Written by Helen Fisher⭐ ⭐ ⭐
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I should first of all like to thank the author, Helen Fisher, the publisher, Simon & Schuster, and Netgalley for an advanced readers copy of Space Hopper to review.
I read Space Hopper during the #20BooksOfSummer20 Reading Challenge hosted by Cathy @746books.com.
Space Hopper is available for pre-order now.
I read Space Hopper during the #20BooksOfSummer20 Reading Challenge hosted by Cathy @746books.com.
Space Hopper is available for pre-order now.
The blurb:
As much as I love and need my husband, over the past few months I’ve realised something important. I can’t tell Eddie what’s been happening, no matter how much I want to. Not because he won’t believe me, but because he might.
And if Eddie believes me, he’ll try to stop me.
Faye knows that she is lucky. She has two beautiful daughters, a caring husband, close friends. The only thing that is missing is her mother, Jeanie, who died a long time ago. It is a loss that Faye feels ever more keenly as her own children grow older. Although her grief is always there, she has learned to keep it locked away.
And then something extraordinary happens, something that might allow her to speak to her mother again.
Faced with the chance to finally ask her mother all the questions she never could, Faye finds it impossible to let go of the past and live in the present. But does she really need to choose between the two? If making that choice means saying a final goodbye to her mother, Faye will try anything to hold on to both.
Beautifully nostalgic and incredibly moving, Space Hopper is an uplifting debut about mothers and daughters, time and faith, and deciding when, and how, to let go of the past.
Romance Time Travel
My thoughts:
I was enticed to read Space Hopper by the alluring blurb. I rather enjoy the idea of time travel and how it might help unravel family mysteries, or just reunite family for a few minutes.Space Hopper is told in the first person from the perspective of Faye, wife to Eddie, mother to Esther and Evie, and only daughter of Jeanie Greene who died when Faye was very young.
Despite having amazing adoptive parents, Em and Henry, Faye has always wondered how her mother died. Em and Henry told her as a child that Jeanie had caught a cold and died. But she has always questioned this explanation.
Tidying up one day, Faye finds a photo of herself taken at Christmas 1977, sitting in a box which had contained a space hopper, under a Christmas tree. It evokes memories and leads her to find the old box, stored in the loft. Faye discovers that this box is a gateway to her past, back to a time before her mother died. This gateway provides an opportunity to see her mother again and perhaps prevent her from dying and leaving Faye alone.
I found this story very slow to get going. The first half is told at length, with Faye pondering the possible effects of her actions. Rather than drawing me into the story, I found this cumbersome to a point where I considered not finishing the novel.
But then along comes Louis and the writing changes; the story becomes more readable and I thoroughly enjoyed the last half of the story. It made me think about actions and their consequences; the possibility changing events in the past; family and the prospect of just one more day with a loved one, no longer in our lives.
Now heavily invested in the story, I assumed we would learn what happened to Jeanie, but was not expecting the twist that came at the end of this tale.
As well as time travel, Space Hopper is about faith, family, friendships and love, and proved to be an enjoyable read.
Good cover!
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