Review:: Window In Time A Time-Travel Fantasy by Charlotte A Banchi

Window in Time - A Time-Travel Fantasy by Charlotte A. Banchi

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Window In Time A Time-Travel Fantasy by Charlotte A Banchi

I enjoyed this book a lot. There are a few speed-bumps (mostly of my own making; I believe) along the way that could have gotten in the way but I think the Charlotte Banchi does a great job of keeping the pace going and keeping the readers interest up and it makes this a very good read. I did have some reservations about another wizard school story-a certain British wizard uprooted and dropped in Oregon. The time travel aspect added a nice spicy flavor but that too has it drawbacks in that it reminded me of a device similar to the parallel universes of Star Trek where the main cast get to alternately play some evil part. And as far as time travel goes I love all kinds and really enjoy the ones with a lot of history showing up in the pages. I don't think I got much history in here. But internally and just trying to keep up with the lives of the main characters I think there was enough going on to say that historic accuracy could have just been too much distraction.

I've read a few Mage novels in the science fiction category so I'm only a bit more schooled about magick's than I'd be if it were only the HP novels. Still it took a few pages to get past that feeling that this is written around that set of novels before accepting it for itself. Wands, spells and spell-books, grimoire's and evil creatures from other dimensions and the dark evil that brings out the worst in everyone all almost smelled like fan fiction. There are a lot of similarities and so we have to go for what stands out and that's that this is a time travel novel.

Sentinel Sebastian Darkus already has problems, with his marriage, and he's trying to figure out just what went wrong between him and Kenna when the Dark Magick Warlock Hunter Sloane decides to wage war on Merlyn Academy killing adults and students alike. Being left in charge of several orphans and with the help of his twin sister Celeste they are waiting for the other shoe to drop while Sebastian is still struggling with the notion that everyone saw his Kenna helping Hunter Sloane kill the other witches and wizards. Knowing that this has something to do with the great dark magickal Obsidian Star, Sebastian decides he should address the question of where the Star is by going to the source in the past. He starts in the immediate past because his father in-law Bill Abbott has laid claim that he held the Star in his bookshop just only a few years earlier.

This eventually leads to the necessity to go all the way back to the real source, the time when the Star dropped into our dimension and Sebastian has mostly only tales and myth to guide him, but he eventually visits Merlyn in the 16thcentury past.

I've recently read a number of time travel novels (One that hasn't yet been published -ARC) and there is always that place where the author has to decide what to do with the altered time lines. In this case Charlotte double duties it as I mentioned by using it as a device to pass the evil ball from character to character, which was rather interesting.

There are a couple errors that slipped past the editing process but really not that much. A few times I was befuddled by the way a sentence was stacked. And there's a reference to Anne Frank that still has me scratching my head, but I'll get over that.

This is for fantasy lovers who are not obsessed with historic accuracy or being transported visually into a stunning rendition of the past. Time Travel afficionados should enjoy it as a light read.

This story keeps the reader moving along and guessing at where and what the grimoire is and reads well enough to finish in one read.

J.L. Dobias



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