A real page turner and very well written. Pamela Hartshorne is my new favourite writer. ( )

This book brought me back to my love of reading. I read until my eyes blurred and the book landed on my pillow at night and I reached for it again before my eyes had time to focus in the morning. A thoroughly enjoyable time-slip novel. I recommend it whole-heartedly. ( )

Time's Echo opens with a nightmare, so vivid and gripping that your are inexorably drawn into the story and can’t stop wondering what happened to poor Hawise Aske in 1577. So you go on , page after page, eagerly wishing for the mystery to be solved. Then you start doubting with the protagonist, Grace Trewe: was it all only a dream?

“I sink and rise, then sink deeper, and the more I choke, the more water invades me. There is a terrible pain in my ears, behind my eyes, and my lungs are on fire.
I am flailing, thrashing in the water, but I sink deeper and deeper. I don’t know which way is up and which is down any more. There is nothing but panic and pain and the water blocking my throat, and the bright, terrifying image of Bess looking up at him trustingly, taking his hand.
I need to go back. I need to do things differently, so that I can keep my daughter safe (…)
But I can’t speak and I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.” (p.3)

Water haunted Grace’s memories after being caught in the tragic experience of the Boxing Day tsunami, water mysteriously swallowed Lucy's , her godmother's life as it had done more than four centuries before with Hawise Aske’s life. They both drowned in the river Ouse, in York. The three women’s destinies seem tightly connected. Grace arrives in York in her attempt to remove the shock of her own negative experience, in order to sell her godmother’s house and settle a number of pecuniary legacies she had made before dying.

Go on reading at http://flyhigh-by-learnonline.blogspot.it/2012/09/times-echo-by-pamela-hartshorn... ( )

York 1577, Hawise Aske meets a stranger which leads to sibling rivalry and obsession. Modern day York, Grace Trewe is clearing out a relatives house and hears a ghostly whisper.

This book appealed to me because of the witch craft element and the dual time frame. It sounded very similar to Barbara Erskine and Susanna Kearsley, whose books I enjoy.

This book was quite good and there was enough for me to keep reading but I did find that at times it dragged. The ending was ok and both women were bought together nicely.

The time travel element was handled quite well and I felt there was no confusion and I knew where I was.

The book was nice to read and I felt it was a little sugary. It wasn't a dark book which I was expecting because of the theme.

A pleasant read for me with likeable characters and a fine story. ( )

Note: This is a copy of the review which I wrote for Smart B*tches Trashy Books RITA Reader Challenge. The original can be found here: http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/blog/rita-reader-challenge-times-echo-by-pame...
(This book was nominated in the category Novel with Strong Romantic Elements.)

I hesitated at first over Time’s Echo.[...] Its blurb bills it as a ‘running from your problems’ book, which along with ‘coming of age’ books always give me pause, as the ones I’ve read almost invariably become mired in self-righteous didactics. Not to mention the fact that other time slip books I’ve read have let me down so badly that the phenomenon’s prominence in Time’s Echo filled me with dread.

Oh, how very, very wrong I was.

I loved this book. It captivated me, it made me cry, I needed hugs when it was over.

Hawise begins the book with her death. In the transition from Hawise to Grace, the only really clear-cut transition we ever receive, the stage is set for what is in every respect a time slip. Just like Grace, we have no idea when Hawise will take over the narrative, and her grip is insidious. We sympathize with Grace, because we are similarly off-step and out of control.

Ms Hartshorne’s evocative prose envelopes the reader no matter the time setting. Despite the fact that both Hawise and Grace narrate in first person, their voices and environments remain beautifully distinct. It makes the ‘slip’ all the more creepy and awesome when you can see Hawise start to weasel into Grace’s narrative without Grace becoming aware of her at all.

One aspect of this book which won my heart was the sheer logic of it. Grace has a mind, and she uses it. Often I found myself thinking, ‘Grace, why don’t you look at things this way?’ or ‘But wouldn’t it make sense to talk to that person?’ And, through the development of the narrative, Grace picked up on these same things, in a way which felt organic to the story and refreshingly sensible. Similarly, I loved that, in order to understand her possession, Grace approached a variety of different people, from a witch to a psychologist to a priest, yet Ms Hartshorne makes no value judgement between these methods. They all help Grace, they all give her perspective, yet ultimately it is Grace herself who has to deal with what’s happening to her. Nor does Ms Hartshorne make value judgements about Grace’s lifestyle choices, which, considering Grace’s attitude towards settling down and the choices she ultimately makes, would have been incredibly easy to do. But Ms Hartshorne does an excellent job of making Grace’s choices seem right for Grace, and not a kind of morality play for the reader.

Time’s Echo was nominated for its ‘strong romantic elements’; this is like saying Hamlet has ‘mild dramatic overtones’. The backbone of Hawise’s story is formed by a girl who does not think herself as attractive as others basking in the attention of the wrong man. By the time she realizes this, she does not know how to extract herself. The romance which defines Hawise’s story is not always positive: although she finds love in the arms of Ned, her husband, the fear of Francis persists, hunting her just as the man himself does.

Grace’s romance comes much more subtly, and her burgeoning relationship with Drew, her next door neighbour, feels natural and incredibly rewarding. It would be easy to make their relationship merely a reflection of Hawise and Ned (as I complain about regarding Indira and Tomas in my upcoming review of Mark of the Witch), but Ms Hartshorne deftly allows each woman her own relationship. Grace constantly reminds herself that although she can see similarities between people in her reality and Hawise’s, one is not a replay of the other.

If I had any issues with Time’s Echo, it would be that Sophie, the daughter of Grace’s love interest, showed the danger of becoming a plot moppet: her relationship with Grace progressed from aloof to awesome friends rather too quickly for my taste. But this is, all things told, a really minor quibble, and I am heartily looking forward to Ms Hartshorne’s next book in October. ( )