BOOK REVIEW - THE EDGE OF DARK BY PAMELA HARTSHORNE

A dark, page-turning tale from Pamela Hartshorne, author of The Memory of Midnight and Time's Echo, and a perfect read for fans of Barbara Erskine and Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series.

Part of a trilogy 

This novel shares much with the previous two in the trilogy, Time’s Echo and The Memory of Midnight - which I both read and reviewed - but it is not a sequel, nor a prequel,  the three plots and the characters are not related any way.
The three novels share the geographical setting (York), the time-slip pattern (Elizabethan Age/present day), the presence of supernatural events and the fact of having two female protagonists.

In The Edge of Dark, the two heroines live in distant eras but share a great deal of tragicality in their respective lives. Roz Acclam is the only survivor to her family’s slaughter by fire and Jane Birkby faces the outcomes of her vow on  deathbed  and the hardship of being a woman in the 16th century. “Beware what you wish for” may well be the leit motiv for them both.

Book Blurb

Jane believes in keeping her promises but she’s caught on a twisting path of deceit and joy that takes her from the dark secrets of Holmwood House in York to the sign of the golden lily in London's Mincing Lane. Getting what you want, Jane discovers, comes at a price. For the child that she longed for, the child she promised to love and to keep safe, turns out to be a darker spirit than she could ever have imagined.

THE MEMORY OF MIDNIGHT BY PAMELA HARTSHORNE - BOOK REVIEW

Book Blurb

One hot day in Elizabethan York, young Nell Appleby is trapped in a wooden chest, and a horror of the stifling dark - and of the man who trapped her - dogs her for the rest of her life. Wed to the sadistic Ralph Maskewe, Nell must find joy where she can, until the return of her childhood sweetheart offers a chance of flight to the New World. Will Nell risk all to escape the dark at last?

Four and a half centuries later, Tess and her small son Oscar move to York. Eager to start a new life, away from her overbearing and manipulative husband, Martin, Tess tries to put her marriage behind her. But time in York has a way of shifting strangely, and memories of a past that is not her own begin to surface with disturbing effect. Living two lives, torn between two worlds, Tess must unlock the secrets of the past before she can free herself - and Nell -once and for all.

AUTHOR INTERVIEW AND GIVEAWAY: PAMELA HARTSHORNE, TIME'S ECHO

Join me and welcome Pamela Hartshorne at FLY HIGH! Today's guest has had a 20 years' experience as a romance novelist (pen-name Jessica Hart)  and has now published her first historical fiction novel with her real name. It's a brilliant time slip mystery set in York  in the years of Queen Elizabeth I (read my review) Leave your comment or questions for Pamela + your e-mail address to get a chance to win a paperback copy of Time's Echo.   Open worldwide, the giveaway ends on 30th September. 

Hello Pamela and welcome at FLY HIGH! Thanks for accepting my invitation. I’m really glad to have the chance to ask you some questions about yourself and your new “time slip” novel, Time’s Echo. 

Thank you for having me, Maria Grazia!  I’m delighted to be here.  Isn’t it great how the internet makes it possible for us all to communicate with each other like this?

It is wonderful, indeed! My first  question for you is :   What’s it like to live in York?  Does living in a town so  full of history  influence your writing?

I love living here – York a very ‘livable’ city, small enough to walk across easily but big enough to have lots going on.  And yes, I love the fact that you can feel so much part of its interesting history.  Going in to have a coffee or post a letter, I walk along the same streets Hawise walks along in TIME’S ECHO, and every time I go out, I get newly inspired!

TIME'S ECHO BY PAMELA HARTSHORNE - BOOK REVIEW

She reached out from the past, and whispered her name... 

York 1577: Hawise Aske smiles at a stranger in the market and sets in train a story of obsession and sibling jealousy, of love and hate and carpe desire. Drowned as a witch, Hawise pays a high price for that smile, but for a girl like her in Elizabethan York, there is nowhere to go and nowhere toh ide

Four and half centuries later,Grace Trewe, who has travelled the world, is trying to outrun the memories of being caught up in the Boxing Day tsunami. Her stay in York is meant to be a brief one.

But in York Grace discovers that time can twist and turn in ways she never imagined. Drawn inexorably into Hawise’s life, Grace finds that this time she cannot move on. Will she too be engulfed in the power of the past?

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?