From School Library Journal
Grade 8-10?This sequel to Both Sides of Time (Delacorte, 1995) fails as both a romance and a time-travel story. Anna Sophia Lockwood once again slips back in time to be with her love, Hiram Stratton, Jr. She arrives only to find Strat's sister in the clutches of the nefarious Walker Walkley; Strat locked up in an insane asylum because of her (and the large fortune Walkley wants to get his mitts on); and Strat's fiancee, Harriet, dying of TB in an Adirondack sanitarium. Annie rescues Strat, takes him to Harriet in time for her last breath, and then sends him along his way before being kidnapped by Walkley. In the end, of course, she ends up back in her own time, better able to deal with the turbulence within her family. The time-travel device seems to exist in order to give Cooney a soap box from which to moralize on the plight of women in the late 19th century, and it stands out from the narrative like a sore thumb. Even the romance flops. The same young man who spends a wakeful night at Annie's side, watching her sleep and twining her hair through his fingers, forgets about her completely when he sees Harriet. Cooney tries several times to work in the turmoil in Annie's family, but it comes off as forced as the young woman's endless musings about the perfection of Strat's love. They are a tiresome pair of lovers, caught in a tiresome story. For more successful time-travel romance, try Jack Finney's Time and Again (S.&S., 1986) or Eileen Dunlop's Elizabeth Elizabeth (Holt, 1977; o.p.).?Patricia A. Dollisch, DeKalb County Public Library, Decatur, GA
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Gr. 6^-10. Apparently, Annie Lockwood did not fall further back in time at the end of
Both Sides of Time. In this sequel, she returns from her own time to the 1890s, where she discovers several years have passed and that her beloved Strat is being held incommunicado and shackled in an insane asylum for believing that she did indeed come from the future. What ensues is a harrowing adventure as Annie goes to the rescue, pursued by villain Walker Walkley, who was able to convince Strat's father that Strat was mad and has plans to marry Strat's sister and take control of the family fortune. The chase is exciting and the upshot satisfying. There is also tragedy, as Harriet, to whom Strat became engaged after Annie's disappearance and before his incarceration, dies of consumption. Though he now rejects his father and his money, Strat has debts to pay and a new life to begin, and this time, it's he who realizes that they must part--Annie must return to her own time. Sure to be enjoyed by readers of the first book, who will be delighted to know that a third is planned.
Sally Estes
