Chasing Stars by Helen Douglas

Bloomsbury, 2014. ISBN: 9781408828700.
(Age: 13+) Chasing Stars, the sequel to After Eden, follows the story of Eden Anfield and Ryan Westland - her time travelling boyfriend. Picking up from where its predecessor left off, Eden is running for her life. Travis, her almost step-uncle and time-travelling peace keeper, is intent on terminating her life to protect the secrecy of Ryan's mission, however Ryan arrives and the tables turn. By doing so Ryan chooses Eden over his friends, his family and ultimately his life as he knows it. But his decision to leave it all behind for a life in the past isn't solely his responsibility. Another time traveller, Lauren, a mission cleaner, arrives to tie up loose ends and repatriate Travis' body. Confronted by the cleaner Ryan and Eden must make the decision between life in the future or a quick death in the past. Upon their entrance to 2123 Ryan is apprehended for the crime of stealing a time ship to return to Eden - no easy feat. Eden is issued with a resettlement package while she awaits the outcome of the trial and she must do all she can to get by in the future and save Ryan from a life-sentence to hard labour on the moon.
Helen Douglas captivates her audience with Chasing Stars with excellent imagery and a balance of the world we know and world as it could be with technological innovations in four dimensional time travel and rising sea levels. A sci-fi romance designed for teenage girls, this novel is a fairly straightforward read which I would recommend to fans of romance aged thirteen and up.
Kayla Gaskell (age eighteen)