Release Day Review: Cold Summer by Gwen Cole

Title: Cold Summer
Author: Gwen Cole
Series: Stand Alone
Published By: Sky Pony Press (May 2, 2017)
Source: ARC Copy Provided by the Publisher (in exchange for an honest review)
Genre: YA Fantasy/Time Travel
My Rating: 3.5 Stars!


Book Description:
Today, he’s a high school dropout with no future. 
Tomorrow, he’s a soldier in World War II.

Kale Jackson has spent years trying to control his time-traveling ability but hasn’t had much luck. One day he lives in 1945, fighting in the war as a sharpshooter and helplessly watching soldiers—friends—die. Then the next day, he’s back in the present, where WWII has bled into his modern life in the form of PTSD, straining his relationship with his father and the few friends he has left. Every day it becomes harder to hide his battle wounds, both physical and mental, from the past.

When the ex-girl-next-door, Harper, moves back to town, thoughts of what could be if only he had a normal life begin to haunt him. Harper reminds him of the person he was before the PTSD, which helps anchor him to the present. With practice, maybe Kale could remain in the present permanently and never step foot on a battlefield again. Maybe he can have the normal life he craves.


But then Harper finds Kale’s name in a historical article—and he’s listed as a casualty of the war. Kale knows now that he must learn to control his time-traveling ability to save himself and his chance at a life with Harper. Otherwise, he’ll be killed in a time where he doesn’t belong by a bullet that was never meant for him. 

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I'm not going to lie, the cover is what first drew me to this story, it is outright gorgeous and was pretty hard for me to resist. Once I read the description and saw that this would be told through the point of view of both a male and female I knew I needed to read it. Through in the time traveling aspect and I was sold. 

I'll tell you a little secret, I love books about time traveling but for whatever reason, they very rarely actually work for me. Either the concept of the actual time traveling is too tedious to understand or it isn't explained enough to make it believable and some how ends up ruining the story for me. But still, I am drawn to them and can't seem to resist them. So I'll admit, I went into this with absolutely no expectations at all and knowing this was the authors debit novel, I think they might even have been lower than usual, nothing against the author of course, you just never know what to expect from a first time book.

But you know what? This worked for me. Even if everything wasn't explained, it still just worked. I think I was so focused on the actual story and not the time traveling aspect and it just simply worked. It was pretty well written and even if nothing was ever explained completely, yeah, it worked.

This was a fun debut novel and one that I'm glad I took the chance and time on to read.

*All thoughts and opinions are my own and were not influenced by the author or publisher. I was not compensated for this review.*