Review: Passenger by Alexandra Bracken

GoodReads description:

Passage, n.

i. A brief section of music composed of a series of notes and flourishes.

ii. A journey by water; a voyage.

iii. The transition from one place to another, across space and time.

In one devastating night, violin prodigy Etta Spencer loses everything she knows and loves. Thrust into an unfamiliar world by a stranger with a dangerous agenda, Etta is certain of only one thing: she has traveled not just miles but years from home. And she’s inherited a legacy she knows nothing about from a family whose existence she’s never heard of. Until now.

Nicholas Carter is content with his life at sea, free from the Ironwoods—a powerful family in the colonies—and the servitude he’s known at their hands. But with the arrival of an unusual passenger on his ship comes the insistent pull of the past that he can’t escape and the family that won’t let him go so easily. Now the Ironwoods are searching for a stolen object of untold value, one they believe only Etta, Nicholas’ passenger, can find. In order to protect her, he must ensure she brings it back to them—whether she wants to or not.

Together, Etta and Nicholas embark on a perilous journey across centuries and continents, piecing together clues left behind by the traveler who will do anything to keep the object out of the Ironwoods’ grasp. But as they get closer to the truth of their search, and the deadly game the Ironwoods are playing, treacherous forces threaten to separate Etta not only from Nicholas but from her path home... forever.

This was an intriguing adventure-romance which delves into history and time travel with care and detail. As a novel, it explores issues of family, race and identity in different time-contexts. 

Bracken's knowledge and historical detail is one of the strongest aspects of Passenger. I enjoyed the construction of each world, and wish we could have spent longer in each time to really see these primary characters adapt, develop and relate. Their adventure and romance sometimes felt a bit too rushed, despite both Nicholas and Etta being interesting individual characters. The romantic tension did feel a little forced and too detailed, leaving little time for the chemistry to build somewhat independently of the text itself. Nicholas is a very guarded character, understandably so given his time and origins as the child of a slave and her master. It is understandable for him to be guarded from Etta and those around him in the story, but with a two-character alternating narrative, Bracken perhaps could have let the reader in a little more. We don't get many private moments with him, whereas we really benefit from the opening chapters with Etta. 

I really enjoyed the opening chapters as we get to know Etta and what drives her and her love of music. Bracken writes these scenes brilliantly and really gets in Etta's head, and introducing the key relationships in her New York 2015 life. Similarly, there are some really nice moments with Nicholas on the ship, in his own time, with his sort of surrogate ship family. I would have loved to see these play out a little longer before the protagonists are thrown together. 

Again you don't really get a strong sense of the character of the villain - Cyrus Ironwood - but the history of the families is bound to be expanded upon in the sequel and I am looking forward to learning more - those family/surrogate family elements were some of the things that really hooked me. At this stage, Cyrus just exists to impose a sense of threat and a ticking-clock to carry the plot forward in this first book. 

Overall, it's a slow, careful and intriguing build (except for the romance angle, which I found a little too forced and rushed). It would have been nice to see the chemistry and relationship between Etta and Nicholas develop more organically, but the writing is very much 'telling you' it's happening. In terms of plot, the pace zooms into overdrive in the final few chapters and the ending is a whirlwind of a cliff-hanger which should fire nicely into the sequel and shake things up a bit. I'm intrigued by this world, particularly the negotiations of different cultures and the time-travel concept that Bracken is building and will pick up the sequel with interest when it arrives.

Thank you to Quercus Children's Books for a chance to read an eARC via NetGalley. This book is out in the UK on the 7th of April!