Review: Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister

Title: Wrong Place Wrong Time

Author: Gillian McAllister

Genre: Adult, mystery

Publication date: May 2022

Published by: William Morrow

Source: Borrowed from library

Add it on Goodreads

Buy it: Amazon | B&N | Thrift Books

Synopsis: Can you stop a murder after it’s already happened?

It is midnight on the morning of Halloween, and Jen anxiously waits up for her 18-year-old son, Todd, to return home. But worries about his broken curfew transform into something much more dangerous when Todd finally emerges from the darkness. As Jen watches through the window, she sees her funny, seemingly happy teenage son stab a total stranger.

She doesn’t know who the victim is, or why Todd has committed such a devastating act of violence. All she knows is that her life, and Todd’s, have been shattered.

After her son is taken into custody, Jen falls asleep in despair. But when she wakes up… it is yesterday. The murder has not happened yet—and there may be a chance to stop it. Each morning, when Jen wakes, she is further back in the past, first weeks, then years, before the murder. And Jen realizes that somewhere in the past lies the trigger for Todd’s terrible crime... and it is her mission to find it, and prevent it from taking place.

My rating: ★★★★★

Wrong Place Wrong Time was SO GOOD! It's a mystery thriller where a mother witnesses her son commit a murder and then she's suddenly thrust into a time loop all while trying to solve this mystery. BUT instead of your normal time loop where the character lives the same day over and over, she keeps going back in time! It was just so well done!

I love a time loop trope, but I have never read anything like this before. And I really enjoyed it! Going into this book, I wasn’t sure how it was going to work, but the author did a really good job with it and making it make sense. Lol.

(Mystery Spot is one of my favorite Supernatural episodes because of the time loop trope! 😂 But that’s neither here nor there. Lol. Moving on!)

I really enjoyed following Jen on this wild journey as she tried to figure out why her son killed a man and if there was a possible way to stop him. The way the mystery slowly unraveled as she kept going back in time was so good! And the mystery itself was interesting. The things she discovered were crazy! And I obviously don’t want to go into detail because spoilers, but it was very intriguing and by the end, you understand why the son did what he did. It was just crazy to see her finding out things about her family that she had no clue about, despite knowing them and living with them for years!

And I actually really liked how this was so much more than about the murder—it was about Jen, motherhood, and her relationship with her son. I really enjoyed exploring that. And I just really liked the characters, too. I liked how Jen was so fiercely protective of her son and determined to get him out of this mess. But I also liked her husband and how understanding he tried to be during one of the loops, even though the next time Jen woke up he would have no memory of that interaction. In a way, it was kinda sad to see Jen keep going back in time because she would have these conversations and make these connections only for her to lose that the next day when she’s gone further in the past.

I just really enjoyed everything about this book. I loved the premise of solving a murder while going backward in time. It was such an interesting and unique concept and the execution of it was even better than I was expecting! The mystery was intriguing and the resolution was satisfying. That epilogue was wild though! I feel kinda bad for that character lol 😅

I highly recommend this one though!

Have you read this book? If so, what did you think about it? If not, what do you think? Does it sound like something you might want to read? Leave me a link to your review or comment below! 😊