Evie's Ghost by Helen Peters
| Evie's Ghost by Helen Peters | |
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| Category: Confident Readers | |
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Reviewer: Jill Murphy
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| Summary: Enjoyable time slip mystery for middle grade readers. Can Evie change the past and, if she can, what will it mean for her own future? Nicely done with wide appeal. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 304 | Date: April 2017 |
| Publisher: Nosy Crow | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 0857638424 | |
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Evie is not happy. Not only has her mother disrupted their hitherto happy duo by getting married, she has flown off on honeymoon with new husband Marcus and sent Evie off to stay with a godmother she hasn't seen for years and can barely remember. And if that weren't bad enough, godmother Anna lives in a creaky old mansion miles from anywhere, without such necessities as internet access and a mobile phone signal. Anna doesn't even own a television, for heavens sake.
Evie notices a message scratched onto the window of her bedroom and Anna tells her a story about a young girl who had lived in the house hundreds of years ago and had wanted to marry the wrong man. Her father had shut her up in the room and locked the door, but nobody knows what happened after that. Unsettled by the story, Evie has a terrible night's sleep and when she wakes up...
... she finds herself in 1814, dressed as a housemaid.
Evie feels she has been transported into the past for one reason: to find Sophia, the girl who scratched on the window, and change her fate for the better. But it's not easy. The life of a housemaid in 1814 isn't easy, particularly if you are girl from 2017 who is used to internal plumbing and central heating, let alone women's rights.
I enjoyed Evie's Ghost. It's a fun time slip story with quite a bit of excitement about it. Can Evie change history and help Sophia? Will she ever make it back to the twenty-first century? Peters gradually reveals what happened to Sophia two hundred years ago as each of Evie's attempts to help her backfire. But Evie is a determined, persistent soul and she doesn't give up. I liked Evie. She's direct and forthright and this doesn't really go down well in a housemaid in 1814, so she gets herself into all sorts of trouble with the fearsome housekeeper and even, at times, Sophia herself. Evie also has lessons of her own to learn about the resentment she feels about her mother's remarriage and also about her slightly spoiled twenty-first century ways. But I'll let you read the book to see how it all pans out.
There are all sorts of wonderful and accurate historical details about the lives of domestic servants in the nineteenth century, which are fascinating to read about. Urine from chamber pots being used in the laundry room was my favourite. So Evie's Ghost is more than a time slip adventure: it's also an historically accurate learning curve.
Fun to read, a central character to enjoy and educational too. What more could you want?
If you enjoy time slip stories, you could also look at Time Trap by Richard Smith, The Burning Mountain by LJ Adlington or Waking in Time by Angie Stanton.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Evie's Ghost by Helen Peters at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Evie's Ghost by Helen Peters at Amazon.com.
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