Author: Amy Harmon
Narrator: Brilliance Audio
Playback: 12hrs 24m
Genre: Historical, Time Travel, Magical Realism, Romance
First Published: March 1, 2019
Book Description: Anne Gallagher grew up enchanted by her grandfather’s stories of Ireland. Heartbroken at his death, she travels to his childhood home to spread his ashes. There, overcome with memories of the man she adored and consumed by a history she never knew, she is pulled into another time.
The Ireland of 1921, teetering on the edge of war, is a dangerous place in which to awaken. But there Anne finds herself, hurt, disoriented, and under the care of Dr. Thomas Smith, guardian to a young boy who is oddly familiar. Mistaken for the boy’s long-missing mother, Anne adopts her identity, convinced the woman’s disappearance is connected to her own.
As tensions rise, Thomas joins the struggle for Ireland’s independence and Anne is drawn into the conflict beside him. Caught between history and her heart, she must decide whether she’s willing to let go of the life she knew for a love she never thought she’d find. But in the end, is the choice actually hers to make?
Thoughts:
This is a slow pace book. We have the story in fragments, part of the history of the Gallagher family is given in journals written by Thomas. The story is told mostly from Anne's POV, so we come to care for her pretty quickly. This is a character based with sprinkles of thrilling events that give it a little danger - it is a common troupe to have historical Fiction to be set in times of war or conflict. I am still dipping my toes into the genre. Also, we have a big portion of the storyline romance related. This detail is more a personal issue, but the constant pinning and lack of communication between the two was pretty annoying- I have to admit that at least they kind of had a good reason to not come clean right away to each other.
It starts off very typical, Anne is an independent woman, but we do not see much of her life. The gist is that she's a writer who has acquired a renowned name that allows her to live in luxury as a full-time writer. She enjoys traveling and the person she feels the closest to is her grandfather. She doesn't seem to have many friends and no romantic interest in anyone. She has never visited Ireland- that detail is something we get bashed over the head, throughout the story. When he passes away she clearly is distraught and everyone treats her like she's made of glass - her editor and his wife who just so happens to be his grandfather's husband (small world). She decides to visit Ireland to get closer to her grandfather, visit the place he was born in and see his ancestors. The firm belief that she did not her grandfather is accentuated because she finds a journal of memories written by a man named Thomas Smith- she finds a single notebook and with that, a whole lot of questions arise. There seem to be a lot of things her grandfather conveniently did not mention about his family or his life growing up. In most cases, we don't really know the details of our parents' or grandparents' lives because they certainly lived for a long time before you were even born, but some details are kind of expected to be shared like:
Having his parents die during Ireland's independence fight.
Having a mother missing for 5 years and then suddenly appearing out of the blue to then magically disappear once more.
Being raised by a family friend - not only by a grandmother, like he always told her about.
She is kind of feeling betrayed after finding out there were big things she had no idea about. Anne starts to question if she knew her grandfather at all. While on her quest to find where the Gallegher family is buried and trying to see what information she can dig out, she meets a few old timers who tell her about the story of the drowned lady of the lake. It's very typical indeed, in any small town or any town at all there has to be some sort of local haunting ghost story. It fits with the setting even more. As per her grandfather's wishes, she finds the lake and convinces the man who works there to lend her a boat and she wants to do it alone, refusing to allow him to accompany him. She ends up falling into the water and is transported back to 1921. The time travel is never explained which annoyed me a little bit. It ends up happening in random moments when it's so convenient for the plot. The poor man who lent her the boat surely must have felt awful when she went missing after he went out of his way to help her, it must have been a big guilt trip thinking his carelessness caused a woman to drown.
Anne goes into the water and when she comes back up, she's confused. There is a fog she didn't see before and she's no longer alone in the water. The men who see her are frightened and not only that but they shoot her. They scramble and she is miraculously saved by Thomas Smith. She recognizes the name but not the man. She is very confused about what's happening, especially because they do know her, well they call her Anne. She finds out that the people who rescued her think she's Anne a woman believed to be dead for the last 5 years. And she meets the little boy, Anne's son, she is torn because she just lost her grandfather and now here he is again, alive and well- but only a boy. He's the one who needs aid and protection. Anne decides to pretend to be missing Anne Gallegher and plays off not remembering where she was since she went missing. People mistrust her because she's believed to be cruel- she did abandon her child and her family to think she had died.
It's funny to see her struggle, she has to dupe her way pretending she recognizes people, trying to adapt to the lifestyle that is so different from her own in clothing, social standards of etiquette, and so on. She is expected to mourn a husband- a man she never knew.
In addition, she is thrown into the middle of Ireland's independence fight, she knows what is about to happen from her research on the history for one of her books. And she can't help but to intervene, this unravels another set of suspicion thrown towards her. She does not know the grainy details,, after all by the time she was born the fight had long since been over. She has textbook knowledge but now she's getting to know the characters in real life and see them like real people, she feels like she can't really change what already happened but the internal struggle is there.
There is romance too, female rivalries, and attempts against her life, this books has it all. It was a nice ride but nothing too remarkable. This is a good option for people who like romance and historical fiction, the advantage is that at least this one does not take place during WWII. It is set during a conflict but it's not the main focus, it's just the scenery that's happening in the background.
The characters were not fully developed, they were portrayed only as far as they were needed for the plot to continue so I just didn't feel all that connected to them. The plot had some weird pacing, it made it into a page-turner in some areas and other's just felt like it dragged. And we had an overly convenient ending. We had up a rollercoaster of emotions with all the things that happen, and then the end just felt so underwhelming. Especially since there was no possible explanation for how the time travel worked, it just shows up when it's convenient for the plot. I think that was mostly what made me feel down, the ending bum me really, everything else I would have been ok, the story had its merits.
So at the start of the story, the mystery journal Anne finds has a cryptic message:
“Don't go near the water, love.
Stay away from strand or sea.
You cannot walk on water, love;
The lough will take you far from me.”
****From her on I'm going to talk about the end of the book, which annoyed me a bit. ****
And yes, that's what happens, she goes into the water to retrieve a ball and she almost is transported back to her time, Thomas and the boy see is blink in and out of existence right before their eyes. And towards the end of the story, in another attempt against her, the same man who shot her at the start comes for her and tries to kill her by drowning her. So she falls to the water and goes back to her own time. By then she wishes desperately to stay with Thomas and raise her grandfather as he did her when she lost her parents. But try as she might, she doesn't know how to activate the time travel thing again. She decides to leave her life in New York and move back to Thomas' house. No one in the place recognizes her as the woman who went missing all those years ago. Funny details, she's the reason of the drowned lady story, she was the woman who went into the water and never resurfaced.
As she's settled to live out her life in misery because she's trying to cope with losing everyone she started to care about and worse now she can't even share her sorrows. If she tells anyone she is mourning people she met in 1921, well they would think her delusional.
And then Thomas Smith arrives from the lough, he also time traveled, of course for him he waited a few years. He raised the boy until he was 18, gave him money, and sent him on his way. Thanks to Anne from the future they knew he would become a successful doctor in medicine and live the rest of his life in New York. So now Anne and Thomas can continue to live happily ever after because of course she is also pregnant, from when she was back in 1921 and married the guy. He's going to be present when the baby is born!
Anyhow it was just annoying, but if you love your main couple getting a happily ever after and logic doesn't have to play a part in it, then woohoo, you'll love it!
***End of spoiler section***
This challenge was used for:
Buzzwordathon: Weather words. I choose loosely this because in my mind windy is a weather word and if you squint then it includes wind.
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