time travel | Book Girl & Little Bear

The White Octopus Hotel by Alexandra Bell

Imagine visiting a luxury hotel in the Swiss alps, reached by ferry or, in winter, a sleigh. The hotel has a wonderful aquatic spa, numerous fountains, and is decorated with white octopuses and clocks. Also, the hotel is probably haunted. Add in time travel, and the scene is set.

Eve Shaw has a small, quiet life, ever since a family tragedy when she was a little girl. She feels haunted by rabbits and apples, with a nod to Alice in Wonderland. Eve is an art appraiser and loves music. She meets an elderly composer, then travels to the White Octopus Hotel in 2015. Her room is designated for time travelers, and she opens her door and steps into 1935 and 1918, still at the hotel, as well as the present. She meets some of the same people in each time, and participates in a treasure hunt which may give her a prize to change her past.

Eve meets Max, who is haunted by his friends who never made it home from World War I. They explore the hotel and its grounds together, and Eve even glimpses herself as a child, along with her mother. No money is collected from Eve for her stay; her payment is the memories of her time at the hotel. Octopuses are everywhere, including on a unusual tattoo on her leg. Her hotel room has a magical wardrobe, which opens to reveal just the right outfit she’ll need for the next adventure, which fits perfectly.

Magical, often melancholy, and luxurious, the White Octopus hotel is a wondrous setting for a compelling read.

Brenda

Costumes for Time Travelers by A. R. Capetta

I really enjoyed this teen time travel fantasy. There is plenty of adventure and some romance. Calisto (they/them) is growing up in Pocket with three parents and siblings. One parent was a history professor in Australia, another was a priestess in ancient times, while the third parent is a Pocket native. Pocket has several moons and is a waypoint that most time travelers pass through. The travelers get new costumes for the next time period they’ll be visiting and have the cobblers resole their time boots. Calisto works in the costume shop with their grandmother Mena, a tailor. They design and sew costumes with a huge variety of fabrics for their customers. I really liked how the author makes costume design and sewing seem very cool.

Fawkes, a time savant, arrives in a dramatic fashion from the far future, where he had a mostly solitary upbringing. Calisto is shocked that Fawkes has only one outfit, and no home to return to. In a kaleidoscope of a story, Fawkes and Calisto time travel to the Elizabethan era where Fawkes is in one of Shakespeare’s plays. They also meet the Minotaur in Crete, and travel to Stanford University where Californians are worrying about Y2K and computers. Time wardens want to stop new time lines, and Fawkes and Calisto try to stop a time quake that may affect Calisto’s beloved Pocket, which is governed by a group of elders at their book club meetings. The romance is sweet, and the sense of place and time are vividly drawn, along with the costumes. I didn’t get any sense of how time travel actually works, and wasn’t sure if this was as much science fiction as it is fantasy, but definitely enjoyed the journey.

Brenda