Whispers Through Time
In this novel that slips between the 19th and 21st centuries, Chris, the bereaved wife of plantation heir Geoff Cameron, cannot bear the circumstances of her husband’s untimely death at the hands of his deranged ex-wife. When a chance comes (through her ghost-whisperer daughter and a necklace) to travel back through time and try to change their circumstances, she’s off to Reconstruction-era Virginia to intercede in the life of her husband’s ancestor, Confederate army veteran George.
Chris quickly becomes the other woman in a triangle with George and his estranged wife, Margaret. Her presence changes some events, but other tragedies are compounded before Chris is brought back years earlier than when she left. Back in the 21st century, she’s confused, but with memories returning via her still-haunted-by-the-past husband Geoff and the spirit of her not-yet-born daughter Sarah.
Author Murphy does an admirable job in keeping the complex timelines and alternate histories of her story understandable and flowing, and her race against tragedy is fast-paced and often gripping. But Whispers in Time is marred by pedestrian writing and flat characterization, including a brittle heroine who stops in the middle of a crisis to yearn for her butcher block table and fluorescent lighting.
