RIPPLE EFFECT

In the first installment of the Time Thriller trilogy, previously published as Sudden Switch (1996), 15-year-old Elizabeth Forde, angry at her parents, decides to run away—but instead she disappears while taking a bath. She appears in an alternate world, apparently having switched places with her “time twin,” Sarah Bishop, and a bizarre series of parallel events unfolds as Elizabeth tries to figure out who she is, where she is and how to return home. Elizabeth disappears too early in the story to have become enough of a fully realized character for readers to care about, however. The heart of the novel is the mysterious time warp, but whatever fascination readers may find in the premise is undermined at the end by Elizabeth’s perfunctory, “They’re the secret workings of God.” Still, readers may overlook clumsy prose and overt Christian messages to find some good fun here. (Christian science fiction. 10-14)