by Marisa Montes
From The Monterey Peninsula Herald (Dec 2002, by Bob Walch):
Aimed at readers ages ten and up, "A Circle of Time" (Harcourt. $17.00) by former Monterey Peninsula resident Marisa Montes is an intriguing blend of mystery and time travel.
Allison Blair's harrowing ordeal begins when the fourteen-year-old is hit by a car while riding her bicycle. While lying in a coma in the hospital, Allison is spirited back to 1906 as she assumes the body of Becky Lee Thompson, a teenager who desperately needs Allison's help. Not only are there cultural differences that Allison has to adjust to, like not showing too much leg, but she also has to deal with a cruel mother who is the antithesis of her real mother. The most perplexing dilemma of all, though, is trying to figure out how Allison is suppose to assist Becky.
Walking in Becky's shoes and trying to deal with her family and friends is a difficult challenge since the two girls' personalities are also quite different. When Joshua, Becky's boyfriend, notices the abrupt change in his girlfriend's demeanor, Allison has to try to convince him that she is a time traveler who is attempting to alter the past and save both of them from some unidentified danger.
Once she enlists Joshua's help, the two begin trying to untangle the mystery surrounding why Allison was sent on this bizarre "out of body" adventure. At the heart of the investigation is the family of Don Carlos Pomales and the dark secrets surrounding one of Don Carlos' daughters. The family, large land owners in the Napa Valley, have had a tempestuous past because of a romantic liaison engaged in by their eldest girl. Unlocking the mystery of this affair holds the key to why Allison has been called back in time to save both Becky and Joshua's lives.
Weaving the past and present in a credible manner can be a difficult task but Montes succeeds admirably. She even has a little ironic fun with her theme as Allison discovers a signed, first edition of H. G. Wells "The Time Machine" in the Pomales library!
Cleverly plotted, "A Circle of Time" is a little more demanding than a lot of the fiction aimed at this age group. It takes a little patience letting the story fully develop but once into the adventure a young reader will find it impossible to set down.
From Voya (05/2002):
Ratings: 4P (Quality), 4P (Popularity)
Montes effectively transports a feisty modern-day teenager back in time to help solve a mystery supported by two strong Spanish female characters, the landowner's daughter and her friend Mada, who thwart the conventions of their day but stay within acceptable boundaries for early 1900s California. This time-travel mystery will be a welcome addition to middle or junior high school library collections. Those girls who love Cooney's time travel-romance series that began with Both Sides of Time (Delacorte, 1995) will enjoy this novel with its touches of romance."
From School Library Journal (08/2002):
This time-travel, historical mystery begins as 14-year-old Allison Blair is struck by a car and almost killed. While she is grasping onto life in a coma, she is whisked away in time by Becky, who has come to 1996 from 1906 to gain Allison's help. The book flashes back and forth between the hospital, with Becky in Allison's body and about to undergo brain surgery, and 1906 on a California estate owned by a wealthy Spanish family. There, Allison meets Joshua, who was Becky Thompson's boyfriend before her untimely death. Once she convinces him of her situation, he becomes her ally and helps her change history. The focus shifts to Sadie Thompson and Don Carlos, the estate owner, and the mystery of what happened to his daughter's baby years earlier. While Allison's lessons to Joshua about feminist history detract a bit from the sense of urgency, this is still an enjoyable, compelling read. Much like Caroline B. Cooney's Both Sides of Time (Laurel Leaf, 1997), it takes on a romantic spin, along with the old Wizard of Oz theme of Allison's just wanting to click her heels three times and be back in the comfort zone of home.
From Booklist (04/2002):
When Allison is seriously injured in an accident on a deserted California road, the ghost of Becky, a girl who lived nearly a century earlier, comes to her aid. Becky's spirit sustains Allison through a coma--but at a price. In return for her life, Allison must travel back in time to 1906 to save Becky and her beau, Joshua, from their deaths during the San Francisco earthquake. In classic gothic fashion, Allison uncovers a skeleton in the closet of the powerful Cardona Pomales family that hold the key to the tragic deaths. Readers may question how readily the Victorian-era characters accept modern Allison's time traveling (Peni R. Griffin's Switching Well [1993] is more convincing in that regard). Yet fans of both mysteries and time-slip stories will like the novel, which is liberally spiced with romance and melodrama, and clarifies a bit of intriguing and tragic California history.