Time to Remember

by Gemma O'Connor

In the early 40s, in war-torn Europe, a boy witnesses the murder of his girlfriend by a young soldier. Forty years later, by chance, he recognizes the soldier and becomes obsessed with destroying him secretly and from afar. That is, until the two men meet face to face in Oxford, one summer morning.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Thriller

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Karen Wickham · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book held so much promise from reading the blurb, but it doesn't exactly do what it says on the tin.

The blurb says that Julie Furbo starts to uncover the connection between the men when she does no such thing.

The beginning of the book was interesting as it described the event during the war and the current day clash between the two men. There's even a hint of some sort of conspiracy between the folks at the cafe.

Then Julie Furbo is introduced and the bulk of the story is taken up with talking about her past and her struggles to remember and come to terms with it.

The original story is only returned to right at the end, when things are sort of explained, but not completely. For instance what was the significance of the betting slip? The end was all rather rushed and left me feeling like I wished I'd never bothered with the book.

[Mandy]

Chapter One was beautiful, and I was interested to read more. But chapter two was tedious, pedestrian, and reading became and effort. So I dipped in the book to find out what happened to the children in chapter one, and that was that.

[Loretta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Judging by the other reviews, not many people enjoyed this book. I did. I found it rather hauntingly beautiful. Sad and somewhat vague in places, but it moved me.

Maybe there are plot holes as others have said, but I was so caught up in the story, they didn't really bother me.

I actually found it on one of my many bookshelves and hadn't read it for so long, I'd forgotten the story. Maybe I'm marching to a different drum on this one, but I'll probably try another of the author's books.

There is some swearing in this including a few instances of the 'F' bomb.

[Plum-crazy · Rating 3 out of 5]

An intriguing story that switches between Oxford in the 1990s and France during the second World War.
In 1944 a fifteen-year-old boy sees a friend murdered by a young soldier.....fifty years on the two men meet again but afterwards seemingly disappear. However, there was a witness to their encounter, Juliet Furbo, a young policewoman who is intent on tracing the men but in doing so forgotten memories of her own turbulent past come to the surface.

Although this is a mystery/thriller, it's also very much a story about people coming to terms with their pasts....quite a well-written page turner that kept me interested till the end.

[Rachel Chivers · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have no idea what I just read. The author flits between 2 stories, one past, one present. Neither bearing any correlation to the other. The only reason I finished reading this book is because I can't ever give up on a book once I've started. I always give it the benefit of the doubt. There's always the chance that the turn of the next page will see an improvement. Not this time. Waste of my time. Don't make the same mistake.

[Patricia · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book started well. There were two strands to the story , separated by time and place, and it was interesting to see how they would be joined. The first 2 thirds kept me interested but I felt the end was rushed and the coincidence of the characters all finding themselves in Oxford was just not credible.

[Vickie Taylor-Edwards · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book started off really well and I was really enjoying it but I felt there was too much emphasis on Juliets story and not enough on the war/present day and the men’s story. Having said that it was very well written and I liked the writing style.

[Jenny Cooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

The success of this book is in the characters. They are quirky, intelligent and fascinating.

[Paulina · Rating 3 out of 5]

i got put into a huge book slump while reading this but the book was fine. It had s lot of big words in it so if i ever wanna learn English vocab this is the book i’ll read 🤡

[Cara Hales · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading parts of the book but found the story hard to follow - couldn't work out who was who and I had to go back to the accident to read again what happened. The random appearance of 'uncle' that popped up was just random and didn't fit in really.

[Fi · Rating 3 out of 5]

It started off well, & clearly the author knew where she was heading, as it ended ok too, but the middle bit got rather messy; not a particularly memorable read

[batya7 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh. Muddled story line. Learned some history about WW2, but couldn't ignore flaws in story, connecting the two story lines together.

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bit confusing at the beginning but all explain at the end of book