Worried about her youngest daughter’s health, Mrs. Cameron arranges for all three of her children – Alison, Ian, and Penelope – to stay with her elderly aunt and uncle on the Derbyshire farm where she herself was raised. All of the children, and especially Penelope, soon take to the rhythms of country life. However, it isn’t as restful for Penelope as the adults hoped. Penelope finds she has the ability to slip between past and present. She spends more and more time in 16th century Thackers, the country home of Anthony Babington, whom Penelope knows is destined to be executed for his role in plotting the escape of Mary, Queen of Scots. Penelope feels herself caught between the two worlds, as tragedy draws ever closer for her 16th century friends and Penelope is powerless to change the outcome.

This book combines many elements that I love, including old houses with secret passages and time travel into the past. The time travel element reminds me very much of Daphne du Maurier’s The House on the Strand, with past and present coexisting in the same physical space for the time traveler. The descriptions of the house, its furnishings, the farm buildings, and the landscape are vivid enough that I could easily picture them in my mind. The continuity between past and present, with furniture and tools in use over many generations of the farm’s inhabitants, will resonate with family historians who either cherish physical objects passed down in their own family or who mourn their lack. ( )

My third consecutive classic children's book, which I am reading as a lighter contrast to the current grim reality. This is also a timeslip/imaginative work like Penelope Lively's A Stitch in Time, but this time moving between the present day (which on internal evidence must be 1907, though the book was published in 1939) and Elizabethan England of 1582. In both time periods the setting is the fictional estate of Thackers in Derbyshire, a farm in the 20th century and in the 16th century one of the estates of Anthony Babington, a Catholic plotter who sought the release from captivity of Mary, Queen of Scots and her placement on the English throne. Penelope Taberner, staying there with her great aunt and great uncle, soon discovers she can pass from one time period to the other, but cannot control when it happens. The writing is very good, with a great feel for the colour, warmth and detail of life at Thackers in both time periods. This is a moody and atmospheric novel, with the transfers between time periods feeling dream-like/flow of consciousness, such that I sometimes forgot which time period I was in (which I think was the point). The actual plot to rescue Mary from her captivity at nearby (historical) Wingfield manor and hide her at Thackers is only a small part of the narrative. I am fairly sure I read this novel as a child in the late 70s/early 80s (though in my memory it was shorter than its 400 pages here) and also think I watched a 1978 TV adaptation, though I remember no details. ( )

This isn't my usual book to read. I was surprised at how fast the read was and how I became invested in the characters as we were transported back and forth between the story lines. The story had romance, history, politics and religion but always managed to keep the local situation in both times central. I loved the expressive ways the author detailed the life on a farm. This was a very good read. ( )

Penelope visits her aunt and uncle at Thackers Manor and finds herself stepping back and forth in time, visiting relatives and residents of the place from three hundred years before, and taking part in helping Mary Queen of Scots try to escape her imprisonment. A Narnia-style story with a history lesson and a hint of romance, too. I would have absolutely loved this one when I was a kid, and I still enjoyed it quite a bit now. ( )

Beautiful, lyric writing - so evocative. ( )