Time Pebbles

By: Jerry Merritt

Narrated by: Emily Sutton-Smith

Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's Summary

Tekla, son of an ancient shaman, loses Ka Li when she is torn from his life by a brutal tribe of Denisovans in a Late Pleistocene kidnapping.

Ka Li escapes but is unarmed and forced to flee across the Bering land bridge where she becomes hopelessly lost in the endless tracts of North America. Only Tekla cares enough to search for her over the years. As Ka Li survives fierce predators and scarce resources, she leaves behind a series of signal cairns to help Tekla find her.

Skipping forward 60,000 years, Helen Ryland, a mid-20th century archaeologist, unearths one of Ka Li’s surviving signal cairns and realizes she has found trace of people who populated the Americas even before the Clovis culture. Helen’s detective work tracking Ka Li’s timeless signals across the Alaskan wilderness now intertwines with Ka Li’s story. As Helen solves the puzzle of the signal cairns she finds universal fame and suffers devastating misfortune. In the end, Helen discovers that science in isolation cannot answer all of her questions for Tekla’s devotion to Ka Li had not died even though 600 centuries had passed.

©2014 Jerry Merritt (P)2018 Podium Publishing

Elegant parallels

Engaging from start to finish Jerry Merritt does it again. Like his last book there's a point where it seems that two sets of story points have wandered too far afield to ever meet up again and then he does his writerly magic and brings it on home to a satisfying and emotionally compelling conclusion.

12 people found this helpful

Superb StoryTelling

Loved the concept and its implementation... Gotta say though, not really SF, more historical fiction adventure, unless you consider anthropology and paleontology SF... The back and forth chronologically is seamlessly done, and uber enjoyed the early scientific advances... Has some serious power and poignancy, and keeps you hooked w/ the interweaved story arcs... However, the narration was pretty bland and detracted a bit... It’s a professional job, but has no feeling... 1.25 too slow and 1.5 a touch too quick... Overall an excellent story, better than average audio book, due to only average performance...

11 people found this helpful

Not at all what I expected

I’ve listened to Mr Merritt’s book, “A Gift of Time” and it has become one of my all time favorites. I decided to listen to Time Pebbles on a 7 hr road trip to Lake Tahoe from Los Angeles. I was gripped by story of Tekla’s unrelenting quest to find his future mate Ka Li who was kidnapped by a raider tribe along with other abducted women. This is a story of fierce courage in the face of uncertainty in dangerous surroundings, survival against savage predators (people and wild animals), the origins of a society and unfailing loyalty and love. There is also a parallel story of Helen who millennia after Tekla’s era pieces together their story after finding key artifacts. The ending was not what I expected but a good one at that. Recommended read.

4 people found this helpful

A very memorable story!

As I started my listen my mind wandered but shortly I could not stop listening! I sat the last 5 hrs. seeing it and being there.haven't been that taken away in many years! My family wonders what have been doing for so long. Their dinner is very late but part of me is still in that story! Thank you so very much!

9 people found this helpful

Good read

Interesting story, very timely also with old fossils being found in the news, spring of 2018.

3 people found this helpful

Loved it

I wish the songs where in it, but otherwise it was amazing. Can't wait for your next book the first two are very well done.

6 people found this helpful

Gift of Time was just an amazing read and this book while completely different is superb too.

Gift of Time is science fiction but such a unique story and so well written that I was excited for his next novel. I was surprised when his new novel wasn't science fiction at all. I'm not normally a fan of the genre of Time Pebbles which is historical fiction. This was so compelling from the start and so well written with characters that you cared about that I loved it. I can wait to see his next book because I will read / listen to anything that he had written

2 people found this helpful

Finding your tribe

The ancient portions of this story seem to be genuinely researched and truly “could” depict what life was like for early man and woman. The modern portions also feel authentic but this isn’t just a story about geography and history- there’s a really appealing mystical element of connection between people in the same time and across time

2 people found this helpful

Don't assume

(minor spoilers)
because I enjoyed "a gift of time" so much, I assumed that I would enjoy this book and I also assumed there would be time travel in the book. The second assumption was my fault. The first one, not so much. The book is dull. Nothing much happens until the end and even then, it doesn't make any sense and it's only kind of interesting. Narration seems a little sleepy but it's not terrible.

1 person found this helpful

Interesting narrative hampered by bad voice readin

The story is pretty good but the dialog for the modern scenes is horribly awkward and stiff that is made worse by the voice performer who has a emotionless robotic sound (sound like my phone giving driving directions). One annoyance is that lead character for the modern scenes suddenly becomes an archaeologist expert in the last few chapters.

1 person found this helpful

Not great

I thought this was a sequel to a gift of time as one of the characters was called lovely pebbles. The first book was about time travel and I though this was the natural progression to the sequel but I could not have been more mistaken. This is a completely different book whose narration leaves something to be desired, unfortunately I returned this book which is the first time I have ever done this.

11 people found this helpful

A little predictable

A rich story that in the tradition of Jean Awre and Clan of the Cave Bear tried to bring life to ancient history. An enjoyable read . Just a little 'organised' and tried hard to fill in history. However I learnt a few things from the archaeological time line that I glad to known before.

2 people found this helpful

Great story awful narration

I loved the story but the narrator sounded like a robot, she really spoilt the overall enjoyment

1 person found this helpful

Everything I am fascinated by in this book

This story gripped me emotionally and spiritually. A little spoilt by the slightly robotic narration. If you are passionate about our ancient history and even if you are not you won,t be disappointed .

Good

I like this author hope he writes more very interesting and different decor book of his I've listened to and enjoyed