A review by katyboo52
The House in Norham Gardens by Penelope Lively

5.0

This was a strange and rather unsettling book in many ways. It has some of the classic elements of the time slip novel, but where, in say, Tom's Midnight Garden, Tom is aware of moving between times and takes an active part in what happens, Clare is a more passive participant. In some ways this is more like a ghost story than anything else, except there is no ghost. Like Tom's Midnight Garden, it deals with a child's sense of their own mortality and what time and ageing mean both to themselves and to those around them. Set in North Oxford in a freezing winter where everything seems to stand still and summer feels like it will never come again, this is an atmospheric and haunting novel.