Quoted from GoodReads: Shelby adores her new house, until she learns it’s haunted by a grieving Confederate soldier. When a mystical spell in a hidden diary transports her to the nineteenth century, where she becomes the writer of the diary, she finds herself torn between wanting to go home and needing to stay. She realizes she is the only hope for the survival of the family she has come to love.
The blurb for Kindred Spirits caught my attention immediately! Haunted house, Confederate soldier, a spell and a hidden diary... Sounds like my kind of book!
As it turns out it is really two stories in one. The story of Shelby as she travel back in time and the story of Mary Beth as she travels to the present day. This is a theme that has been done again and again, but it usually works...
I really enjoyed the first part of the book as Shelby tries to solve the mystery of the ghost. I loved the way the ghost was presented into the story. I'm a sucker for time travel stories and was intrigued by this new twist of meeting the romantic lead as a ghost in the present day. I would have like this part to be drawn out a bit longer, to prolong the anticipation of what was to come.
I was bothered by a few minor issues as I read. First, I think that having switched bodies would be much more disorienting than it appeared to be to these two women. The author spent some time on this, but then just moved on. I would think that every time someone used her name or she glanced at her reflection the shock of switching bodies would be renewed.
I was also surprised by the fact that Shelby as Mary Beth knew how to use a quill pen and ink. I expected her to make a huge mess initially, but she didn't. I have no idea why this was an issue for me, but it was. Shelby also had several instances of using terms and expressions that should have appeared as very odd, at the least to others in the civil war era, but no one made any comments about it.
Overall, Kindred Spirits is two sweet love stories woven into one. My criticisms are minor annoyances that struck me as out of character, but may not concern other readers at all. This book is an entertaining, easy read that would be a great book to take to the beach this summer.
Thanks to LibraryThing Early Reviewers for the copy of this book, in exchange I offer my unbiased review.
1 comment:
Glenna;
Thank you for the lovely review of my book, "Kindred Spirits." It's my first release on Bookview Cafe, and I'm very excited about it. The book was originally published in German, and this is the only English language edition of it; I'm thrilled to be able to present it for my English speaking audience.
Just one brief word about your concerns regarding Shelby's adjustment to her new time period. Every author needs to decide what a story is about, and focus on that. I've written many, many time travel novels, and read even more of them, and I sometimes find it tedious when the story becomes all about the Adjustment. Time travel is great for fish-out-of-water stories, but that wasn't what I intended here. This story was about the relationship between Shelby and Lucas (and to a lesser extent about Mary Beth and Jason), so I tended to gloss over some of the smaller adjustment issues.
I'm thrilled you liked the book in spite of the bits you didn't like. Do keep an eye on Bookview Cafe for my next release in October, "Interloper at Glencoe," which is also time travel. Thank you.
Julianne Lee
www.julianneardianlee.com
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