Evie's Ghost, by Helen Peters, for Timeslip Tuesday

Evie's Ghost, by Helen Peters (2017, Nosy Crow), is a lovely English timeslip story, and it is firmly in the tradition of mid twentieth century British time travel, so if you, like me, who loves books like Charlotte Sometimes, Tom's Midnight Garden, and A Traveller in Time, you will enjoy it lots too and wish you'd had it as a child.  And if you are a child, there's no reason why you wouldn't find it magical and wonderful.

The story starts with Evie, very grumpy and sorry for herself, being packed off to stay with an old friend of her mother's, while her mother goes off on her honeymoon.  The old friend lives in an apartment carved from a once stately home, and it's a mess and there's no food, and Evie's mood does not improve.  But carved on the window glass of her small room is a message from the past:

Sophia Fane Imprisoned here 1814.

That night a ghostly girl appears outside the window, desperate for help, and Evie, reaching out to her, finds herself falling back in time.  Evie is now a lowly servant in Sophia's grand home, struggling with the hard and painful domestic labors required of her.  She knows she's there to help Sophia, who's about to be married off to a loathsome old, but very rich, man, and she's pretty sure she won't make it back to the present until she succeeds.  The big challenge of figuring out what to do and the pressing challenges of the drudgery of her life keep her occupied, and the reader gets a beautifully detailed slice of life for working children in the early 19th century that isn't a pretty picture.  And in the end Evie comes up with a brave and clever way out for Sophia, that's a risky gamble for herself.

It's not a story that gave me any flashes of numinous wonder, but it did absolutely keep me riveted. It's interesting historical fiction lived by a modern child, believably culture shocked, and with lots of tension both from the larger plot and in the specifics of Evie's life as a servant.   And it was a surprise treat at the end, when Evie arrives at her own home before her mother does and sets to work applying her hard-won domestic knowledge to getting the place ready to welcome her mother and stepmother home.  I feel it's rare for time travel to have such practical maturing effects on the young travelers, and found this refreshing.  And it was also lovely to see Evie back in the present finding the ending to Sophia's story, and her own personal connection to it.

So, in short, highly recommended, and I will keep a look out for more books by the author.