The Golden Hour
Maiya Williams
(Guest Reviewer - Ellen Lymond)
2004 Abrams Books
ISBN: 0810948230

While visiting their aunts in a small New England town, Rowan & Nina discover a secret shared by the whole town.

Guest Reviewer Ellen Lymond writes:

The Golden Hour is Maiya Williams's charming debut novel for young people. The main characters, 13-year-old Rowan & 11-year-old Nina Popplewell, visit their eccentric aunts in a small Maine town after their mother dies. Although both children are shattered with grief, Nina has withdrawn from the world, while Rowan is filled with anger at his loss.

The children don't have much time to dwell on their sadness. They soon discover that the whole town shares a marvelous secret -- the townspeople can travel in time! They can leave at the hour of evening when the sun is just beginning to set, when everything is at its most beautiful -- the golden hour. & they can go anywhere in history that they want.

Rowan & Nina jump at the chance to travel in time. However, Nina jumps first, & Rowan & his new friends, the twins Xavier & Xanthe, must try to find her somewhere through the ages. They decide she must have gone to France during the French Revolution, & follow her there.

The Golden Hour contains a realistic & interesting depiction of this tumultuous period in time. Each child takes on a different social disguise, from upper class nobleman to lower-class servant, & Maiya Williams does an excellent job of showing how the different social classes must have viewed the events of the French Revolution. Most interesting is the children's differing attitudes toward Queen Marie Antoinette.

They have adventures, as you would expect, & find themselves in great danger from which they can only escape by traveling to a different time period. The story is exciting, &, in places, surprising!

My only complaints about The Golden Hour are that it seems less developed than it could have been. Rowan learns valuable lessons about love & loss, but we don't see these lessons taking root in his heart. The mere act of traveling in time will not teach a person anything, so how did Rowan make the leap from an adventure to a discovery about life? Also, Nina's destination when she uses the time travel machine seemed fairly obvious to me, but the children had an unconvincingly hard time figuring it out.

Otherwise, Maiya Williams has written a touching, exciting, & charming novel that junior high readers will enjoy, & possibly learn from.

Maiya Williams will be publishing a sequel, The Silver Hour, soon.
(07/04/04)

Guest Reviewer - Ellen Lymond
2004©Ellen Lymond