In her debut novel, Michelle Kidd has written a time travel novel with a very clever plot. Jewel, a young, 19 year old woman, is married to a doctor who is well regarded in their city, Lynchburg, Virginia. Unfortunately, her husband is a crazed, abuser who believes that she is a witch and that he has to beat the "evil" out of her in the same way he beat his mother and sister. (We later learn that he killed both ladies.) It is 1917, a time when battered wives were expected to endure the abuse behind closed doors.
Help for Jewel comes from an unexpected place, the future. In 2014, Jack is restoring the same victorian house in which Jewel and her husband reside in 1917. He tries to help Jewel after he hears her crying in the garden. Afterwards, for several months, they are able to communicate with each other through letters, and because of what Jack tells her, she decides to leave her husband.
Jewel's story does not end here. Kidd introduces us to the work of a detective looking for a missing Jewel in 1917, and to his detective son who resumes the search in the 1950s, and she takes us to the battlefields of World War I, to 1967, and finally back to 2014. Notwithstanding this very complex plot, Kidd manages to keep us enthralled.
The plot is truly excellent for a first novel, but the writing style is not as sophisticated as the plot. I give this book four stars, and I look forward to Ms. Kidd's future work.
* Print Length: 423 pages
* Publisher: Kindle Press (November 29, 2016)
* Publication Date: November 29, 2016
* Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
* Language: English
