- Hardcover: 248 pages
- Publisher: Greenwillow Books; First American Edition edition (Sep 1996)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0688145981
- ISBN-13: 978-0688145989
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.7 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,339,000 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Review
‘The complex plot, which twists and turns to the surprising climax, is absorbing, but equally interesting and frequently amusing are the family dynamics and the character sketches of the four fascinatingly eccentric sisters.’
Horn Book
‘Gripping… Profoundly satisfying.’
Publishers Weekly
Product Description
Can a ghost from the future save a life in the past? A chilling tale of dark forces and revenge…
The ghost turns up one summer day, alone in a world she once knew, among people who were once her family. She knows she is one of four sisters, but which one? She can be sure of only one thing – that there's been an accident.
As she struggles to find her identity, she becomes aware of a malevolent force stirring around her. Something terrible is about to happen. One of the sisters will die – unless the ghost can use the future to reshape the past. But how can she warn them, when they don't even know she exists?
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First Sentence
There's been an accident! she thought. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
There's been an accident! she thought. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Diana Wynne Jones's characters are always down-to-earth, real people - warts and all - in slightly skewed worlds. This story is a portrait of four girls neglected by their parents, seen through the eyes of a ghost who thinks she is one of them, but is not sure which! The characters of the sisters are explored in a sensitive yet realistic - and humorous! way. As the story unfolds we discover more about the circumstances leading to the ghost's existence, and it builds to an unexpected and satisfying denouement. Wonderfully written.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I don't want to spoil the plot of this book, because the first chapter is so atmospheric and Jones hides the problem of her heroine so cleverly. In fact, the first part of the book is very atmospheric and very clever; it's only in the second part that things start to unravel, because you have a POV twist which doesn't quite work, and at the end of the story you're left scratching your head wondering what happened. Of course, those who liked it will go back and read again.
Unlike 'Fire and Hemlock', the mythology in 'The Time of the Ghost' is not so strong - actually, I wish she'd expanded upon this, as it only appears in the second part of the story. It would have perhaps added a deeper layer to the story, which ends up being rather like the film 'The Craft' (although this book was written before that).
Oh, and if you don't believe that four girls could be this neglected by their own parents, Diane Wynne Jones based the girls' situation on her *own childhood* with her younger sister, and actually left out some incidents because she thought that people wouldn't believe them! (Like the youngest sister, she did her hair in knots and waited to see how long it would take for her mother to notice - apparently, it took her mother two weeks.)
It's not her best, but it's still a brilliant read!
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I'm a fan of Diana Wynne Jones and this book is one of her strongest and strangest. She writes for several different age groups (all her books are entertaining for adults): this one is probably for teens and up, because it is among her more complex and emotionally demanding works. My favourite Diana Wynne Jones books have a trick of picking themselves up and shaking themselves so that matters turn out to be wholly different from how you first thought they were. Hexwood, Archer's Goon, and Fire and Hemlock, as well as The Time of the Ghost, all do this supremely well. There is a tremendous pleasure in tracing such bravura plotting and in the imaginative detective work needed to work out the rules of each fictional world, but a particular view of character and moral development also emerges: DWJ's characters find out startling things about themselves and about each other, suddenly perceiving new viewpoints and sometimes changing as suddenly. The Time of the Ghost juxtaposes members of a disfunctional family with their older selves, showing how immensely they have changed but also showing how bad early choices - choices about personal relationships as much as about the supernatural side of things - have continued to hurt them. The book offers a wonderfully complicated plot and a powerful, dark atmosphere but also emotional truth. Highly recommended.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Very good read :)
I loved this book and was so excited to read it! The cover was what attracted me to it, the beautiful and magical
Picture of a doll on the front. Read more
Picture of a doll on the front. Read more
Published 6 days ago by Nadia
Moving and Haunting
Another clever combination of realism and fantasy from Diana Wynne Jones. Drawing closely on her own childhood, in which she was neglected by her schoolteacher parents and in which... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Kate Hopkins
I call it "average"
This book is about a ghost who is trying to find out exactly what has happened to her. In the beginning she has no idea whatsoever except that she is utterly convinced that an... Read more
Published on 14 May 2002
Better (& more literary) than R.L.Stine or Christopher Pike
If you like a good mystery, or you just like to solve puzzles, then this may be the book for you. The main character, the ghost, can't figure who s/he is. Read more
Published on 15 Jan 1999
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