A Traveller in Time

Author: Alison Uttley 
Publisher: Folio Society 
Publishing date: 2012 
Pages: 214

Penelope Taberner is a lonely girl with wild imagination, who likes to travel and experience world through books. Weird things sometimes happen to her, and shortly after she is sent to live with her aunt in the countryside, she discovers her ability to travel in time. She reveals secrets about the great old house and its inhabitants in her ancestor's time. She soon finds herself tangled in the history, as she starts to care for the people in the old days, but realises that she has to go back to her time all the same...

I've learned about this book from the Folio Society page, and to tell the truth, I actually bought it for its beautiful cover that is so typical for this publishing house. Every book of theirs is a piece of art. But you can trust their choice of books as far as the content goes too. They publish the best of each genre and make the books to excel at their looks in order to adorn every bookshelf.

"It was neither dream, nor sleep, this journey I had taken,

but a voyage backward through the ether."

A Traveller in Time is a beautifully written historical fiction story with a touch of a magical realism to it. The writing style of Alison Uttley is incredibly unique and utterly ubsorbing. I found myself completely lost in the book from the very beginning. The narrator's voice of Penelope was very absorbent and pensive. It had wonderfully calming effect on me, but at the same time I was very keen to know what was going to happen...

Real historical events intertwine with a fictional story in this book. The main character travels through time and reveals the past of a family of Babington's, which inhabited the manor house of Thackers, where she is now spending time with her siblings. The house itself is very detaily described and therfore feels almost like another character of the story. It is certainly an old-fashioned book, for the language is aged, but its inherent charm has the power of making readers to fall in love with it regardless of the time they read it in...

Rating: 5/5