The Gods Time Forgot - Kelsie Sheridan Gonzalez // Book Review

The Gods Time Forgot

 Kelsie Sheridan Gonzalez || Publication Date - 08.04.2025

She's emerged from a pool, in someone else's body... with no idea who she is.

Fiction | Fantasy | Historical

Affiliate Link - 

Rua emerges from a pool of water, surrounded by people trying to capture her - calling her 'Emma'. In her confusion and fear, she runs, and finds herself found and being walked up the stairs of an opulent housing estate in England's countryside. The Harrington's are ecstatic to have their daughter back safe and sound. Unfortunately, Rua on the other hand has no clue who these people are, neither the faintest idea of how she even got here.

Now imposing as Emma Harrington, Rua takes it upon herself to find out what's going on and why this has happened to her. High Society is cruel, but visions and dreams have assured her that she can be crueller. Especially when those visions show a man she has seen before on a battlefield, connected to her in some way, and she wants to find out where and how they could know each other. 

The Review (may contain spoilers)

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me early access to this eARC for an honest review!

I very much enjoyed the beginning of this novel. It was intriguing and the woven mythology which presented itself was compelling to keep me going. The characters were interesting, however, I didn't particularly feel connected to them. A lot of the time I found them fairly average in their personality and conversations with each other. Especially the main couple Rua and Finn. I wanted to like them more than I did.

As the novel progressed, I felt a lot of the chapters could have been edited out or condensed. After about the 60% mark the novel dragged and not a lot was actually happening. It seemed the discussions and reveals made in this chunk of the book had already been given prior, and it was as if the writer or editor was filling in space to up the page count. It made me disinterested as a whole as by this point I simply wanted the book to end.

Finn's connection with the orphanage was also weird to me. Almost as if there had to be something to allude to the fact he wasn't inherently a bad person? I felt the writer did a fine enough job of convincing the audience of his character without this being included. If the significance of this location was explained more, it could have made more sense.

I felt this book could have improved with more of a POV in earlier chapters of how Finn came to where he is. I understand the mystery aspect, however it made things seem a little disjointed despite he went through the exact same thing Rua did. I feel it would have been interesting to explore as they both came to the realisation of their circumstances and who they really were.

Overall Thoughts

As a whole, this book was alright. It wasn't amazing and it told a story. The comparisons to 'Outlander' I feel are quote loose - and if you picked up this book with the expectation this was a similar story, you would likely be disappointed. Because other than a displaced person in time, this novel had nothing else in common with that series.

It's not one I would actively recommend, however if the premise sounds interesting to you I wouldn't stop you from giving it a go.