Time travel and pirates are two very interesting topics for a book. R.S. Williams has smashed them into one another to create The Collective. Jenny, an agent from The Collective, meets Tilly in the local university Library one day. Harvey, another agent also takes an interest in Tilly, and ends up kidnapping her through time. Jenny must find Tilly and bring her home, but they’ve ended up in a time full of Pirates.
The Collective as an organisation was really interesting for me. It reminded me a lot of the film The Adjustment Bureau. It also brings up many questions, for example why must history stay in a specific timeline? Especially if some events are morally wrong?
I enjoyed Jenny and Tilly, the two main characters. They were both very strong and smart, also sometimes sassy. The friendship that built between them while they were stuck in the past was really interesting to read. You don’t often get a book that focuses on female friendships that seem real.
On the other hand, I disliked the characters of Joseph and Roger. I felt that they lacked depth and could have been explored more as characters. Next to Tilly, Jenny, and Harvey, it was even clearer that we didn’t really know these characters.
The villain is both charming yet evil. I enjoyed his interactions with the girls, his crew and his right hand as we got to see into his head a bit. One of the things I didn’t like about him was that I really didn’t get his motive. It’s a very commonly use motive for a villain but in this context I found it slightly strange as Jenny has a similar motive but isn’t lashing out at The Collective.
The Collective is a easy paced read. It has an exciting plot line. The era is a good one to use, because I rarely read pirate books so it kept my interest. Most of the characters were well written. Overall I really enjoyed it, I just thought it needed a couple of tweaks for the secondary characters.
A big thank you to R.S. Williams and Jenny from Neverland Blog Tours for sending me The Colllective* as an e-book. As always this is an honest and unbiased review.