Book Review: Future Threat (Future Shock) by Elizabeth Briggs

Future Threat is the second book in the Future Shock trilogy by Elizabeth Briggs. To fully appreciate and understand the characters, you really do need to read this trilogy in order.

Six months ago Aether Corporation sent Elena, Adam, and three other recruits on a trip to the future where they brought back secret information—but not everyone made it back to the present alive. Now Elena’s dealing with her survivor’s guilt and trying to make her relationship with Adam work. All she knows for sure is that she’s done with time travel and Aether Corporation, but Aether’s not done with her, Adam, or fellow survivor Chris. The travelers on Aether’s latest mission to the future have gone missing, and Elena and her friends are drafted into the rescue effort. They arrive in a future that’s amazingly advanced, thanks to Aether Corporation’s reverse-engineered technology. The mission has deadly consequences, though, and they return to the future to try to alter the course of events. But the future is different yet again. Now every trip through time reveals new complications, and more lives lost or never born. Elena and Adam must risk everything, including their relationship, to save their friends.

Future Threat is a book full of adventure, twists and turns, and people struggling to come to terms with the world. I understood Elena's stress and struggles, and think that they were completely consistent with her character and what she has gone through. The growth of Elena and Adam's characters, and their relationship is very well done, and a cornerstone to the story, and was as compelling as any of the action. The new characters, and the varying futures, were well designed and slowly revealed their depth as the story continued. I found the twists and turns of the trips to the future to be very dramatic, and had me holding my breath on a few occasions. I loved seeing some of the possibilities and worried over the changes as the story continued. I will admit that I rather suspected the guilty party of all the bad things that happen to the team pretty early on, but the journey the story takes us on as Elena puts the pieces together was very suspenseful and gave all of the characters room to grow and show their true selves to the readers, and each other.

Future Threat is a solid follow up to Future Shock, and I enjoyed the read. I like that while each book seems to build perfectly on the previous, the ending of each book feels complete- with only hints that more might follow. I already have the third book waiting on my Kindle for me- since it took me way to long to pick this one up, and I am confident that the third book will continue with the same or maybe even higher quality. My biggest regret with this book is how long it took me to get reading.