Yesterday’s Flight

Martyn Ellington

Average Rating 8/10 (1 Review)

Yesterday's Flight is a thought-catching time travel novel written by first-time English author, Martyn Ellington. Yesterday's Flight is a superb read with cleverly-written twist of events and takes the reader on an unexpected journey.

When a Dinosaur fossil is unearthed in the Badlands of America the last thing Susan Lavey expected to see as the cause of death was the tail section of an airliner. Now together with Bruce Ackland, a chief air crash investigator, they must find out why and how this could have happened and what became of the passengers on board. William Relford was flying to yet another meeting, but this time it was to hand in his notice; he had worked in sales for as long as he liked to remember and now was the time for a change. But destiny has a way of changing things in ways we can't imagine, and now it was about to bring them all together in a race for the truth and for one of them: their very survival!

Review by Nigel (311011) Rating (8/10)

Review by Nigel
Rating 8/10
There are a few review sites that won’t touch self published works and some would say this is for a very good reason, with so many books and so little time why waste it? Truth be told there are some real stinkers out there; however, given the difficulty of getting a publisher, even a small one, there are also some very good works that would never see the light of day without the Self Published route to the reader. Over the years we have come across some very good books and I’m happy to report this is one of them.

William Relford is on the Red Eye to quit his job when the plane encounters severe turbulence. Captain David Padel can’t understand why none of his instruments seem to work or why the GPS is not picking up any satellites. Bruce Ackland, Chief Air Crash Investigator, is on his way to Death Valley to sort out why a piece of airliner tail fin has been dug up with a 65 million year old fossil.

So begins Yesterday’s Flight, an interesting cross between Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park and Timeline. As the story unfolds we follow the passengers from the flight as they deal with their unique problems in the past, mainly how not to get eaten, while in the present the investigators piece together what happened.

All in all an entertaining read that shows an author with promise; everything is told in a straightforward manner with a solid ending tidying everything up nicely... much like a Crichton novel.

That said the book does need a good editor to tighten it up; there were a number of minor proof reading issues as well as an annoying jump between main scenes sentence to sentence, especially at the beginning. While it is obvious after a few words it breaks the steady flow of the story in your mind’s eye realising you are no longer in the place you thought you were... spaces or stars or something to distinguish scene changes would have been nice. With a good editor/proof reader to iron out some of the rough edges there is no reason this book could not happily sit next to others written by more well known authors.

It is also worth noting that the book is relatively short at 197 pages so if you have an appropriate e-reader the ebook is probably the most economic way of enjoying this excellent tale. An enjoyable read, recommended.
Nigel (31st October 2011)