I picked this one up because I was such a huge fan of the “Timebound” series. I can definitely tell this is written by the same author, as it takes place at the turn of the century, when some of the action in the previous series also occurred–and it even includes some historical figures as characters, including (prominently) Mark Twain, and (tangentially) Nikola Tesla. Jack the Ripper isn’t a character, but he’s contemporary so his murders are mentioned several times as a distraction from, and at times a confounding complication of, the plot. There’s also a great deal of focus upon spiritualism, but from a skeptic’s point of view. Honestly, it was the backdrop of the story that intrigued me far more than the story itself… I found myself wanting to read Mark Twain’s work (especially the Prince and the Pauper, which he’d just published at the time of the story… I haven’t cared for his other works, but I started that one and so far I like it a lot more). I wanted to watch documentaries on Tesla, and I started to listen to a podcast series on spiritualism too, though most of them are reverent to believers, which I find off-putting and slightly creepy as a Christian. I found a series of lectures from Ivy league professors on the subject who treat spiritualism more clinically, and I’m giving those a try instead. Same issue with Jack the Ripper–as historical context, that’s utterly fascinating, though I certainly don’t care to delve deeply into serial killer lore.

The story itself starts off rather formulaic–Miriam works at her aunt’s newspaper, whose sister Gwen vanished from an all girls’ school many years earlier, finds Gwen’s diary as well as a pendant that belonged to her. In the diary, she finds that Gwen prophesied that Miriam would one day find the pendant (which serves as a kind of McGuffin in the story–the object that makes everything else possible) and the diary. This, combined with the fact that Mark Twain’s (Samuel Clemens’s) daughter vanishes too leads Miriam down the rabbit trail of what happened to both girls, and many more from that same school besides.

The part about the story itself that I liked most was the introduction of parallel universes down the line–also quite reminiscent of “Timebound,” and another concept that in and of itself intrigues me, especially in the way that the author describes it. I did find modern political sensibilities sprinkled into an historical story rather annoying and anachronistic, though. Really? Do we *always* have to check all the boxes?

I finished this and the second book in the series, but I realized that I’m hardly paying attention to the plot at all as I listen to the third, and I’m *only* listening for the historical context. So I think I’ll probably stop there.

My rating: ****

Language: I think some? Not a lot

Sexual content: none that I recall

Violence: not egregious

Political content: not egregious either, but annoying, since it feels like it was shoe-horned in there for virtue signaling purposes

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