Liam O’Connor should have died at sea in 1912. Maddy Carter should have died on a plane in 2010. Sal Vikram should have died in a fire in 2026. Yet moments before death, someone mysteriously appeared and said, ‘Take my hand ...’ But Liam, Maddy and Sal aren’t rescued. They are recruited by an agency that no one knows exists, with only one purpose—to fix broken history. Because time travel is here, and there are those who would go back in time and change the past. That’s why the TimeRiders exist: to protect us. To stop time travel from destroying the world.

I have always loved the idea of time travel, the thought that if it was invented historians would know everything about the past, they would be able to talk to famous monarchs. They would also have to be careful not to change history. That's where the time riders come in. With every other book or film I've read or seen to do with time travel, it's been good and I've enjoyed it but at the same time - although I've wanted to believe it, I couldn't really think that it was possible. For example, back to the future, How could his parents name him Marty after the boy they met when they first got together and then not totally freak out when he looked exactly the same?! However with time riders everything seems real. I really admire Alex Scarrow for being able to create a story that could easily be true. The basic plot is that that time travel has been invented in 2044 and that the time riders are a secret agency dedicated to fixing time that has been changed by foolish people who want the world to be different for example some people would go back and help Hitler win the Second World War. Maddy, Sal and Liam, the main characters, are new recruits, they have just been brought to the agency. They travel through time to arrive at their base where they are trained by foster who brought them there. Hang on you think, what about their family, their friends don't they report them missing? The agency has a sinister but effective solution to this, it only recruits people who are about to die. Liam should have died on the Titanic, Maddy should have died on a plane when a bomb went off and Sal should have died in a house fire, but moments before they died foster appeared and offered them the choice of joining the agency. Even though people saw them they never would have the chance to tell anyone about foster because they died seconds later The books are great when they go back in time and see things and have actually helped me in history lessons quite a few times! However the best bit of the books I find is daily life for the team. Liam especially doesn't know what anything is because he has travelled from 1912 to 2001, they are kind of like a mismatched family, the three of them together missing their old life and settling in to their little house or archway under a bridge to be precise! Over the course of the books you get to know the characters really well and can picture their surroundings. Oh yes and they live two days over and over again! Let me explain, when the past changes it creates a shift that alters the history of the universe and rolls over the earth changing the present day. To notice the shift you have to know exactly what should happen on each day. Unfortunately that's impossible because time moves on every second and you don't remember what happened across the street from you at 5:04 on Tuesday two weeks ago! So the timeriders live in a time bubble where they live two days over and over again when they get to midnight on Tuesday the bubble instantly takes them back to midnight on Sunday so that they live Monday and Tuesday over and over. They do different things but outside the exact same things happen, a woman with a pram trips at 2:56 for example. This way the timeriders know exactly what is supposed to happen every day and can instantly spot anything that's changed, it's also a defence mechanism. The rest of the world outside the bubble moves on. So if anyone spots them and finds their machinery, if they get a newspaper to come and look they will find them gone on Wednesday without a trace. They only, in everyone else's eyes are there for two days. One of the reasons the book was so brilliant I thought, because the bubble means that it could be true. The timeriders don't just live any old two days though, they live the twin towers and the Monday before. Another defence mechanism, no ones going to notice them in all the confusion. There are so many things about this series that make it believable and perhaps the most gripping I have ever read but I won't give anymore away, you should read it for yourself!