Gwyneth Shepherd: A Hero's Journey

Gwyneth Shepherd is just an average high school girl, but her family isn’t. A time-traveling gene runs in her family. It is believed that her cousin, Charlotte, inherits the gene, because a prophecy told them so. So Charlotte takes extensive lessons including fencing, foreign languages, etiquette, and history to prepare her for time travelling. When the time comes for the gene carrier to show the ability, it turns out that Gwyneth is the one who inherits the gene. It’s not that the prophecy is wrong, but it’s because Gwyneth’s mother falsify Gwyneth’s personal information, more specifically her birthdate. Unlike Charlotte, Gwyneth hasn’t been prepared for any time travel activities. Moreover, she discovers that her family is actually a part

Time travelling in this book is also different from what I used to because they don’t use a machine, but it’s encoded in a person’s DNA, or so they believed. The closest to this time travel idea that I can think of is Hiro Nakamura from Heroes. Even Hiro can control his time travel ability, while Gwyneth can’t. So this time travelling concept is new to me.

Plot-wise, Ruby Red rather has a simple one. Basically, it’s Gwyneth finding out that she has the ability to time travel and discovering the existence of a secret society. There’s no unexpected turn or a surprising plot twist. Since Ruby Red is the first book of a series, I understand that the author want to focus more on building the world and introducing her time travelling concept. I expect more on the next books, though.

On the character side, Gwyneth is a 16 year old girl. I think it’s to be expected that she would have immature and childish voice. So far, I’m okay with her. She reacted the way I believe a teenager would react to this time travelling business. Besides, she’s already known about it. It’s just that she didn’t expect that it would happen to her. She’s a funny and easy-going girl too, which makes her fun to