I read this a few months ago and I think it's in my top favorite three Star Trek books. It wasn't hard to ignore the problems meshing with First Contact, since they weren't that big of a deal. About halfway through I was thinking that it's a shame they didn't use it for a movie, because it would have made a great one. It was epic, and I didn't feel that it was 'just another time-travel story' between TOS and TNG.
I think my favorite part was when Cochrane was explaining the principle behind warp travel and drew the future Starfleet insignia.
It actually made me more interested in reading the Shatnerverse novels, being that Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens helped pen them. There is also the link between them with the Preserver and the object in Federation.