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The Psychology of Time Travel: A Novel Hardcover – February 12, 2019

by Kate Mascarenhas (Author)
3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 2,506 ratings
See all formats and editions
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"Astonishing."—The New York Times
"A fascinating meditation on the many ways traveling through time can change a person." —HelloGiggles
"This genre-bending, time-bending debut will appeal to fans of Doctor Who, dystopian fiction, and life's great joy: friend groups."—Refinery29

Perfect for fans of Naomi Alderman's The Power and Margot Lee Shetterly’s Hidden Figures comes The Psychology of Time Travel, a mind-bending, time-travel debut.

In 1967, four female scientists worked together to build the world’s first time machine. But just as they are about to debut their creation, one of them suffers a breakdown, putting the whole project—and future of time travel—in jeopardy. To protect their invention, one member is exiled from the team—erasing her contributions from history.

Fifty years later, time travel is a big business. Twenty-something Ruby Rebello knows her beloved grandmother, Granny Bee, was one of the pioneers, though no one will tell her more. But when Bee receives a mysterious newspaper clipping from the future reporting the murder of an unidentified woman, Ruby becomes obsessed: could it be Bee? Who would want her dead? And most importantly of all: can her murder be stopped?

Traversing the decades and told from alternating perspectives, The Psychology of Time Travel introduces a fabulous new voice in fiction and a new must-read for fans of speculative fiction and women’s fiction alike.
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    336 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Crooked Lane Books
  4. Publication date
    February 12, 2019
  5. Dimensions
    6.13 x 1.38 x 8.88 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1683319443
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1683319443
  8. See all details
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Popular Highlights in this book
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  1. When you’re a time traveler, the people you love die, and you carry on seeing them, so their death stops making a difference to you. The only death that will ever change things is your own.
    Highlighted by 127 Kindle readers
  2. Grace’s complaints reminded Ruby of her own feelings about university friends. People you’d once die for take appalling paths. It’s not that they become unrecognizable. They become more like themselves. Personality quirks grow more pronounced, and so do values, until you wonder how you ever ignored the differences between you.
    Highlighted by 95 Kindle readers
  3. She wasn’t sure you could work in a rotten system and keep your own hands clean.
    Highlighted by 84 Kindle readers
  4. “Life’s better with a few risks than a lot of regrets,” Bee said.
    Highlighted by 82 Kindle readers
  5. It was almost as if the supporting infrastructure disappeared in 2267.
    Highlighted by 72 Kindle readers
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for The Psychology of Time Travel:

"An equally astonishing debut, simultaneously a science fiction novel, historical drama, locked-room murder mystery and magnificent meditation on how human beings experience and adapt to mortality."
—The New York Times

“A genre-breaking book combining time travel, science fiction, a ’locked room’ mystery, with touches of romance...[and] female characters who are competent [and] capable.”
—Midwest Book Review

“Mascarenhas is fully aware of the rich history of the genre, and to this end, she provides the reader with a puzzle box plot, a whodun­nit told out of chronological order...The Psychology of Time Travel is a surprising novel not because of its temporal shenanigans—as entertaining as they are—but because it goes beyond those familiar hijinks and explores the human cost of a non-linear existence.”
—Locus Magazine

"A fascinating meditation on the many ways traveling through time can change a person."
—HelloGiggles

"This genre-bending, time-bending debut will appeal to fans of Doctor Who, dystopian fiction, and life’s great joy: friend groups...A tightly plotted novel about the potential hazards of time travel on a person’s sense of self, not to mention world events."
—Refinery29

"A fun and twisty read."
—MindBodyGreen

"[A] superb debut novel...The Psychology of Time Travel heralds the arrival of a master storyteller."
—BookPage

"Intricately plotted...The story unfolds in a captivating way, and fascinating suggestions are made about the effects of time travel."
—Publisher’s Weekly

"With plenty of twists and turns, The Psychology of Time Travel is a provocative thought experiment."
—Foreword Reviews

"A dazzling genre-defying debut...witty, inventive and unflashily wise about human hearts; Mascarenhas’s future promises to be an exciting one."
—The Guardian

"Mascarenhas’ writing is clear and strong, making this a good choice for readers who want to be immersed in a story."
—Booklist

"The narrative moves back and forth through time with its almost all-female cast meeting their future and past selves in an intriguing, multi-layered mystery that is ingeniously plotted."
—The Daily Mail

"[A] compelling, confident debut...wrapping the psychological exploration around a diverse, real set of characters and a thrilling murder mystery."
—SFX Magazine, 4 1/2 stars

"A surprising, mysterious, and sometimes unsettling novel, threaded with off-kilter ideas and wonderful insights.”
—Elan Mastai, author of All Our Wrong Todays

“An elegant braid of a narrative, delivering queer joy and time-traveling women...Fans of Jo Walton will feel very much at home in this gorgeous, nested tale.”
—Meg Elison, author of The Book of the Unnamed Midwife

"The Psychology of Time Travel is the most imaginative thriller I’ve read in ages: captivating, delightful, and thoroughly original. Ms. Mascarenhas’ genius is in patiently exploring the small, fascinating details of a world in which time travel is possible...an all-around wonderful novel."
—Jennie Melamed, author of Gather the Daughters

"Kate Mascarenhas deftly weaves an innovative tale with The Psychology of Time Travel—part mystery; part time travel. Entirely entertaining!"
—Julie McElwain, author of A Murder In Time ​

About the Author

Kate Mascarenhas is a half-Irish, half-Seychellois midlander. Since 2017, Kate has been a chartered psychologist. Before that she worked as a copywriter, a dollhouse maker, and a bookbinder. She lives with her husband in a small terraced house which she is slowly filling with Sindy dolls. This is her first novel.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Crooked Lane Books; First Edition (February 12, 2019)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1683319443
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1683319443
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.4 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.13 x 1.38 x 8.88 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 2,506 ratings

About the author

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Kate Mascarenhas

Kate Mascarenhas

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Kate Mascarenhas is a writer.

Born in 1980, she is of mixed heritage (white Irish father, brown British mother) and has family in Ireland and the Republic of Seychelles. She lives in Birmingham with her partner.

After studying English at Oxford and Applied Psychology at Derby, Kate completed a Literary Studies and Psychology PhD at Worcester.

She has written three novels: The Psychology of Time Travel, The Thief on the Winged Horse, and Hokey Pokey.

Customer reviews

3.9 out of 5 stars
3.9 out of 5
2,506 global ratings
If You're a Reese's Book Club Member, You'll Like This Book
4 Stars
If You're a Reese's Book Club Member, You'll Like This Book
Kate Mascarenhas on "The Psychology of Time Travel": "I wanted to show women of varied backgrounds-women of color, queer women, working class women-inventing time travel. And because time travelers appear again and again as the years go by...it would be harder to write these women out of history. They would be visible, for all to see. We need fictional and real role models for women in science."This is one of the most interesting novels I've ever read and it had everything - scifi time travel, interesting female characters, a murder mystery, a love story, family stories. It reminded me a lot of Madame Curie for the reason of discovery and invention by women and if you've read Blake Crouch novels, this one is much lighter; where Crouch deals in destruction, Mascarenhas delves more into the possibilities of it all. As in, yes there's the danger, but there's also the possibilities of endless good and resolution.When four women master time travel in 1967, forward later in time and the Concord has been invented – a mega group company where time travelers are trained (they cannot change the past), religions pop up frequently and therapy outlawed (why, if you can't change the past, the future must be pre-ordained, correct?), and a mystery occurs when a woman named Odette discovers a body in a basement.What ensues is a time travel mystery, of women going both into the future and past (to when the machine was invented, nothing can go past its origin point) and meeting their old selves, their future selves, and solving the mystery that brings multiple time lines into focus with master precision.This book really takes off from the very beginning and doesn't let go. I think it's perfect for anyone looking for a good mystery that goes beyond the expected and promotes women's stories at that.A really superb read. Quick, interesting, and fascinating.
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Top reviews from the United States

Trisha
4.0 out of 5 stars Okay
Reviewed in the United States on April 3, 2024
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I don't understand all the rave reviews. The book was good but not outstanding as I expected based on the reviews. It's a good read as long as you don't expect excellence.
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L. Adams
5.0 out of 5 stars In the end, wonderful love story and time-boggling murder mystery
Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2022
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It's hard to grasp that "The Psychology of Time Travel" is the author's debut novel because it is so well constructed and so solidly written. In my opinion, the title is off the mark, but, that being said, the errant title does not detract from a really unique and thought provoking view of the near future.

A timeless story is told through the rotating viewpoints of all of the main characters, only intersecting in the most subtle ways...at the beginning. Then, at some point, a kaleidoscope of possibilities poured out of the storyline and sent my mind in unexpected directions, and not only related to the story, but IRL.

There are some parts of the story that lack detail where detail is really needed. There are also parts that totally tamp down suspension of disbelief where no amount of words could dig the author out of a plot hole. Why five stars then? For conceiving a brilliant premise and running with it. For putting forth an enormous number of profound questions and then answering some of them. And lastly, because I was transported into another world, a thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable world, for a few hours. I would be very interested in and would look forward to seeing these same characters again in a future work.
10 people found this helpful
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Karen
3.0 out of 5 stars Excellent time travel story
Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2021
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I bought this book because it was listed in very good condition. Gravy stains on the ribbon and between two pages was very disappointing.
The story is wonderful because all the important characters are women, smart people who are determined for the right and wrong reasons.
Margaret is as whacked as Gloria, the Director of Southern Reach, from the Southern Reach Trilogy, which mirrored questions about the value of a toxic work climate. Ruby reminded me of Helen Smith from Recursion and I was happy she get to enact vigilante justice. The story flaps around like The Long and Far Away Gone, you read it, get the gist of main story, and then realize you MUST read it again because you missed the finer details. I will read it again, but the gravy stains are going to piss my silver self off again.
3 people found this helpful
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Lisa Love
4.0 out of 5 stars Not love, but a very strong like
Reviewed in the United States on February 12, 2021
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This is a story quite unlike anything I’ve read before. It’s a interesting premise and the plot resolves in a satisfying manner. But the women! There are women everywhere! Women scientists and women detectives and women psychologists and stay-at-home women and women of all shapes and sizes. It’s delightful!

I bought the Kindle edition on sale and it is unfortunately littered with formatting issues and typos. I do not fault the author for this. But it’s pretty bad. I hope the publisher releases a corrected edition.
4 people found this helpful
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acohenphd
5.0 out of 5 stars such a wonderful female take on time travel
Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2023
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I do not really know how to put my reaction to this book into words. Intricate, well grown characters in any timeline, gadgets, history of time travel development....all thought out so well. The story had a positive feel, even with the sad bits. It was all about women without trying to stress this point. I am a scifi lover but you don't have to be to love this story, which also includes a murder mystery.
2 people found this helpful
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Grumpy
3.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing and slightly baffling
Reviewed in the United States on June 17, 2021
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A lot is happening in this story, and it’s clear, until it’s not. It seems like disparate stories, until they’re not. It is neither the worst or best time-bendy narrative I’ve ever read. Might reread to see if it becomes less baffling. Also, the character who died? Good freaking riddance. Horrible person. Terrible person. I’ve rarely been so glad to see the back end of someone. Nightmare.
One person found this helpful
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Jacqueline Meyer
4.0 out of 5 stars a lonely life.
Reviewed in the United States on April 11, 2023
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I really enjoyed this book. At one point it seemed there were getting to be too many characters.
The idea of time travel has always appealed to me. This book had an interesting spin on what that could do to the people who experience it repeatedly.
So many of the time travelers have themselves as their main social connection as they age.
One person found this helpful
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KM Thiesmeyer
2.0 out of 5 stars $1.99; you get what you pay for.
Reviewed in the United States on July 28, 2021
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Intriguing idea left on the editing-room floor. I got through 37% of the book before it became impossible to follow. I literally had to re-read whole pages to try and find out, and wasn't successful. It didn't help that there are TWENTY-SIX skin-deep and petty characters to keep track of, not to mention multiples of them appearing in at least SIX different time periods, plus Patrick (the rabbit) and Beno (the dog), and the reader is expected to keep it all straight. I read on to 55% of the book and then lost the thread altogether, along with my patience. It is important to keep in mind in all SciFi ventures that suspension of disbelief is fine and good, but you must retain plausibility according to current science or it becomes fantasy and/or nonsense. For example, faster than light is likely impossible outside of quantum dynamics, but we can ride along with entirely new scientific theories about "worm drives" and "hyperspace" that make it sound feasible. Here, the author forgets that meeting yourself in different times and particularly changing anything, past or future, risks disrupting and changing everything so you can't return or go forward to a world you expected -- unless you believe the Many Worlds theory, by which I mean a new one every second, i .e., gadzillions, which is too boring to think about, if you even could. The author blithely assumes everything is OK and there are no paradoxes, which makes the whole book descend into silliness. I was delighted that at least one other reviewer was put off, like me, by the writer's inability to separate dialogue into coherent paragraphs with quotation marks, making conversations difficult to follow. I wasted 2 bucks on this novel; served me right.
17 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Scott Palmer
4.0 out of 5 stars A refreshing take on time travel
Reviewed in Canada on March 26, 2023
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I’m just over halfway through, but I enjoy the different take on time travel. Not all about avoiding paradoxes or not meeting your future self, changing the outcome of historical events, etc. Forget all that. This is something different.
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Pinkladysz
5.0 out of 5 stars It had me at time travel
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 3, 2024
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It had me at time travel.

And it kept me hooked all the way through, from the first whiff of ozone in the air when time travel is invented, to the final page after reading about time travel to places to do things like errands, learn an outcome, visit their older or younger selves and the people they know and miss. It's a thrilling story woven well through the pages of time.

I found joy in realising 90% of the characters were women.
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KF
3.0 out of 5 stars Not as gripping as promised
Reviewed in Germany on June 26, 2019
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I thought this was a crime story involving some sci-fi elements. The sci-fi, however, is only an excuse to break the chronology of the story and to jump from one location, time and character to another one. Thus, it is difficult to keep track of the characters and piece together the clues. Speaking of which, it takes quite a while before the story decides to become a murder mystery, and in the end it is not clear whether it is happy with its decision. All in all the story does seem to focus on the psychology of the relationship between all the (practically exclusively) female characters. But even this does not work because of the 'jumpy' narrative structure. So finally, you are not sure if you have just read a crime story or a psychological study or a sci-fi novel. This book is an experiment that left me quite confused.
2 people found this helpful
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Kjane
4.0 out of 5 stars A very unique take on time travel
Reviewed in Australia on December 27, 2021
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This is a book I have had on my Kindle app for a long time. Not sure why I picked it up, but happy that I finally read it.
This is quite a unique take on time travel, and really delves into all of the logistics and potential problems associated with this, including legal advice for time travellers, prevalent psychological an emotional responses as well as infections unique to the radiation associated with it.
One complaint I do have about the book is the volume of characters and the multiple timelines. There is a very complex web of people at various timepoints in their lives, as well as multiple generations of a family interacting at disjointed timepoints.
Despite this, the book works and I really enjoyed it. It combined fantasy, science fiction, mystery and romance. The main characters are Ruby Rebello as psychologist, whose grandmother Barbara was a time travel pioneer. Odette who discovers a body in a room locked from the inside and Grace, a former associate of Barbara's.
One person found this helpful
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Douglas Cope
5.0 out of 5 stars Thoroughly enjoyable
Reviewed in Canada on May 7, 2023
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Well written with a fresh perspective - a murder/mystery! The major characters are all women, written without the need to emphasize the fact. Teens especially would benefit from reading this entertaining, non-biased tale.
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