THE GOLDEN HOUR

Williams constructs this page-turner debut out of tried-and-true elements, from time travel and ghostly visions in a derelict old resort, to eccentric great-aunts and children hurting from their mother’s sudden death. Sent to a remote corner of Maine for a month while their grieving father struggles to get his life back in order, Rowan and his younger sister Nina soon discover that Aunts Agatha and Gertrude are seasoned time travelers, pulling artifacts from the past to stock their crowded curio shop. When Nina suddenly disappears, Rowan and two new friends hare off into the past in pursuit—to be swept up willy-nilly in the chaos of the French Revolution. The author is reasonably meticulous with historical detail, though not at the expense of keeping the story moving. After encounters with well-known French figures, the young searchers nearly have a fatal “appointment” with the guillotine before the Aunts swoop to the rescue. Then Rowan, acting on a hunch, finds Nina not in 18th-century France, but 20th-century Brooklyn, where their mother is still alive. Time, so to speak, to make some choices. A heady, if familiar, mix of history, adventure, fantasy, and character growth. (Fiction. 10-12)