A Ring through Time (Felicity Pulman, HarperCollins)

Allie feels like an outsider at her new school on Norfolk Island. There’s only one person she looks forward to seeing—the carefree, popular and handsome Noah. But things don’t get off to the best start when she and Noah have an argument in history class over Allie’s ancestor John Bennett, the last commandant of the island’s penal colony during the convict era. Allie is determined to prove that Bennett was a good man, but everyone says he was a brutal tyrant, including Noah, whose own ancestors suffered at Bennett’s cruel hand. When Allie discovers a diary written by Bennett’s daughter Alice, she learns of a tragic love story that connects her to Noah, and also shows Bennett in a terrible light. This part-historical romance, part-ghost story alternates between Allie’s life and Alice’s diary, but the time shifts could have been more smoothly woven. Allie’s section could also have been developed a little better—at times it felt like merely a device to tell Alice’s story. Some scenes were too farfetched or corny (or both), detracting from the book’s better-drawn elements, in particular, its well-researched historical details. This book is aimed at readers aged 13 and up.

Hannah Francis is a bookseller at the Younger Sun Bookshop in Yarraville

Books+Publishing pre-publication reviews are supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

Category: Reviews