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The BookViral Review:
A novel set along a dual timeline, ‘The time between us’ is historical fiction with a modern twist, a heartbreaking story of near misses, both in love and loss, written with an empathic understanding of human nature.
Lucy, on the cusp of medical school, loses her Grandfather who has raised her. While attending his funeral her boyfriend and best friend betray her. At this crossroads in her life, she makes an impulsive decision to travel to France, to the hometown of the Grandmother she has never met, and of whom her Grandfather seldom spoke.
Meanwhile, rewinding back over 70 years, Elise is turning 16yrs old in a sleepy French town. With her Father dead and her Mother frozen with grief and entirely dependent on her, Elise snatches happiness where she can, most notably in the form of the sophisticated William, a friend of her erratic and irresponsible brother.
At its start, you would be forgiven for believing that this is a love story-and it is -just not in the expected way! Marina McCarron teaches us that feelings and emotions come from a deep place that cannot be switched on, or faked. And that sometimes grief does not pass, and we cannot ‘pull ourselves together’. That hopeful decisions may not be the best ones, but that wonderful things can still rise phoenix-like from the ashes.
Historical and geographical details blend seamlessly with the story, enhancing its authenticity. Every timeframe and location feels real, mirroring the messy and complicated nature of life. The sensitivity with which McCarron deals with war is a testament to her evident forethought-of relationships forged and lost and of the horrific experiences and lasting pain which is its ultimate legacy.
Rather than rely on often repeated language devices, McCarron crafts and embeds her uniquely constructed expressive imagery to best effect, bringing the reader close and at one with the minds of her wonderfully developed multi-faceted characters, which connect to one another like a delicately spun spider’s web across time. Seldom focusing on their physical descriptions, she allows you to know them from their innermost feelings out. For instance, the sensitivity and insight with which McCarron writes the dying thoughts of Hank are both comforting and devastating in equal measure, an expression of sadness, hope and love, drawn deeply from and at one with his character and personality. This passage will bring a lump to your throat but leave you with a deep sense of solace.
McCarron does not tie her story up with a neat bow. Rather, like a basket of wool with many threads which sometimes connect but at other times barely touch, she creates breath holding moments of hope and despair, and more poignantly at its conclusion, leaves the reader on a gentle but promising cliffhanger.
A superbly enjoyable, emotionally mature and insightful 5 star read, ‘The time between us’ is unreservedly recommended!
A strange but compelling novella, ‘Lincoln and Rachmaninoff walk into a bar: A Climate Change Novella’ unapologetically weaves past, present and future expertly around contemporary life in a fantastical and surreal fantasy.
Garrison’s words echo many common biblical beliefs, such as the call to live according to the fruitages of the spirit, such as hope, joy and love. However, Victoria Brown’s message through her daughter does not shy away from some lesser accepted Bible principles.
Go back not so many years and an author was just that-an author…. who wrote, and at the most maybe edited their own work. How different things are today!
The explosion in self-publishing and the subsequent success of self-published authors has certainly turned the publishing industry on its head.
Are we desensitising our young people with the graphic offerings of modern media? And going even further, do the conclusions of ‘Bandura and the Bobo doll’ still hold true in the modern era?
Whilst the issues of prejudice and discrimination are multi-faceted and complicated beyond belief, a key moment for me was the day I picked up ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. Harper Lee implicitly drilled down the relative unfairness of human existence into my 12-year-old brain, creating a sense of outrage that has stayed with me throughout my life.
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