A Beckoning from the Past

by Thomas a Miller

Based on a local legend surrounding Beaver Creek State Park in East Liverpool, Ohio. According to local lore, a canal engineer's daughter, Gretchen Gill, died during construction and was buried in crypt in one of the locks. While exploring the abandoned and dilapidated old buildings, Miranda and John are sucked into the past where they relive the events of 1834 and are exposed to danger, all the while wondering if they will ever return to their own time to straighten out the convoluted and contradictory tale of the tragic legend has become.

150 pages, Paperback

First published December 30, 2005

Reviews

[Brenda · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story starts out in the year 1979 with Miranda Wallace being sent to Ohio to research and do an article on the folk lore surrounding Beaver Creek State Park in East Liverpool Ohio. Legend has it that when the canal was being built that E.H. Gill had a young daughter Gretchen who died of the fever. She made him promise to take her back to her home country so she could be buried with her mother who fell overboard when they were coming to America from Europe. So Mr Gill kept his daughter in a crypt in Lock 41 and once he finished his work he decided to take her body back to Europe , during the ship ride a severe storm caused their ship to capsize and they were both buried at sea in the same area where the mother had fallen overboard. Miranda works for Lloyd Garrison who is an editor in San Francisco. His aunt Jenny has been after him for over a yr to do a story about the legend. So while she is away in Fl he decides to send Miranda for a month to research the story. While she is in Ohio she will stay at aunt Jenny's house and be a caretaker for her to cantankerous black cats Zak and Effie. While Miranda is doing her research she meets a local businessman John Mason who is interested in the legend as well so they decide to work together. While Miranda and John are investigating old buildings they are literally transported back in time to the 1834 celebration for the groundbreaking of the canal. The dangers they face while they are in 1834 make them wonder if they will ever make it back to 1979 so that they can share the amazing truths they have learned. This is an amazing story full of historical facts woven into a fictionalized story that is chock full of romance, lighthearted humor, suspense and a haunting story that makes this book a real page turner. I was furnished a copy of this book by Dorrance publishing but in no way did it alter my opinion of this book. Here is a link that you can use to purchase your own copy of this great read. http://www.dorrancebookstore.com/becf...

[Darcia Helle · Rating 2 out of 5]

The premise for this story's plot is great but it took forever to get there. For me, the first half of the story was a lot of meandering around with an occasional interesting scene. The characters' behavior and dialogue felt contrived. At the heart of it all was a love triangle that lacked the passion and emotion to make me care.

One thing that drove me crazy and made this hard to read - and this is my own pet peeve - is the author uses an enormous variety of dialogue tags. Rather than simply using "said" or "asked", which, as a reader, is no more than a subconscious cue that I skim over, Miller uses tags like "bantered" and "revealed" that briefly remove me from the story. Other dialogue tags, such as "pretended" and "drooled" were even worse, since you cannot drool or pretend dialogue. There had to be a minimum of 50 unique dialogue tags. Rather than writing strong dialogue and narrative that make the reader feel the emotion, Miller instead relies on this assortment of dialogue tags to convey the mood.

** I received a complimentary copy of A Beckoning from the Past as a member of the Dorrance Publishing Book Review Team. Visit dorrancebookstore.com to learn how you can become a member of the Book Review Team. http://store.yahoo.com/cgi-bin/clink?... **