Fever by Dee Shulman Series: Parallon #1
Published by Penguin Books, Razorbill on April 5, 2012
Pages: 400
Format: Paperback
Source: Amazon
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Two worlds. Two millennia. One love . . .
A fearless Roman gladiator.
A reckless twenty-first-century girl.
A mysterious virus unites them . . .
An inventive love story between a teenage gladiator from 152 AD and a 21st-century girl. They both contract a virus that enables them to time-travel, with electrifying results.
The Parallon Trilogy trailer from Dee Shulman’s website:
I really liked this book. On top of the eye-catching, must-own cover, the love story at the heart of Fever was beautifully woven in and out of the past and present.
The first part of Fever takes place in present day London with our female protagonist, Eva. Eva is characterized as a girl who is too smart for her own good. Bored by the public school system, Eva hacks one too many computers and is expelled. After this series of unfortunate events, Eva is promptly enrolled in an exclusive private school that will allow her to indulge her love of science. This is where things start to get Doctor Who-style weird.
Below are some ruins from the day of Roman Londinium.
The past part of Fever takes place with heroic gladiator, Seth, in Londinium- Roman occupied London from the year 152 AD. I really fell in love with his part of the story and lost myself in it so much that when things would revert back to Eva’s time, I was a little annoyed.
But when Eva and Seth’s paths cross because of a scientific fluke, I was completely taken in. I really enjoyed their stories unfolding together. The pacing of the story was a little slow, but well worth the wait by the time we have Seth and Eva together.
The world building of Londinium was really well done and the author does an awesome job of submerging the reader in both present and past. If you’ve seen the film The Gladiator starring Russell Crow, you will be able to visualize Londinium well.
All of the scientific aspects were really interesting and not too far fetched, in my opinion. The secondary characters were fun, although I think a lot of scenes could have been cut involving them to make the story more concise. Overall, I felt fully invested in this story after the first book and I would definitely read it again despite the slow pacing. It was a refreshing read, and not like anything I’ve read recently.
And just for fun:
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