The Perfect Sickbed Read - A Review of A Murder in Time

A Murder in Time by Julie McElwain

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


It’s easy to think that being sick enough to warrant skipping work and staying in bed means that one can catch up with one’s reading. In truth, however, this is a lot harder than it appears; it is difficult to focus on what one is reading when one is constantly distracted by the minor irritations that come with being ill. This does not mean that it is impossible to read while ill, but it does mean that certain books are precluded from the sickbed reading list because they require more focus than a reader might be willing to give when in less-than-peak condition.

I was presented with the above conundrum when I found myself in bed and ill with the flu a few days ago. I would start one book, and then abandon it after two or three pages for no other reason than that I could not give it the kind of focus it deserved. Nothing seemed to stick - and these were books I thought would stick, since they were largely in the genres I preferred, by authors I trusted. In the end, what stuck was a book I had acquired out of curiosity, with no guarantee of its quality beyond the relatively positive buzz I was seeing on the online bookish community of Litsy. It is also a book I probably would not have read to the very end, nor enjoyed, had I not been ill. That book is A Murder in Time by Julie McElwain, the first book in the Kendra Donovan series.

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