Time Will Tell

by Sally Worboyes

September 1953, London's East End - Edie Birch, who believes herself to be a war widow, has finally allowed herself to fall in love again. Engaged to be married, she is happily planning her wedding day. But fate has a blow in store - her fifteen-year-old daughter, Maggie, is pregnant. A plan has been hatched to stop her daughter from falling from grace. Hidden away above an Italian caf in Islington until she is ready to give birth, Maggie works long hours behind the scene while her mother Edie, in East London, feigns pregnancy. The charade works until the baby arrives and hard decisions are to be made. Can Maggie return home and cope with the pretence of her own child being her brother And will her boyfriend's close Italian family agree to give up their grandson Worse still, will the truth out once Edie's first husband turns up to demand his rights as grandfather

Hardcover

First published November 22, 2004

About the author

Sally Worboyes was born and grew up in Stepney with four brothers and a sister, and she brings some of the raw history of her own family background to her East End sagas. She now lives in Norfolk with her husband, with whom she has three grown-up children. She has written several plays which have been broadcast on Anglia Television and Radio Four. She also adapted her own play and novel, WILD HOPS, as a musical, The Hop Pickers.

Reviews

[Peter McGinn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started this book for a few reasons. I often enjoy books written by British writers, plus it seemed to celebrate everyday life, rather than depending upon action, violence or other elements of a lot of bestsellers. Plus, since I write a lot of dialogue in my own novels, I saw there was a lot of dialogue in this book. And that speech seemed realistic, the way people really talk.

The story develops at a leisurely pace, and for a long time I was okay with that. It felt cozy to sit and read about these people's lives as they revealed stories about their pasts to each other over tea, as well as talking about their present living conditions, love lives and even their future hopes. The characters are all treated gently and in a three-dimensional way. There are no clear-cut bad guys here, just fallible human beings who might let others down but not out of evil intentions.

But I must confess that somewhere well past the halfway point, the pace of the story finally seemed to be a bit too slow for me. Partly because there were still more revelations about past incidents - backstories about characters when I was more interested in the present and the future. Also, I began to feel the lack of humor in the writing, again, probably because I use humor in my books and hoped to find more of it here. There was some, mind you, but considering that it was obvious that several of the characters had wit and a good sense of humor, it just highlighted, for me at least, that there wasn't more clever use of it in the conversations.

Near the end of the book there were a couple of dramatic plot developments, which almost felt like too little, too late. Perhaps we needed more stuff happening earlier in the book, and a bit less said and remembered. But it looks like this novel is part of a series of books about these characters, so that might help explain the leisurely pace.

The book is well-written, and if you like soap operas or enjoy a bit of neighborhood gossip, I encourage you to give this book a try. The pace and the balance of humor with memories and drama might suit you to a T, or with these Brits, perhaps I should say "tea." So brew up and give it a read

[Asmaa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it

[Katie]

absolutely brilliant book, read whilst i was pregnant and would read again, only sorry i didnt read any books before it!