150 million years ago. The Jurassic. 400 thousand dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs. And Jonna and Veronica are face to face with them. Or should that be face to teeth, face to claw, or face to big, scary monster?
Although Veronica's not finding them all that scary. A paleontologist, she's used that looking at these guys as nothing but a pile of fossilized bones. Now they're alive, and they're glorious.
Jonna has what she considers a healthier relationship with the beasts. They come near - she runs. Dragging Veronica behind her. That woman would watch in starry-eyed amazement while the jaws closed around her. But that can't happen because Veronica's the brainy one and she has to figure out how to work the time travel gizmo that sent them on an unexpected trip deep into a dangerous past.
"To me, failing to learn to use the tools one’s craft shows laziness and disrespect for the reader. There are, however, no issues of that sort where Baeli’s writing is concerned. It’s rare to these days to find a writer whose style is technically so nearly perfect, but who’s also a damned good storyteller. I doubt if she is even capable of writing poorly." ~W. Spice
Even after 36 novels, I always try to write the sort of book I would want to read. My favorite thing to do is take a common trope and turn it on its ear. Where you expect a zig, I give you a zag. In my pages, you will find strong female characters, ethical dilemmas, and realistic storylines often filled with adventure and intense pacing, tempered by witty dialog, and happy endings. All are hallmarks of my work.
As a Bestselling Genre-Hopping Indie Author, I’ve enjoyed a sales position in the top 5% of lesbian writers, but I write crossover and mainstream fiction and have authored 26 nonfiction books, as well. All 36 of my FemFic novels have been bestsellers in the genres of domestic suspense, domestic thriller, women's adventure, romantic suspense, apocalyptic, speculative, lesfic, lesbian romance, and science fiction. I’m also a mixed-media artist (mostly clay and abstract painting) and former performing singer-songwriter with over 200 songs.
My wife, Melissa Walker-Baeli, is a budding author in her own right, and we have several co-writing projects coming soon. We live with two dogs, (Noodle and Whatnot) and two cats, (Poppet and Chicklet) on ten acres in the gorgeous Northwoods of Michigan.
A dash of Indiana Jones, a pinch of Back to the Future, a dollop of Jurassic Park, plus two whole lesbians, and you have a campy 'cocktale' of adventure, head-spinning time-travel. and a surprisingly sweet romance. Check your logic at the door and just enjoy this fun, thrilling and often heart-stopping roller-coaster ride.
3 stars. Loved the plot. Jonna and Veronica end up in Jurassic times and have to find a way back. It was pretty intriguing with some wild moments. It was just the characters themselves that I didn’t connect with. I spent more than 30% of the book hoping for both of them to be eaten by the dinosaurs so yeah. Wasn’t a fan. Jonna was so childish and annoying. Veronica was full of herself and condescending. I never did connect with them in the end. Also, the writing (particularly the dialogue) felt a bit stilted at times and would throw me off. This wasn’t a terrible book by any means, the plot is such an adventure but the characters, romance, and writing left so much to be desired.
Time Travel, archaeology, dinosaurs, lesbians, displaced in time, and more.
Pitfall is the name of a cave in New Zealand. A Dr. Veronica Hill excavated that cave and found a "Flinstone's phone", as one janitor called the item. An artifact that looked human made from the Jurassic era. Dr. Hill loaded up bones and artifacts and headed back to the states to examine them closer.
The book opens, though, centered on the janitor I briefly noted before. One Jonna Clarke. Jonna's cleaning in the basement and spots the good doctor over next to specimens examining them. She sweeps back and forth near Dr. Hill. Dr. Hill screams at her, asking what she is doing and why she is there. One thing leads to another and it turns out that this isn't actually their first encounter. For a drunker version of Dr. Hill had made out with Jonna that past weekend. So. You have that going on.
Meanwhile Jonna's spotted that Flinstone's phone. And, being a naturally curious person, wanders close enough to it to nudge it. Veronica pulls her away but not before the device was activated. When the two awaken again, they find themselves slumped over on the dusty ground. Thousands of miles away. In New Zealand.
That part is relatively quickly realized. Since they apparently appeared in Pitfall cave. The place Veronica had just been excavating, so she recognizes the place.
Relatively quickly after that they realize that, not only have they traveled in space, they have also traveled in time. 145 to 150 million years ago. To the time of the dinosaurs.
And, so, the book unfolds from there. Two lesbians back in time. With something of a tentative relationship. Jonna having a massive chip on her shoulder re: education, and being seen as "dumb". Veronica tends to only want and have one night stands. Which is a little hard when you are on a planet with only one other human on it. Oh, and dinosaurs are wandering around. Can't forget the dinosaurs.
Reasonably interesting book. Dragged in a few places here and there. Considering that "lesbians teleported back 150 million years" is a little over the top to begin with, the bouncing around that occurs near the end is even more over the top.
The characters grew on me, though. And the plot, while absurd, was solid enough. I suppose my only real problem has to do with the impact of injuries and what happens to them when a person teleports/time travels. But, bah.
This book was just a lot of fun. The title really says it all "Lesbians. Dinosaurs. Time-Travel". The characters are amusing and the author does not get too heavy on the physics portion of the space-time continuum. There's just enough to make it plausible (in some reality). It will leave you wondering if you had a time travel device, where would you go and what would you do? In the words of Willie Wonka, "Endless wonder".
I came into this book with a certain set of expectations. Clearly, from the cover, it was supposed to be a certain thing: terrible but in an endearing way, a fun but ludicrous romp, of course a steamy lesbian romance is a given, and lots of exploring an ancient Jurassic/prehistoric setting.
It’s supposed to be so bad it’s good.
Yet what it actually ended up being was mediocre, lukewarm....something I kept reading to find out what happened but with increasing frustration as the plot holes piled up.
***SPOILERS BELOW***
The time travel dynamics don’t make any sense at all, logically (yes time travel isn’t real, but still, there should be an internal coherence within the story itself and there isn’t). Sometimes going back in time heals you from mortal wounds and you don’t encounter a double of yourself....sometimes going to your past ends up with you accusing yourself of stealing your own car....this makes absolutely zero sense. It exists purely for the plot to work.
Sidebar: We never find out where these time traveling artifacts are from or why they exist or who put them there. Which is fine, ok, it’s a mystery. Cool. Could have been interesting to explore that more though.
Another big problem for me was that a brief google search of some of the various creatures mentioned in the book by their scientific names, enlightened me that many of these dinosaurs were actually from the Cretaceous period. Which, sure, creative license and all, but I thought this was gearing up to be a clue that the main characters were going to be present for the extinction level event that happened at the end of the Jurassic period leading into the Cretaceous. I thought it was foreshadowing for anyone that took the time to look up these dinosaurs. But no....I guess it’s just dinosaurs being placed in slightly the wrong time...:-/ Instead - the big thing is DRAGONS. There’s dragons guys. That’s the big reveal. >____>
Also, it’s almost comical that Melanie keeps getting killed and then having to be saved. Almost. That could have been a great comedy gag but somehow in this book it just doesn’t fit. The book is too serious and almost too earnest for this gag to work for me. Yet it’s supposed to be lighthearted and fun at the same time....
But then there’s the sinister Dr Craig! The arch villain! He’s a one dimensional greedy little fucker who’s been in the background all along! But he knows nothing about the artifacts he’s finding and is somewhat of an idiot. How has he gotten this far? I was gearing up for him to be some guy from the future who was orchestrating these events all along for some nefarious purpose! Instead, he just wanted to steal whatever someone else had found and use it to “make his career.” O_O. Why not make his career on the artifacts themselves? He’s clearly unscrupulous enough to not care who gets their hands on these clearly universe altering devices. And again, why are there so many? Where did they come from? Gah!
And randomly Jonna is super smart but also functionally illiterate. How does that even happen in today’s education system? I mean I guess it’s possible but she also has a photographic memory....and her whole backstory was just kind of overly melodramatic.
On a writing level I’m not expecting Shakespeare, but there was a lot of telling rather than showing, heavy use of the zap tablet to fix anything that went wrong, and the lesbian romance was definitely not steamy.
Overall, the book was okay. I finished it, it just could have been so much better! I loved the idea and was on board for what this book seemed to promise but it just didn’t deliver.
Ps: eyeballs, no matter how much they appear like milk chocolate, should never be even thought of/described as something that you would want to lick. D:
Lesbians time travel back to the Jurassic age. I was hooked from the description, but I was also a bit hesitant because I didn’t really enjoy the other book I’ve read by this author. But I was willing to give it a chance in hopes that the other book was just an outlier. I don’t think it was.
Dr. Veronica Hill found a strange item while doing a dig in New Zealand. She takes it back to the museum to examine and identify the item. Jonna works as a janitor in the museum and, when Veronica steps out for a minute, goes to check out the item. The problem is she presses some buttons and sends the two back in time. Veronica is amazed by everything around her, these creatures that she’s studied for years. Jonna on the other hand is terrified and tries her best to keep both of them out of the jaws of the creatures. They have to survive together until they can figure out how to get back home.
I actually liked both of these characters for the most part. I don’t fully buy into Jonna’s functional illiteracy partly because while she has this, she’s shown to practically be a genius. I’m not saying that it’s impossible, but it was just hard for me to wrap my head around it. Outside of this, I really enjoyed the characters. They had an interesting dynamic with each other, and it was fun to watch them have to rely on each other. Neither character particularly annoyed me, in fact they both seemed really nice.
I’m not a huge fan of the side characters, but that’s because they felt like they weren’t fully used. Melanie felt like she could be an amusing third character, especially because of her “curse”, but I just don’t think she got enough time for it to make me like her. Also, the doctor felt too cartoony. I get wanting a villain, but it didn’t feel necessary at this point. I didn’t like him, not unusual for a villain character, but not solely because he was the villain. He just felt completely one-dimensional and forced in to add more drama. It felt like the drama from the time travel would have been enough, but we got an evil doctor.
The thing that really made me not enjoy this book was the plot. I was really interested in watching the two survive against the dinosaurs, especially when they got into trouble and had to figure out how to survive. I couldn’t get behind the dragons. That broke it for me. It made this too unrealistic for me. I think it would have been better if it hadn’t been dragons. If it had been something more realistic, I might have been able to overlook it, but it wasn’t.
I also wish we had gotten any answers about the time travel items and why there were so many of them.
This wasn’t horrible and had me for a while, but then it got to the point where I could only consider it to be absurd and finished it only because I don’t like to DNF books.
Oh wow! I really like this book and really enjoy their adventures.
The book is actually get me hooked and I couldn't really stop reading it. I really got excited while reading it as well. Just like the description of the book said: Lesbians, adventures, fun and dinasaurs, of course dinasaurs! I think if it is me in that situation I would had die instantly, maybe. And yeah the book really teach me lots of things, about dinasaurs, survivals and i about the history of the era? Tbh i also found it funny for Melanie to keep dying and our main ladies keep trying to saving them.
And yeah I really enjoy this book, through and through :)
This is a fairly bland paint by numbers kind of story. Its premise is somewhat interesting, but in execution it just lacks anything very special or compelling. It feels like it would have fit in as a standard episode of the 90s Outer Limits show, or one of the later Twilight Zone reboots, which felt very syndicated and not quite as imaginative as the original shows that were their name sakes. It's not going to kill you to read this, but I doubt it'll really excite you either. It's fine for what it is, but I think any prospective readers should look at it as basically a pulp science fiction novel with the usual kind of pulpy derivative straight forward plot.
Remarkable work. The author found just the right dose of adventure, humor, scientific knowledge & romance to make this a deeply enjoyable read. Both Jonna & Veronica are relatable, and had depth to them. I found the fonctional illeteracy part deeply moving.
I recommend also reading the Authors Notes at the end !
I think its hard to not like a book about gays and dinosaurs tbh. I wish there was more development in the romance department but I did enjoy this read. The time travel was also a little confusing to me but I guess its just because I'm used to more complicated time travel stories with paradoxes and alternative timelines.
I thought this was going to be a fun romp through Gondwanaland and dinosaurs because the first page was such a draw in. Actually the time travel aspect felt easy to follow. The dialogue was witty and the science well researched. Great to read a New Zealand setting. Should we prepare for dinosaur hunting tourists?
Joanna and Veronica are different as two peas in the pod. But they work well together. I felt like I was watching star trek, Jurassic park and land of the lost. Lol. These two together had me cracking up. I like the events that happened. I definitely recommend this book.
I think this is a very well written story with a great story line. The main characters were totally different to start, but ended up working well together. I enjoyed reading this book very much. Thanks.
I loved the story, the adventure. Time traveling story. Dinosaurs... Their love story (though there should be more). I had so much fun reading, my imagination was on its peak with dinosaurs and time traveling. Haha. Thank you Kelli Jae Baeli.
Braky-whats, Atlas-things and Terra-do-hickeys Oh My!
I really, really liked this book a lot!! I loved the concept and the characters. There was lots of action and adventure, a bit of mystery and intrigue. I have never read a story like this and it was terrific!
It is set in New Zealand for most of the story. There are so many wonderful sciency references and facts. Ms Baeli really did a great job on researching for this book!
I really enjoyed Jonna's sense of humor and her colourful language. She comes up with some really interesting phrases and names for things. Both Jonna and Veronica have their skill sets and each needs the other to survive the predicament they find themselves involved in. I think the growing relationship between the two women is sweet and realistic.
It was a wonderful read one I am sure I will read again and again. The Special Dedication was also a mushy treat!
Very responsible time traveling. Two women travel with dinosaurs, save a damsel in distress, banish a bad guy and shock the planet. All in a "days" work.