitely check out anything else by the author

I'd like to start this post by saying I am incredibly grateful and thankful to #NetGalley, #DownAndOutBooks, and #AllDueRespectBooks for giving me this opportunity to review this title.


Given the chance to pick a mystery/thriller to review is a dream come true for me. I was first captivated by the title and description. Lee Matthew Goldberg paints such a beautiful picture in your head of Alaska you can feel the chill around you. The Ancestor is a well thought out story of two men related by bloodline, but how and when? As you read on and start to connect the dots, as you start to uncover the truth about these characters, they are learning about it themselves; and that's brilliant.


As you follow Wyatt Barlow on a path of self-discovery and uncovering the memories of his wife and child, you are simultaneously following Travis Barlow the descendant of Wyatt. Travis seems to live a pretty mundane life and has a marriage that is less than thrilling. The book jumps times between the 1860s to 2020, and Wyatt occupying both times. Wyatt at the end of each day wants his family back and is uncovering the truth of how he time traveled. As the story goes on, Wyatt chillingly gets closer to Travis and his family, always keeping you on the edge of your seat. Eventually, Wyatt must tell Travis the truth of who he is. Will Travis believe him?


I will admit it is slow-moving and sometimes feels a bit redundant in the usage of vocabulary, verbiage, and stories. It was hard for me to get past it on occasion. On the flip side of this statement, I'd like to give credit where it is due. Goldberg executes small plot lines throughout that keep pulling you back into the story. There will be some chapters that are super short and some are quite lengthy, and I'm not upset about that at all.


I found the characters adequate. The two main characters really popped and painted pictures for me but the other characters I found hard to like. I didn't particularly enjoy the characters or their personal "glue" to this story if you will. I also found myself longing for more time travel discovery and explanation.


In the end, I'm glad I read it. I'm glad I was given the opportunity. I feel like this book is the perfect match for someone that can take slower stories and a great deal of mystery and suspense. And that's not a bad thing by any means. I enjoyed this book, but it wasn't one of my favorites. I look forward to seeing more from Goldberg.


I will give this book a rating of 3/5.

First I want to thank @netgalley and All Due Respect for the advanced readers copy.
This book is about Wyatt, who awakens in snow after being frozen since the 1890s while searching for gold in Alaska. His memories return very slowly as he thaws and returns to his body. He finds a family he can relate to and believes he is related to them, desperately wishing to be included in every aspect of their lives. I wasn't sure what to expect from this book when I started reading it. For me, the beginning seemed to drag on and didn't capture my interest right away. At times, I struggled to pick it back up and continue reading. However, halfway through, the story did pick up and I felt like I flew through the last 1/3 of the book. For me, it was hard to get on board with the mystical, science fiction part of the book. I did enjoy the parts containing Wyatt's journal, as well as most of the present day chacters. I could tell how the book was going to end with a few chapters left and although I wished it ended differently, I can understand why the author did what he did. Overall, this book was good, especially if you like the sci-fi aspect of it. I enjoyed the historical fiction part a lot more. Again, thank you to @netgalley for the ARC of this book!

The Ancestor is one of those books that's perfect for hot weather, as we are currently experiencing (at least we're experiencing it a lot in France !). Set in Alaska, telling the story of a man frozen in a cave for over a century, this book is bound to refresh you !

The aspect I loved the most about the story, is the way the author wrote about Alaska, its nature, its culture, its people. I completely traveled there, could totally see everything the author was writing about, even though I never even set foot in the US. That talent for descriptions and realistic people and environments is the biggest asset of the book.

The action takes place in Laner, small Alaska town, barely a stop on the way to a bigger city. Travis lives there with his wife and kid, more or less happily, dealing with unemployment and confidence issues. Enters Wyatt, his ancestor, newly defrosted after a 100~ years sleep in the wilderness after he got into trouble while looking for gold in 1898.
Soon, Wyatt realizes Travis is almost his clone, and gets curious about him. In him, he sees himself, and in his family, he sees his lost wife and son, now long dead.

I really liked Wyatt's character. He starts off as quite likeable, because he's entirely lost in this world he doesn't know, and then, slowly, we see his evolution as he finds out about Travis, and finds some bits of his lost memories. Little by little, his mind twists, and we as reader discover Wyatt is far from being an innocent man, and an insidious mood installs itself, replacing the rather friendly one from the beginning. He gets unpredictable and starts making his way into Travis' life, to the heart of his family, wanting to BECOME Travis, and have it all for himself.

However, if Wyatt and Travis are the main characters, we get some side characters, that I didn't necessarily liked a lot. Stu, Travis' dad, and local sheriff, as well as Grayson, drunkard cop desperately in love with a woman whose trust he lost, completely annoyed me, and I got a little bored during the moments when they were the main focus of the narration. I just couldn't care for them at all.

To that, I'll add that I didn't care much for how Wyatt's past is given to us. Flashback chapters are sprinkled weirdly in the book. Sometimes you will have 10 chapters of present narration, 2 of Wyatt's past, 1 of today, and 6 from Wyatt's, and then the rest of the book is present day, etc. (the numbers are not checked haha. I just meant that sometimes you get big chunks of past narration, out of nowhere). I would have liked a more regular placement of the flashback chapters, because too much of them just annoyed me a little, because I didn't want to read about Wyatt's past too much. Sure, I wanted to know a bit about his past life, but not all at once. I wanted to focus more about Wyatt's adaptation to the modern world and his interactions with Travis.

Overall, The Ancestor is a great book that will take you in the heart of Alaska to discover some great characters revolving around a rather original story. It's definitely a great read for people who like adventure and bits of historical fiction !

"The Ancestor" by Lee Matthew Goldberg is an ambitious story to be sure! At once a beautifully descriptive historically accurate tale of the Alaskan gold rush in the late 1890's, it morphs just as beautifully into an inciteful examination of the dark side of human nature. It presents its protagonist, Wyatt Emmett Barlow, as a man sorely tested by his times, his goals, his conflicted moral compass, and ultimately a conflicted man in a battle for his very soul. And then...he wakes up 122 years later. An unfrozen wild man-thing in the arctic woods of his Barlow descendants. In modern day Alaska. Seriously.

So. What ensues is a story that presents a battle for dominance, if you will, between Barlow and his doppelganger great, great grandson Travis. As wild as all of this may sound, I will refrain from providing more details. This novel is one of those genre defying efforts that will play out heavily reliant on the reader's ability (or willingness) to buy into the magical/mythological/spiritual realism at the core of Goldberg's tale.

I will leave it to future readers to decide for themselves. For me, I loved the Alaskan descriptions, depictions, and characterizations. I'm a huge fan of magical realism or fantasy when all of the *realistic* ducks are in a row. Most of Goldberg's were...until they weren't. It is this unevenness that I struggled a bit with toward the later part of the novel. But overall, an enjoyable escapist tale of fate, love, and second chances.

I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced digital copy of this book. Thanks also to Lee Matthew Goldberg for the Alaskan adventure!

#NetGalley
#TheAncestor

Thank you to #netgalley and #allduerespect for the advanced readers copy.

Hard to pinpoint the genre/s however I would describe as historical fiction, thriller, mystery.
The story begins with Wyatt Barlow waking up after over a century frozen in ice, he awakens to see two men in the near distance - one whom he recognises as his double - Travis! Wyatt having little to no memory of his life and what happened to him soon discovers that everything he sees is unfamiliar. The only clues to his identity - a notebook with the date 1898 and a small silver mirror found in his pocket. After seeing the present date on a newspaper he finds himself in 2020!
We learn through the notes in his book that he left his family back in 1898 to go on a quest to Alaska to prospect for gold - yet he never made it back to them, instead he wakes in the present time to coincidentally meet his great-great grandson Travis.
The two men meet and soon realise that they have a connection. Wyatt quickly becomes obsessed with Travis and his family and soon starts having flashbacks to his own long lost family.
The story takes place in two time frames, present day and through the notebook and flashbacks of 1898. I enjoyed this aspect of the book as it gave us snippets of the different times and gave a lot of descriptive content.
The two main characters I both liked and disliked them throughout the book as I discovered more about them. I wasn’t quite keen on some of the other characters of the book, particularly Grayson - Travis’s best friend - the towns deputy I felt although well written I just couldn’t like the character and wished he featured less in the story.
Overall I did enjoy the book, the premise extremely interesting. The story did take a few chapters to get into and was slow going in some places but definitely picked up as you get going. Although the ending I saw coming it had a satisfying conclusion however I was left wondering - what happened next? I can see this being made into a film - one that I would watch!

Recommended for those who enjoy a good adventure thriller story.

Linda’s Book Obsession Reviews “The Ancestor” by Lee Matthew Goldberg, All Due Respect, August 2020 for Suzy Approved Book Tours

Lee Mathew Goldberg, author of “The Ancestor” has written a chilling thriller that is intense, captivating, intriguing, riveting and enthralling. The genres for this story are thriller, psychological thriller, mystery and suspense, adventure, and fiction. There is a dash of possible fantasy in this story as well. The timeline for this story spans a century and then continues with the story. The story goes to the past and future when it pertains to the characters or events in the story. The author describes the characters as complex and complicated. There are betrayals, deep reaching secrets, lies, danger and murder. There is some historical background of gold prospecting.

Wyatt Barlow, wakes up after being frozen in Alaska. As he breaks through the ice that he was captured in, his memory starts to awake. He remembers his wife and child, and the time that he is now in, is not at all the one he woke up from. How is it possible that Wyatt was able to survive 100 years? Wyatt notices a fellow hunter, that looks identical to him. This doppelgänger is Travis Barlow, who lives with his wife and son.

Wyatt starts to obsess and follow Travis, and becomes aware of the lifestyle that is 100 years later than he is familiar with. Wyatt is convinced that he is a relative from long ago, and tries to see the family history. As Wyatt’s memory gets sharper, he remembers his days a gold prospector. He may actually remember where there is gold hidden.

In this edgy, well written story, I was surprised at the ending, and how it possibly could make a difference. I do hope the author writes a sequel. I highly recommend this amazing story.

I really enjoyed The Ancestor by Lee Matthew Goldberg. The story follows the Barlow family through several generations, with different members taking on different character personas such as materialism, grief, generosity, trust, and sacrifice. We are treated to several points of view, but Wyatt is the central line throughout as the unreliable narrator and gold prospector who has been frozen in the Alaskan wilds for over a hundred years. While the science/fantasy behind this deep freeze requires a bit of suspended disbelief, Goldberg pulls you so deeply into the characters’ current and past lives that you will quickly move beyond those questions. Like so many who are at crossroads in their life, Wyatt searches for purpose amidst so much uncertainty. The reader will sympathize with Wyatt and the heartache he’s facing, but as his past is revealed and tensions rise to an untenable peak, the reader will be questioning Wyatt just as much as his fellow characters. The ending provided an unexpected twist and left me wanting to read more of the Barlow family story.

Thank you to the Netgalley, the author and publisher for an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

This book is set in Alaksa, and is very atmospheric. It is both a thriller and a mystery. Can Wyatt believe his memories ? Has he lived in 1800 ? The reader is as confused as the main character until piece by piece the mystery unfolds. Good story

Fantastically written, thriller/mystery. I'm sure the concept of someone being frozen in ice for years and being re-awoken is not a new concept to anyone at this point, however, Lee Matthew Goldberg does give us a fantastic entry into the genre.

Wyatt has memories from the Alaskan gold rush, now he needs to figure out if they're real or simply figments of his imagination.

I feel like both Alaska and the gold rush are topics that don't get a whole lot of attention in the realm of books, but maybe I just haven't read them. Either way Mr. Goldberg does a fantastic job filling in the details of this highly interesting time frame. His descriptions of the Alaskan wilderness are superb and paint an incredibly vivid picture of the beautiful landscape, I found myself almost wishing for more scenery descriptions! He also describes the culture and people of the area fantastically.

While I would have liked more flashback chapters to Wyatt's past I still greatly enjoyed the book. and will be giving it a second read once the weather cools down, seems like a great winter read!

I didn't know much about the premise of this book before I started reading, and that may have been a good thing because I greatly enjoyed it and I don't know if I would have read it if I knew more about it beforehand.

Goldberg did a wonderful job introducing us to Wyatt and Travis and allowing the reader to really get to know their individual histories and personalities. The parallels between their lives and their desires for their futures really made the story interesting, and I appreciated the subtle way the author devised it so that it wasn't overtly pointed out.

I also loved that their were differences between the two - they were very much individuals, which made the conflicts in the plot that much more interesting. '

If you want an enjoyable read I can highly recommend "The Ancestor".

Quite an unusual book. A man seems to be frozen in Alaska with no idea who he is. Another man is hunting in Alaska. The first man realizes that he is looking at someone who looks just like himself. He has no idea who he is but this man that looks just like him must be a clue. He has to figure out who he is and how he got here.

This novel was different from anything I’ve ever read. In order to fully immerse myself in this book, I had to suspend my disbelief. I had to believe that, for some humans, it’s possible to be frozen for over a century & return to life the same age he was when he was frozen in time. This is what happened to Wyatt Barlow in 1898. He was buried by an avalanche while searching for gold in Alaska. When the snow melts Wyatt awakens 120 years later, still 38 years old, with amnesia & one of his eyes sealed shut. He meets his Barlow relatives in Laner, Alaska, descendants of his son Joe. Travis Barlow is his great great grandson. He also meets his grandson Papa Clifford, who is 93 years old & Wyatt’s son’s son. As Wyatt learns to navigate his current life in the 21st century, bits & pieces of his past life return, & the man he was in 1898 resurfaces. It’s not a pretty picture. The man Wyatt becomes is the same man he was in the 19th century——a manipulative opportunist who will go to any length to get what he wants.
Wyatt goes from homeless to purposeful when he remembers where the gold he was searching for in 1898 was hidden. He & Travis go looking for the gold & find $160,000 worth of it hidden for a century. When he cuts Travis in on 50% of it, I found myself thinking he’s not such a bad guy. He just wants his relatives to prosper.
I greatly enjoyed this novel! The author’s writing is very descriptive & beautiful. I was transported to Alaska’s frozen tundra & endless light of a northern Alaska summer. The characters were realistically drawn with empathy & affection.
This was a beautiful novel that I will recall for a long time. Thank you, Down & Out Books & Net Galley for the opportunity to read & review this book. My opinions are my own & freely given.

A very unusual book, set in two time zones with related protagonists. At first I wasn't sure but I persevered and I loved it. Unique, a little overwhelmed with the premise at times which is good because it challenges, and a great read.

After living in Alaska for several years, I can never resist an Alaska story when it catches my reading eye. The Ancestor is definitely a fever dream of an Alaska story. Ironic when you think about it, as Alaska is not exactly a place that brings fever dreams to mind. More like the opposite; frozen dreams.

But this is that too, one man’s frozen dream of a past that only he remembers, and his fever dream in the present to recapture the life he once had – not by going back to the past, but by recreating a new version of his old life in the present, no matter how many sins he has to commit along the way.

The Ancestor is kind of a Rip Van Winkle story, if ol’ Rip, instead of being meek, mild, easygoing and henpecked, was instead an amoral sociopath of a serial killer.

Not quite, but closer than any other description I can come up with, considering that old saw about the past being another country where they do things differently.

Because that’s where Wyatt Barlow is from. The past. He went into the ice not terribly far from Nome, Alaska, in 1898, and woke up in 2020. The world has changed – even in Alaska. (Although it’s not mentioned specifically, he probably defrosted because the permafrost in Alaska is melting due to climate change. I digress. I have a feeling I’m going to do that a lot in this review.)

When Wyatt wanders into town, looking pretty much like death warmed over – as that’s none too far from the truth – he discovers that his descendants are still in the area, living in the tiny town of Laner. That he has a doppelganger descendant he hears called “Trav” who turns out to have a beautiful wife and a baby boy who resemble Wyatt’s own lost wife and baby boy.

A baby boy who turns out to be Trav – actually Travis’ – great grandfather. Making Wyatt his great-great-grandfather. Not that either of them have the relationship figured out exactly at the time.

But Wyatt Barlow is a man used to getting what he wants, no matter who or what might stand in his way. So he hatches a plot to involve himself in his great-great-grandson’s life, with an eye to taking over that life.

After all, that uncanny resemblance between them must be good for something. There must be a purpose to it. A purpose that Wyatt can exploit, just as he has exploited so many other things and people in his life, in order to achieve what he wants. Just like he found the gold that brought him to Alaska in the first place. Just like he killed his partner to get that gold.

And now he’s found a way to get back what he lost. A wife and a son. Who won’t even know that he’s taken Travis’ place. All he has to do is become Travis – and put him under that ice. After all, in the here and now, there can be only one Travis Barlow. And Wyatt intends to be that Travis, no matter what it takes.

Escape Rating B: I’ll admit to being all over the place on this one. It certainly kept me turning pages. It’s also not exactly what the blurb says it is, either. I’d certainly debate whether Wyatt falls in love with Travis’ wife. What he’s feeling, and what he’s planning, aren’t nearly so romantic. Or anything even close to that.

There are two stories here. One is the obvious, about Wayne and Travis and the way that Wayne inveigles himself into Travis’ life, his family and eventually his place in the world. But the story that follows Travis’ life and that of his family reminds me a lot of the stories about life in the tiny towns sprinkled through the state. That Nome is the nearest “big” place to Laner, and that Nome only has a population of 4,000 people, gives a hint of the size and remoteness of the place. Callie’s part of this story, Travis’ California-born wife, also feels familiar. Anchorage, with a population of nearly 300,000, feels remote and small relative to anything in the Lower 48, or as it’s called in Alaska, “Outside”. So Callie’s feelings of near-claustrophobia, complete isolation and frequent boredom are all too real. She loves Travis, she loves Laner, but it is a damn hard life and it seriously gets to her.

The other story is Wayne’s story about life during the Klondike Gold Rush. Not that plenty of stories about the Gold Rush haven’t been told before. And perhaps that’s where some of the issues lie.

Wayne has a difficult time remembering everything that happened to him in the past. Saying his brain is a bit frozen isn’t exactly a stretch. That he survived in the ice is a bit of handwavium, as all time travel stories generally are. That’s the part the reader has to take on faith, and it works that way.

But the way he gets back his memory is to take heroin. Again, not that there isn’t plenty of it available, along with meth and booze, in those tiny remote villages. It’s the same as everywhere else, perhaps even more so considering the long, dark, cold winters. Any escape is chased, even if its just an escape inside one’s own head.

I think where my willing suspension of disbelief went a bit haywire was not just in the way that Wyatt recovered his memories, but what he remembered. And that the consequences of what is clearly already an addiction aren’t dealt with at all.


Smith at bar in Skagway, Alaska, 1898
On the one hand, Wayne’s heroin coma lets him relive his experiences in their seeming entirety. And they are unflinching when it comes to his abandonment of his family back in Washington state, the murder he committed on his way to Sitka, and the murders he commits along his way from Juneau to Dawson City to “The Unknown”, which turns out to be Anvil Creek near Laner. But one of those killings is of a bunch of conmen led by one of Alaska’s more colorful legends, “Soapy” Smith. The problem is that the events in Wyatt’s story occur after Smith was gunned down, extremely publicly, in Skagway. His body was even autopsied. There is no doubt that Smith was dead before he met Wyatt. Which threw off my perception of the accuracy of Wyatt’s memories.

Except those memories really did lead him to the gold. So the question of just how much Wyatt dreamed vs. how much he actually remembered is still bothering me. A lot.

And that I’m thinking about this so much after I closed the book is just an example of what made this book so compelling – even as it drove me crazy.

There is a lot of darkness in this book. While this story begins as winter sort of turns to spring, the fact is that daylight hours in Nome in winter average around 4 hours per day in December and January. It’s a dark place in the winter, and a cold place most of the year. The temps are only in the 30s in April when this story begins and don’t get to 60 even in July. The cold and the dark are part of the “ambiance”.

At the same time, Travis’ family is going through some rough times. The economy is down, the big employers have all closed, his grandfather is dying, his brother was murdered and Travis is generally depressed. Wyatt’s sudden advent into Laner may not be a good thing, but it is a different thing in a place that craves novelty.

Wyatt’s own story is itself dark. It’s brutal in regards to his abandonment of his own family, and equally so about the obsession that consumes his own thoughts. He wants what he wants and no one is allowed to stand in his way. I ended the story feeling sorry for Callie because she’s now married to a monster who will do anything to have her and to keep her, whether she wants to be kept or not.

So there are no happy endings here. Instead, The Ancestor is dark and chilling every step of its enthralling way. A terrific chilling read for this long, hot summer.

This was an interesting book, to say the least. It was historical, suspenseful, and essentially involved time travel (via being frozen for 120 years). I think it's because it was all of these things at once, I never really settled onto the story like I have with other books or really "clicked" worth the characters. But it was a unique and intriguing book.

In present day Laner, Alaska Travis Barstow and his best friend are out hunting caribou.  At the same moment, a man wakes up out of an icy tomb not far away from where Travis shoots.  The man does not remember much, but a mirror in his pocket and a journal dated 1898 will help him fill in the gaps.  The man's first instinct is survival.  Interestingly, Travis Barstow looks like the frozen man's mirror image.  The man watches Travis from a distance and as the memories come back, he knows they are connected.  The man remembers who he is-Wyatt Barstow, and what he was here for- gold.  Wyatt engrains himself in Travis' life and makes his obsession Travis' own.  Together, they hunt for the gold that Wyatt was so close to over 100 years ago.  However, every day that Wyatt remembers more about his past, he envies Travis' present and feels the need to fulfill the life he left behind.

The Ancestor is a unique thriller blending past and present, family drama and psychological suspense.  I was hooked from the very beginning as Wyatt thawed from the ice with no knowledge of who he was.  The characters are completely created and each adds a separate element to the story.  I was engrossed in Wyatt's unfolding memories and how it changed him as a person as well as my perception of his character.  I definitely enjoyed Wyatt's journal entries from 1898 as well as the chapters written from his point of view while exploring Alaska in that time period with the descriptions of a beautiful and wild unsettled Alaska, small villages and Native settlements.   I was amazed at how adaptable Wyatt was reentering a strange world more than 100 years after he froze as well as how careful he was with the truth of who he was.  The mystery of Wyatt's condition and why he awoke when he did carried the suspense throughout the story as well as his intentions with Travis and his family.  The plot slowly but thoughtfully layers as more details are revealed about Travis' life, Wyatt's history and the daily life of the residents of Laner.  While I knew where the story was headed, I was still surprised by the ending and would love if the story continued.  

This book was received for free in return for an honest review.

I requested this book because it sounded so very interesting. And it was. Seeing as it’s not my normal type of read, it was also a bit hard for me to get through. I felt some parts dragged on too long. A man from the past has been frozen for 100 years. Meets his family and decides to pick up where he left off before he was frozen. He’s creepy with some of his actions but evolves to be slightly less creepy. There are a lot of characters and at times I had trouble remembering who was who. But I still enjoyed the story. It kept me wanting to know ‘how?’ And kept me reading to the end

This is an interesting tale about an individual who becomes frozen and thaws out many years later. He runs into his grandson and the story takes off from there. It's well written and well worth a read.

This title is difficult to categorize. It wasn't what I was expecting from the author, but I enjoyed it anyway. It certainly put many things in perspective. A great read for those who like alternative lives.

I'll let the large number of high ratings and reviews speak for themselves, and simply recommend this for historical mystery/suspense fans.

I really appreciate the review copy!!

this was a really unique read, the characters were great and I enjoyed that the different genres worked well together.

The Ancestor
By Lee Matthew Goldberg

I’ll be honest – it was the title that got me! An ancestor coming back to life. . .my dream come true.

Brace yourself. This novel is that-ish. . .and but down a different road. There’s murder, theft, Alaska, snow, blood, family, lust – bridled and unbridled, shapeshifting, indigenous people, culture and shamanism and gold. This was not the warm, fuzzy genealogical tale I bargained for! The ending was completely unexpected.

A Sincere Thanks to Lee Matthew Goldberg, All Due Respect and NetGalley for an ARC to read and review.

I was very intrigued by the book description and the book lived up to it.

This is the story of Wyatt and Travis, great-great-grandfather and great-great-grandson. Wyatt was somehow frozen in time and thawed centuries later only to learn that his entire family was long-dead. Except for his descendants.

Of course, he can't just tell people he was frozen in time and who he really is so he has to make up a story. Travis likes Wyatt, although sometimes he feels like something isn't quite right. And there are others around Travis who are a bit suspicious as well but no one can quite put their finger on what it is that bothers them.

Ultimately, Wyatt decides he needs a new life in the present time and figures out exactly how he's going to accomplish that. And it's the pursuit of that goal that makes this book so interesting because it's not as simple as "I'm going to accept where I am and simply start over."

The book is a bit slow at times. There are some areas where it's quite repetitive and you could easily skip a few pages without missing anything. Some of the characters are a little annoying. But overall this was an excellent book that I would highly recommend to others.

The Ancestor was a thriller? A mystery? An adventure? A puzzle? Yes, all of these things. I enjoyed the description of life in Alaska, back in the 1800's and also in the current day. This book also gives a glimpse into the mind of a true narcissist. Try as he might to be caring and sensitive in some areas, Wyatt turned out to be mostly about himself.
An intriguing read.

Have you ever wondered what it must seem like to reincarnate? Or, for the matter, survive for a really prolonged period, perhaps longer than a centenary!? How will that feel?

When I selected this novel by reading just the title, I assumed it must be something representing the protagonist's lineage and how that influences their world. I took a gamble and really ran in blind, without actually knowing the book's blurb. And I am happy that I decided to do that as the book was a wonder in all manners. I could never believe that a narrative could scheme in such a refined yet effective way.

Two characters are isolated because of different circumstances, yet connected together in such a way that can't be readily agreeable. Some sections of the tale, I think, run very quick while it pulls down a bit in some others. I wish the consistency could hold better. Nevertheless, the writer has made a notable investigation on the topics of Alaskan History, the Gold Rush Expeditions, the indigenous Indian tribes, and the likes.

Overall, I wouldn't complain about going back to this page-turner book once again and re-live the offbeat experiences of the heroes. The premise is very unique and leaves a beautiful remark.

I would like to thank the Publisher, All Due Respect, the Author Lee Matthew Goldberg, and NetGalley for the book's ARC. In exchange, I am giving an honest evaluation; all the views and conclusions are of my own.

You know when you’re on to a winner when you’re gripping your kindle and shouting, ‘Nooooo!’ It took me a while to get into the Alaskan dialect but once there I was frozen back in time with Wyatt Barlow and the search for his descendants! There they all were waiting for him, deeply ensconced in their own family troubles. . Back we went to the Klondike of the late 19th century where Wyatt found what he was looking for and brought knowledge back with him - would it help or destroy his family! Well, I had a gold rush all of my own in the need to discover how it would all enfold! I was not disappointed!

This book was a bit like a time travel story for me. A man from the 1800’s wakes up in present-day Alaska, having been frozen for almost 200 years. I liked how the story takes the reader through the initial confusion of Wyatt, our frozen-in-time character. He is unsure of where he is and who he is. I thought that Lee Matthew Goldberg did an excellent job of bringing the reader into the story right from the beginning with this opening scene.

As the story progresses, we find Wyatt spiraling into this obsessive character. When I chose this book, I didn’t realize it would have this thriller aspect, so I was surprised when Wyatt finds who he believes is his great-great grandson, and becomes overly-attached to him, and his family. This obsessive behavior really turned this into an interesting read for me!

I thought that the story was well-written, and worth reading! It had this mix of historical fiction, science fiction, and thriller that kept me interested from start to finish! I loved the insight into the main character’s mind. His adaptation to the world he wakes up in was interesting, and I enjoyed watching him learn and change.

The connection between Wyatt, and his great-great-grandson Travis, was deep and emotionally written. I found their stories to both hold interest for me. At times, I found the narrative to be a bit lengthy, and I would have liked a most concise story, but overall, this was an exciting story.

To Read or Not To Read:
I would recommend The Ancestor for readers that enjoy a what-if story, and a mix of historical and science fiction!

I was provided a gifted copy of this book for free. I am leaving my review voluntarily.

I....don't quite know what I think...of this book....? I was pulled in by the cover and blurb. It's not a quick read but not a slow read. It's kind of a thriller, has an element of horror, and the dual timelines make it historical fiction as well; I'm not sure what genre I would stick it in.

The Ancestor by Lee Matthew Goldberg is a dark, disturbing read written in a distinct style that I quite like. I enjoyed the family dynamic and romance between the main characters of the Barlow family--it was realistic and unexpected.

The ending though. It's both satisfying and I hate it. It's given me a "book hangover" for sure, I'm reeling in my emotions over what I wish would have happened, what is going to happen next, could it have been any other way?

This book is a great creative story. It won't be for everyone, it's strange and unnerving. But I think this is the kind of book that someone can like and not like at the same time, or at least that's how I feel about it. It certainly has me interested in other things the author has written, and as someone who is trying my hand at writing fiction, this was inspirational and a good mental exercise of a book. I enjoyed reading about the gold rush and Alaskan culture and nature.

Thank you NetGalley and All Due Respect for a copy of this ebook in exchange for my honest review.

~First and foremost, thank you NetGalley and All Due Respect for sending me an E-ARC of this title for an honest review.~
Rating: 4/5

Wyatt Barlow is a prospector born in the 1800's who becomes frozen in time while on the hunt for gold in Alaska, only to wake up 120 years later; be it fate or coincidence, he meets his great-great grandson, Travis Barlow. Wyatt struggles to piece together his memories, find the family he lost, and regain the prize that slipped through his fingers.

Now, this book requires you to hold your suspension of disbelief (what fictional book doesn't?) and trust that someone could live for over a hundred years in a frozen coma; I had no problem going along with the logic there, and while I did enjoy this book, there was something that stopped me from loving it. Even though I didn't rush to pick the book back up every time I put it down, I really liked the concept and I thought the execution was good--the ending was something I didn't see coming until the very last pages. And what a wild ride the last quarter of the book was! It was a slow burn until that point, but I couldn't stop reading when everything started to unfold.

I think my disconnect with this book boils down to the characters--besides Travis' wife Callie, Aylen, and Wyatt--everyone was very bland and hard to care about. There wasn't much emphasis on Callie or Aylen, maybe a chapter or two, but they were largely just... There. Barely any purpose besides being a small accessory to the main characters (Travis and Wyatt) and the overall plot. Don't even get me started on Travis' "best friend" Grayson (who you see three times as much as either Callie or Aylen). His personality was toxic and I didn't like him from the beginning. Every time he came into a scene I found myself skipping his lines.

All in all I think this is a solid book that could easily been five stars, bland characters aside, if the entire book was as intense as the last quarter. I would still recommend this to anyone who likes historical fiction.