The Time Thief is just what readers look for in the second book in a trilogy: more adventures with the same characters and settings but with enough plot twists and turns to keep them guessing; a chance to get to know their favorite characters better; and a building tension left to be resolved by the final book.

Buckley-Archer once again does a nice job of weaving all the plot lines together. The action takes place in modern day London, 18th century England, and revolutionary France but it never g More...

Please don't hold it against the book that it took me forever and a day to read. I was feeling sick, and wasn't much in a reading mood, but this book was truly fantastic. I really liked the first book, and was looking forward to this one, a little worriedly. Imagine my surprise when I liked it better than the first book!

At the end of the first book, Kate has returned to the present, but Peter accidentally is left back in the 1700's when the villian of the book, the Tar Man, takes his place, and More...

This 2nd book in the "Gideon the cutpurse" trilogy isn't as good as the 1st. It lacks a strong central YA character because when Kate goes back to rescue the stranded Peter there is a mishap and she gets there 29 years after the 1st time, and Peter has grown to adulthood. There are nice themes running through it of getting to know a parent once you've become an adult yourself and appreciating the love and life you live, but I'm not sure these themes resonate w/ teens. This will primarily attract More...

It’s a very rare treat when the second book in a series outstrips the first one. The Time Thief did it.

I went into this book with mediocre expectations. The first book was good but not great and I was expecting more of the same. I got a pleasant surprise when the expectedly linear story time took a term for the abnormal. The first hint of which you see in Gideon’s writings which filled me with both dread and anticipation.

The plot is well done, there are parts that are predictable but Buckley-Arc More...

Review originally posted HERE

This is a review for the entire trilogy.

The Gideon Trilogy is a well-told story that keeps you coming back for more. I had a hard time putting the books down, especially the first two. Buckley-Archer is compared to J.K Rowling. I wouldn't go THAT far, but it is a good, entertaining story.

The character development is decent. I read this trilogy after reading the amazing 100 Cupboards Trilogy which has phenomenal character development, so try as I may, it was hard to More...

I won't lie, I picked up The Time Travelers, part one in the Gideon trilogy, mainly because it had awesome cover art. James Jean is such a deadly awesome artist, and I was so excited that he'd illustrated a middle school book, I just had to read it.


As a first book, The Time Travelers was a bit cumbersome. The story was a lot of fun and I was digging the characters, but I found her style was a bit stilted. It was almost as if she was attributing a 7 year olds' way of reading to her 9-13 year old More...

What a great sequel! "The Time Thief" is the second book in the Gideon trilogy and picks up where the first left off. When the time machine returned to the present, Peter was replaced at the last second by the Tar Man. Kate is horrified and plans to immediately return to the past to rescue her friend. She talks Peter's father into helping her and soon enough they are both in the past. The problem? They've overshot the date. Rather than 1763, they've arrived in 1792 and the French Revolution is i More...

I finally started, and finished, The Time Thief by Linda Buckley-Archer. I'm glad I read it. The second in the Gideon trilogy, it was hard to put down.

The book starts where the last one left off. Peter has been left behind in the seventeenth-century, while Kate and her Dad successfully transported back to their present time period. But as Peter was getting ready to transport, he was replaced by the villain in the first book, the Tar Man, or Blueskin. Kate and Peter's father, Mr. Schock, transpor More...

Whether you read it as "Gideon, the Cut-purse" or the "The Time Travelers" you may recall that book one in "The Gideon Trilogy" ends with a bang!!! Just as the Peter & Kate are about to return to their own time with Kate's father Dr. Dyer, Peter is thrown aside by the 18th century villain "The Tar Man".

This is where we pick up the story with the Tar Man learning to work with technology to further his evil goals and raise him to a position in society that he could never have attained in the 1 More...

Before I start my review I would like to address the quote from School Library Journal on the cover of this book that claims, “Buckley-Archer may very well give J. K. Rowling a run for her money. This wonderfully rich and complex novel, written in lyrical and vivid language, is destined to be a classic...” I’m not entirely certain that this trilogy deserves this much praise, and putting J.K. Rowling’s name on the cover of these books gives the impression to potential readers that they are dealin More...

This is a great follow-up to The Time Travelers and centers on Kate and Mr. Schock (Peter's father) as they head back in time to rescue Peter. But the antigravity machine has been fiddled with and they arrive in a different time zone, which totally messes everything up for them. Without wanting to give much away, we're now in a paradox -- how can they rescue Peter when his future has already been foretold?

The author deals with this paradox in an acceptable but not entirely unique way, by introdu More...

I did not read the first one. I picked this up in a hurry as a CD rental on a long drive remembering I wanted to read "The Book Thief" and oops. Got this one. That being said, I wasn't up to speed with what happened in the first book, didn't know the build up of the characters and thought that it was unnecessarily following 4 different story lines in a single book. Had I grown fond of the characters in the first book, I probably would have been more invested and interested in learning the outcom More...

This book was definately better than the first one. I gotta say I enjoyed it more because of the way it was written, the plot and everything overall.

The plot definately quickens and a lot of interesting events occur. The writing becomes more in-depth, which is good to see because I thought the previous book was shallow in some places. Although the confusion in parts still remains so I had trouble following along the story in some areas, and others I found boring just like in the pervious book.

I More...

As I wrote in my review for the first of this series, I like it a lot. Some complained to me that the second wasn't as good as the first, but I don't agree. I liked what was going on with characters (good and bad) coming to the present. Some interesting and original stuff going on. I will be interested to see where this trilogy ends up.

I think this one is better than the last one because there are more climaxes that are really exciting and explinable with all things have happened. However, with the too complicated details and explanation that make me feel somehow stressful and confusing. But it's okay that it does not botter me too much. While I read this book, I did not like to read the parts about the Tar Man and I only want to know about the parts about Peter and Kate. I think I maybe that I just felt less excited, critica More...

The Time Thief starts as the Tar Man explodes onto 21st century London. He makes a scene and already causes havoc. Meanwhile, Kate's dad and a team of NASA scientists try to decide to rescue Peter or not, because if they go back in time again, it may destroy the fabric of space-time continuum, which may destroy the multiverse. While this is happening, the Tar Man gets a guide around 21st century London. He meets Tom, his apprentice, who got to the 21st century by mistake. Meanwhile, Kate hates t More...

This was a super book! I loved the premise of time travel and this book did not disappoint. It is book two in a series of three. I will have to go back and read book one.

In book one twelve year olds Peter and Kate get transported back to the year 1763. But, in this book, Kate returns to the present without Peter. At the point she returns to the present, an evil thief called The Tar Man, also is transported. He wrecks havoc in the present and we see the two worlds collide. Kate and Peter's father More...

An excellent sequel to _The Time Travelers_ (formerly titled _Gideon the Cutpurse_). This fantasy is about time traveling (duh), and features a very quick-moving plot, but it really examines the moral and philosophical implications of time travel. (Who knew?) I can't wait for the third one.

I am quite impressed with Linda Buckley-Archer's ability to not only write a decent time travel story, but to do it in a completely believable way; she manages to come up with an intriguing plot device that explains the lack of paradoxes. I can't wait 'til the next entry into thise series!

The adventure continued
Kate and Peter's father traveled back to pick up Peter, but accidentally went to wrong years and found the grown up Peter. But they didn't realized it yet, and Peter made a decision to disguise himself as Joshua Seymour. Kate and Mr Schock finally realized that they went to wrong years and tried to go back to the year they came from, and the adventure began.
At the same time, Tar Man also went to the future and began to terrorize the world.

The characters and the settings re More...

Second books in trilogies sometimes have pacing problems, which is the only reason I didn't give this sequel to Gideon the Cutpurse (or The Time Travelers, depending on what edition you read) five stars. So many storylines are going at once that I sometimes felt I spent more time switching between them than advancing them. But the story is excellent, as Peter and Kate struggle to return home, the scientists struggle to get them back to their own time, and the Tar Man, Gideon's nemesis, who has e More...

This is one of those rare cases when the sequel is better than the original story. I feel that Buckley-Archer really upped the quality of her writing with this story. The eighteenth century dialogue sounds natural and not stilted (as it did in the first book) or like a soap opera version of the eighteenth century. The characters are more complex and layered with conflicting emotions.

Peter as an eighteenth century gentleman is an extraordinary character. He realizes that his desire to return hom More...

In the first book Peter gets left behind in 1763 and Kate returns home. Tar Man (the villain) stows away on the time machine and takes the 21st century by storm. I liked the multiple story lines, I think it prevents me from getting too bored. Time travel story lines make my head spin though and I'm interested to see if the author can come up with a satisfying conclusion.

Only slightly related to the book-I think it's funny when critics vastly overpraise these books. It seems like critics (or mayb More...

Whoa.. buku kedua lebih dalem dan lebih bernuansa dark nih..

100 halaman pertama gw rada boring bacanya, alurnya lambat dan cerita terlalu datar, dan gw curiga hal buruk menimpa salah satu chara favorit gw di seri ini, menjadikan gw menunda2 bacanya ampe sebulan..

Dan ternyata gw sangat, sangat menyesal tidak segera membaca habis buku ini. Ceritanya lebih memikat dari buku pertama, lebih gelap juga, dan lebih sedih (aw, poor Peter, ikut bersedih untukmu, nak)

Kali ini kita dibawa2 ke Prancis jaman More...

I continue to enjoy Buckley-Archer's characters and their interactions. She adeptly handles writing Peter's character with the same personality, but much older and adapted to a different time period. I also appreciate her evil characters showing a more humane side and her strong characters showing weakness.

Buckley-Archer provides interesting plot twists surrounding the concept of time travel and how it affects the future. However, I almost always feel the second book in a trilogy gets a little w More...

Definitely a better follow-up to the first. Though, I do feel that by the time this story ends, there may be a few too many characters for children to keep pace with.

Also, the one real nit I have to pick with this book is the fact that Peter assumes the identity of Joshua. It isn't the deception that bothered me, but rather the author's tendency to refer to him alternately as Peter or Joshua. Because the story is told in an omniscient view, she often referred to him as both name within the SAME More...

Also called "The Tar Man."

Loved it! At the end of the first book, Kate returns to her time, The Tar Man hitches a ride with her, and Peter gets accidentally left behind in 1763. When Kate and Dr. Dyer return to rescue Peter, a wrong button on the machine was pushed and they end up in 1793. Meanwhile, the Tar Man is having lots of fun wreaking havoc on an unsuspecting twenty first century.

In many ways, this is my favorite of the series.

The writing is amazing and the characters so well written!

T More...

This book is about thatg the NASA made a anti-gravity machine but something went wrong and it got Peter Schock and Kate Dyer back to the 1763. Kate got rescued back to the 21 centry and a villian named Tar man have got to the 21 centry too from the 18 centry. Kate and peter's father went back to the past and accidently went to 1790's instead of 1763. so peter is the same age as his father and the time machine was ruined by somebody. so the mission now is to save peter and get rid of the tar man. More...