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Your Time, My Time by Ann Walsh
Moving with her mother from Vancouver to Wells, British Columbia, Elizabeth Connell longs for the excitement of the city and her father, brother, and friends left behind. While she is in the peaceful graveyard of nearby Barkerville she finds a small gold ring that has very special powers. By twisting the ring on her finger, Elizabeth is transported to the nineteenth century during the heyday of the gold rush. Caught between her present life with family and friends and a love in the past, Elizabeth learns more than history.
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First published January 1, 1984
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
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December 9, 2025I am in a book club of sorts where we are all reading eachother's #1 book when we were Jr High/Pre-teen age.
This was Ashton's pick 😂
This was Ashton's pick 😂
April 17, 2012
Young teen novel about a girl who moves to a new town with her mother. She spends time at a historical site and discovers a ring that allows her to travel through time. Her loneliness is alleviated when she meets a boy in the past.
I found this book to be an read, and slightly predictable.
I found this book to be an read, and slightly predictable.
July 12, 2020
Read this entire review here: YOUR TIME MY TIME (1984): TIME TRAVEL CONSTRAINTS, LIMITS ON LOVE, AND LOCAL HISTORY
Review by Jessica Jørgensen
Overall Rating = 3.5; Romance Rating = 3
Your Time My Time (1984) is the debut novel of Ann Walsh, a Canadian writer, who has since gone on to write numerous YA novels. A common thread weaving its way through much of her authorship is the setting; she calls herself a Cariboo writer and writes about the Cariboo.
The Cariboo is a very rural district in the central interior of Canada’s westernmost province, British Columbia (B.C.), an area with a colorful past in 19th-century gold fever and boomtowns and their subsequent busts. This rich local history provides the inspiration for many of her stories, including her debut novel.
Against her will, 15-year-old city girl, Elizabeth Connell, is now stuck in the very small and very remote community of Wells, B.C. for an entire year. Her parents have separated and her mother has taken a job as a cook at the local hotel/greasy spoon/saloon. She misses her father and her little brother and her former life in the big city of Vancouver.
During the dog days of summer, waiting for school to start and with nothing to do and no potential peers in sight, Elizabeth decides to check out the local tourist draw in the area, namely the ghost town of Barkerville, which is now an open-air museum. The town and its history grips her, captivates her, and she begins spending all her free time there just hanging about.
After much exploring of the township and its surroundings, she discovers the old cemetery and soon finds a peaceful spot that becomes her place to read and write and daydream and doze. It is in the graveyard that she one day uncovers a small gold ring, a ring with some rather inexplicable powers.
Twisting the ring on her finger, she is transported back to the 19th century, to Barkerville’s gold rush heyday. And it is there – in the rather new cemetery of 1870 – that she meets a freckled boy with a crooked nose, a curious nature and a loving heart, who swiftly captures her own heart.
She and Steve begin to meet as much as they can in the graveyard – she always returning to his time. As their love grows and their need to be together blossoms, it becomes increasingly difficult to juggle the disparate timelines. Elizabeth constantly argues with her mother, lying to her in order to get to her trysts with Steve. She’s not crazy, but everyone else seems to think she is. And she and Steve learn that she cannot travel outside of the cemetery into Barkerville of 1870, and she can take no one with her on these travels. There are boundaries to this time travel.
So, what’s to become of a love bridging two time periods that is ultimately confined to a little graveyard outside of a ghost town in the Canadian wilderness? Read the book and find out.
I’ll say it right up front. I am not a neutral reader and objective reviewer here. I grew up in the Cariboo in British Columbia, so this book is covering my hood. When I first read Your Time My Time in elementary school back in the mid-1980s, I cannot express how exciting it was as a child to read a book that mentioned my hometown by name and depicted local history that I felt was also mine. That my own nowhereville could be a source of inspiration to the imagination was, well, inspirational and terribly exciting to my childhood self.
So, it was with a certain amount of trepidation that I reapproached this childhood favorite. I hadn’t read it since elementary school. Would it still enchant? Is the magic and wonder still there?
The short answer is no – and yet, still yes. The book has its weaknesses – it is a debut. It wants greater character development and deeper emotional descriptions. And yet, perhaps that assessment is clouded by the current trends in YA lit for emo descriptions in painstakingly maudlin minutiae. So, to read a diary entry of a typical 15-year-old in the early ’80s (as you do in the book), well, there is something so pragmatically banal about it and, probably, something much more realistic.
The book still moved me. And whether that’s because it awakened a childhood nostalgia or brought on a bout of homesickness for this woman, who is a long way from home, I don’t know. But the story of these two, young, time-crossed lovers does indeed move. The tears still do roll. The ending still pulls on the heartstrings.
It’s still worth a read.
Read this entire review and others (especially if you love old-fashioned chivalrous romance) at: THE SILVER PETTICOAT REVIEW
Review by Jessica Jørgensen
Overall Rating = 3.5; Romance Rating = 3
Your Time My Time (1984) is the debut novel of Ann Walsh, a Canadian writer, who has since gone on to write numerous YA novels. A common thread weaving its way through much of her authorship is the setting; she calls herself a Cariboo writer and writes about the Cariboo.
The Cariboo is a very rural district in the central interior of Canada’s westernmost province, British Columbia (B.C.), an area with a colorful past in 19th-century gold fever and boomtowns and their subsequent busts. This rich local history provides the inspiration for many of her stories, including her debut novel.
Against her will, 15-year-old city girl, Elizabeth Connell, is now stuck in the very small and very remote community of Wells, B.C. for an entire year. Her parents have separated and her mother has taken a job as a cook at the local hotel/greasy spoon/saloon. She misses her father and her little brother and her former life in the big city of Vancouver.
During the dog days of summer, waiting for school to start and with nothing to do and no potential peers in sight, Elizabeth decides to check out the local tourist draw in the area, namely the ghost town of Barkerville, which is now an open-air museum. The town and its history grips her, captivates her, and she begins spending all her free time there just hanging about.
After much exploring of the township and its surroundings, she discovers the old cemetery and soon finds a peaceful spot that becomes her place to read and write and daydream and doze. It is in the graveyard that she one day uncovers a small gold ring, a ring with some rather inexplicable powers.
Twisting the ring on her finger, she is transported back to the 19th century, to Barkerville’s gold rush heyday. And it is there – in the rather new cemetery of 1870 – that she meets a freckled boy with a crooked nose, a curious nature and a loving heart, who swiftly captures her own heart.
She and Steve begin to meet as much as they can in the graveyard – she always returning to his time. As their love grows and their need to be together blossoms, it becomes increasingly difficult to juggle the disparate timelines. Elizabeth constantly argues with her mother, lying to her in order to get to her trysts with Steve. She’s not crazy, but everyone else seems to think she is. And she and Steve learn that she cannot travel outside of the cemetery into Barkerville of 1870, and she can take no one with her on these travels. There are boundaries to this time travel.
So, what’s to become of a love bridging two time periods that is ultimately confined to a little graveyard outside of a ghost town in the Canadian wilderness? Read the book and find out.
I’ll say it right up front. I am not a neutral reader and objective reviewer here. I grew up in the Cariboo in British Columbia, so this book is covering my hood. When I first read Your Time My Time in elementary school back in the mid-1980s, I cannot express how exciting it was as a child to read a book that mentioned my hometown by name and depicted local history that I felt was also mine. That my own nowhereville could be a source of inspiration to the imagination was, well, inspirational and terribly exciting to my childhood self.
So, it was with a certain amount of trepidation that I reapproached this childhood favorite. I hadn’t read it since elementary school. Would it still enchant? Is the magic and wonder still there?
The short answer is no – and yet, still yes. The book has its weaknesses – it is a debut. It wants greater character development and deeper emotional descriptions. And yet, perhaps that assessment is clouded by the current trends in YA lit for emo descriptions in painstakingly maudlin minutiae. So, to read a diary entry of a typical 15-year-old in the early ’80s (as you do in the book), well, there is something so pragmatically banal about it and, probably, something much more realistic.
The book still moved me. And whether that’s because it awakened a childhood nostalgia or brought on a bout of homesickness for this woman, who is a long way from home, I don’t know. But the story of these two, young, time-crossed lovers does indeed move. The tears still do roll. The ending still pulls on the heartstrings.
It’s still worth a read.
Read this entire review and others (especially if you love old-fashioned chivalrous romance) at: THE SILVER PETTICOAT REVIEW
June 24, 2017
Read this book when I was younger and loved it! I begged my family to take me to Barkerville so that I could go to the cemetery and find Steve's grave.
Elizabeth is a character that every young girl can relate to, and I would recommend this book to anyone with young daughters. Beautifully written.
Elizabeth is a character that every young girl can relate to, and I would recommend this book to anyone with young daughters. Beautifully written.
June 12, 2018
I read this book when I was a kid, I don't remember it being as simple as this but it was still decently written.
July 9, 2012
One of my favorite books. I love it so much. I fell in love too :)
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews