by H. L. Burke
publisher’s synopsis:
Saving her past could cost him his future.
Traumatic experiences have left telepath and former superhero Aiden Powell burned out. Now retired, he wants to focus on his new civilian career as an EMT and his budding romance with former colleague, Tanvi. He has no interest in resuming the dangerous work that cost him both his parents and almost his life.
However, on the anniversary of his mother’s death, a strange woman approaches him.
A woman who thinks he’s his father … and also that it’s 1998. Death ray blast or time travel beam? His mother’s heard it both ways.
Nothing involving super powers is ever easy. Aiden and his mother have just hours until the supervillain who took her away from her family the first time arrives in present day Escondido for a contentious reunion.
With time running out, Aiden must race to save his mother while trying to avoid shattering the timeline that contains everyone he loves.
Reunion is the fifth book in the Supervillian Rehabilitation Project series. I read it without having read any of the previous books in the series and was able to follow along just fine. Were there inside jokes and backstory things that I would have understood more if I’d read the previous books? Probably. But I was impressed that I was able to read the fifth book without feeling the need to read the other four.
Since Reunion is a novella, the plot moves at a quicker speed and is limited in its scope, simply because it doesn’t have the word count room to be big. As you can tell from the blurb, the book focuses on Aiden and his mom, who time-traveled to the future. Will Aiden be able to save his mom without losing life as he knows it? As expected, the dynamics between Aiden and his mom are awkward at first, but their relationship is honestly at the heart of the story.
Time travel is always a little tricky in fiction for me, simply because it can get messy so easily. However, I thought that Burke did a nice job with the time travel and keeping things “neat”.
SPOILER:
I did get a little confused on how the parallel universe ended up working out though. Wouldn’t Maria have already existed in the parallel universe?
END SPOILER
Overall, Reunion was a fun, quick read.
Cautions: moderate romance; several kisses; several instances of swearing *
*It’s been a while since I read Reunion, so I might have missed a caution
Hailey Huntington 