12-year-old Nick McIver lives with his 6-year-old sister, Kate, and their parents on an island on the north shore of Greybeard Island, an English island in the English Channel. It is the summer of 1939, there have been rumored sightings of German U-boats in the Channel, and Nick’s family is under suspicion of going against the British government’s decree and spying on the Nazis.

Then, Nick and Kate stumble across a mysterious sea chest that turns out to be a time machine highly sought after by the time traveling, kidnapping pirate Billy Blood. Blood will do anything to get his hands on the time machine, and so Nick enlists the help of Lord Hawke, the eccentric and reclusive proprietor of Hawke Castle, who’s lost his two young children to Blood for ransom. They travel back to 1805 to help Nick’s naval ancestor do battle with Blood, but the situation is also exceedingly dire back in the present world, as the Nazis close in on Greybeard Island.

This book is a good example of what NOT to do when writing a historical fantasy for young readers. It’s been quite a while since I’ve read something that contained so much amateuristic and unnecessary blither and blather that perhaps that only way to describe why this book should NOT be lauded as a noteworthy piece of juvenile historical fantasy is in a list:

1. It feels like a mediocre adult thriller writer’s attempt to write for children, i.e. it fails. Excessive description, lack of character development, confusing and unappealing plot.
2. The protagonist, Nick, undergoes no growth throughout the novel.
3. Dialogue is overly dramatic and artificial. Great for a puppet show performed for a crowd of pre-schoolers. As a middle-grade novel? Not so much.
4. The plot is uneven, with things dropped into the story and never to be seen again, and too-long tangents that readers will not care about. The time machine element is not even introduced until halfway through the 400+ page novel, and by then readers won’t cry anymore.
5. Having Kate be the only semi-appealing character in the book does not justify the other 99% of awfulness. Six-year-old main characters are just not relatable, and more often than not become extremely annoying, even as they are supposedly charming.
6. The characters are inauthentic. The villains are overly villainified, and the “joker” characters bumble around and speak geeky nonsense.

NICK OF TIME may only appeal to those who can deal with a lot of nautical terminology, who are willing to sacrifice character and plot development for the sake of a vaguely interesting concept, and who think that one okay child protagonist makes up for all the other unappealing ones. Otherwise, I’d say don’t waste your time. There are millions of other better historical fantasy books for readers of all ages out there. ( )

Reviewed by Marie Robinson for TeensReadToo.com

Set in 1939, NICK OF TIME is about young Nick McIver and his adventuresome spirit.

Nick loves to sail and be out on the water with his trusty dog, Jip. He loves it so much that he often loses track of time and comes home late for dinner, which irritates his tough yet loving mother. One night, Nick also discovers that his father is no ordinary lighthouse keeper. He's also a spy for England. What would become World War II was brewing, and Nick joins his dad in his efforts of spying for Nazis.

This story has a lot going for it. The writing is excellent, the story includes sailboats, Nazis, submarines, secret castles, mysterious villains, pirates, squawking parrots, dogs, cats, spies and, as the title implies, travel through time. The one downside is that it takes more than one hundred pages to get to the time travel promised by the title.

Nevertheless, it's a fun story, full of adventure and suspense, with a dose of history thrown in. ( )

A 12 year old boy goes on an exciting adventure through time to rescue his kidnapped dog. This story has everything: pirates, Nazis, spies, great sea captains, and a great deal of suspense. More sensitive readers should be aware that the author does not hide the atrocities of war, including crazy bad guys and lots of bloodshed.

While I enjoyed the book a great deal I felt the author left a few unanswered questions. Perhaps he is saving those details for a sequel? ( )

With the help of Lord Hawke, whose children have been taken by the evil pirate Captain Billy Blood, young Nick McIver uses a time machine to rescue the two children as well as change the course of events in two time periods, the Napoleonic Wars and World War II. ( )

A little time travel...a little swashbuckling....a whole lotta awesome! ( )