"a true storyteller"
The Bride of Time is a time-travel, as one might
infer from the title, and it's another of author Dawn
Thompson's tour de force books that continually amazed me
with just how talented she was. Tessa LaPrelle is a
scullery maid in Poole House. She speaks proper English,
has manners of a lady, but she is nothing more than a maid
in the year 1903. On her day off, she stumbles across the
self-portrait of Giles Longworth and is drawn to the image
of the handsome artist, as well as another of his paintings
called 'The Bride of Time'. The painting was done in 1811
at the commission of the Prince of England, and Tessa and
patrons of the small gallery are surprised to see that it's
her face on the painting. She is continually called back
to the Longworth paintings, which seem to embody everything
her life is not. Later, she is accused of stealing a pearl
brooch from the owner of Poole House. She escapes the
Bobbies by accidently stumbling over a ley line that
carries her back to Longhallow Abbey, and face-to-face with
its mysterious owner Giles Longworth. In the year of 1811, Tessa is mistaken for the new
governess for Giles's ward, Monty, who sends governesses
running in terror and no small wonder, as this child is
more than a brat, he is evil incarnate, cursed from his
Gypsy mother's blood. Rumors abound that Longworth killed
his wife and her lover, maybe even killed Monty's step-
mother, Giles's sister, and her unborn child. Then there
are the dead animals, and sometimes dead people, in the
small hamlet near the Abbey in the wilds of Cornwall, all
left with their throats ripped out. Tessa soon sees her
charge is troubled, but wonders if his guardian isn't
partly to blame. The man is nearly brutal with the child,
spends his time sloshed with Brandy, and locked up in his
garret studio painting like mad. Or is he really mad? Mad
or tormented, Tessa cannot resist the man. Time-traveling ley lines, werewolves, Gypsy curses, and
more fill this wonderful novel that keeps the reader
turning pages. Thompson was a beautiful writer, a true
storyteller, and this is just another marvelous book in the
long line of titles spanning her 'shooting star' career.
Giles and Tessa's love that spans the years is one that
touched my heart, and will linger long in memory after the
book is put down. Another Dawn Thompson novel for my
Keeper Shelf. Reviewed by: Deborah Macgillivray, author
Reviewed by Deborah Macgillivray
Posted June 24, 2008
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**2008 PEARL NOMINEE - BEST TIME TRAVEL** **A PNR Staff Top Pick & Reviewer Recommended Read** SOME LOVES... There was little of joy and beauty for Tessa LaPrelle, a scullery maid in 1903 London, but a painting called The Bride of Time. The nude raised eyebrows and speculation that Tessa had posed. Impossible! Even if some man could make her so wanton, even if the subject had Tessa's thick chestnut hair, the work had been commissioned a hundred years previous, at the start of the Regency! ...KNOW THE BRUSH OF ETERNITY Regardless, it wasn't the subject or its uncanny resemblance to her that drew Tessa to The Bride. Nor was it fascination with the artist: one Giles Longworth, whose portrait showed eyes black as sin, wind-combed mahogany hair and broad, muscular shoulders. If any could make her wanton it was he; but he was also accused of sorcery, of dark evil things. Some even said Longworth had been a werewolf, the throats of his alleged victims torn from their bodies. No, what drew Tessa was a small window in the painting's corner, a seeming portal to that wild Cornish wilderness, to misty moors in a time gone by. Sometimes she dreamt she had been running all her life--from what and to whom, she was about to discover.
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