The Magic Hour

by James S. Crowley

This Saturday night daylight savings time will be over for the season. An hour after midnight, the clock will strike "one." But an hour later, the clock will strike "one" again. These sixty minutes suspended in time will prove to Eddie McCourt to be the most precious of his young life.

Born on October 31st, nine-year-old Eddie has a special birthday wish this year—to see his twin brother Brian who fell from their tree house and passed away just three weeks before. Somehow, though, the bonds of communication between these two little boys have not been broken. Eddie knows that somehow Brian is still alive. Eddie also knows that somehow Brian is expecting him, and that this extraordinary hour when time stands still will serve as his vehicle of transport.

In a thrilling and other-worldly Halloween adventure, Eddie seeks to celebrate his birthday with his brother and along the way develops a new understanding of life so profound that not only his life, but the lives of all those around him will be changed forever because of "The Magic Hour."

279 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2003

Reviews

[Mike]

I think that the plot of this story is a good one, and if it were written by a skilled writer with a half way competent editor it would have been something special, unfortunately, it didn't have either one.
The book is dominated by unrelenting and unrealistic dialogue that goes on for pages at a time. It literally feels like something that would have been written by a middle-schooler.
There is zero world building. I have no idea what this world looks like or what the town looks like? Why is Eddie's school so close to downtown? Is this a small town? Where is it? Is it in the US? Is it in Europe? Sometimes if feels like it could be both. Is it in the mountains? On the coast? Sometimes it feels like it could be either one of them, or both together. The author never explains any of it. Where is Witches Pointe? Why is there a castle there? Sometimes it feels like there's a big open field at witches pointe, but then, out of no where, there's an amphitheater. Why is it called witches pointe at all? What's the history? If there is a new moon that night, why is everything suddenly bathed in moonlight? None of this is ever explained.

It's, simply, lazy story telling. How this book ever got published is probably a story in itself and does not shed great light on the publisher.

The characters are fully plastic, and by the time that I finished the story, I couldn't have cared less for any of them because they weren't real. They were cartoons.

This was a dreadful book.

[Krue]

This book is my favorite book of all time I always think of the story the beginning is a little creepy ill admit but the rest of the story was pulled right out of my imagination I loved it.

[Anna]

Met the author of this book and as he was doing a short reading from a chapter and describing the book to the captive audience I was compelled to get it. I was not dissapointed, it was a little sad but a good book.

[Katherine]

This is an AMAZING book! One of the first books i didn't put down until i finished!

[Rhonda Wall]

Never finished this book. Dead twin connection creaped me out.

[Melissa]

I thought this should be in the YA section of the library. It was a fun read for October.