Passenger by Alexandra BrackenA new YA historical time-travel romance novel where said time travel occurs at the sound of orchestra music and the male protagonist is African-American and our first adventure back in time puts us on a pirate ship in 1776? Was this book written just for me?!Etta is a seventeen-year-old violin prodigy. She lives with her mom, with whom she has a somewhat strained relationship, and she’s never known her dad. Stories of her mother’s life before Etta are riddled with inconsistencies, which have in part kept the mother and daughter at a distance. One evening, while on stage at a violin performance, a strange sound pierces the auditorium, throwing Etta into hysterics and setting an incredible transformation into motion. The only other person who seems to hear the sound and know what is going on is a fellow teen violinist named Sophia. The girls are pushed through a time passage and land on a ship under attack, in the middle of the ocean, in the 18th century. How, and why, have Etta and Sophia managed to travel through time? As you might imagine, the answers are complex and span the centuries, as powerful time-travelling families fight to uncover a hidden artifact that could change the course of human history forever. This book was…more work than I expected. It is long, and it took a while for me to get into it. However, the time travel sequences, the romance with a freed slave, and the treasure hunt leading to a surprise twist ending was enough to keep me going, and in the end I did enjoy it quite a bit. This is first in a series by Alexandra Bracken, who is also the author of the popular The Darkest Minds trilogy.