See, the agency Kin works for is the Temporal Corruption Bureau (TCB), first formed by the United Nations in 2098. It takes 18 years for his agency to retrieve him - except for them it's only been a couple weeks. After all, he's a secret agent, wounded during a mission and stranded with no way to get home. Kin Stewart has PTSD, or at least that's what he tells everyone - and though he believes he's only telling them a cover story, he probably isn't. At its core, Chen's book is really about the prides and perils of parenthood, and I'm certain that's what I'll always remember about it. Mike Chen's debut novel, Here and Now and Then, is also about time travel and includes a romance or two, but these elements feel almost secondary, despite being necessary for the plot. In other words, what's remained with me are the book's mechanics. I recall reading The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger several years after it came out, and loving it - for the romance, yes, and its variously tragic and joyful twists and turns, but mostly because I was so impressed with the complexity of the time travel narrative, the way its pieces fit together. It's always interesting, as readers, to see what we remember about books years after we've read them. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title Here and Now and Then Author Mike Chen
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