A Time To Change by Callie Langridge

I finished reading A Time To Change half an hour ago, and my face is still wet from my tears. I can honestly say this is the best book I have read in an exceptionally long time.

A Time to Change: A heart-wrenching love story
“I would rather love passionately for an hour than benignly for a lifetime.”

In a house full of history and secrets, the past will not stay where it belongs…

Lou has always loved Hill House, the derelict manor on the abandoned land near her home. As a child, the tragic history of its owners, the Mandevilles, inspired her dream to become a history teacher. But in her late twenties, and working in a shop to pay off student debts, life is passing her by.

That changes when a family disaster sends Lou’s life into a downward spiral and she seeks comfort in the ruined corridors of Hill House. The house transforms around her and Lou is transported back to Christmas 1913. Convinced she has been in an accident and is in a coma, Lou immerses herself in her Edwardian dream. With the Mandevilles oblivious to her true identity, Lou becomes their houseguest and befriends the eldest son, Captain Thomas Mandeville, a man she knows is destined to die in the First World War.
Lou feels more at home in the past than the present and when she realises the experience is real she sets out to do everything in her power to save her new friends.

Lou passes between 1913 and 2013, unearthing plots of murder and blackmail, which she must stop no matter the cost.
On her quest to save the Mandevilles by saving Thomas, Lou will face the hardest decision of her life. She will learn that love cannot be separated by a century.

I read this book in one uninterrupted session as I fell into 1913 England and the fate of the Mandevilles of Hill House. This time-slip tale was compelling and believable, with an intriguing plotline, well-rounded characters and all the technical stuff is bang-on in all the right places. But I didn’t take any of that in at first because the story, the heart of this book, is what pulled me in and swept me along from the start.

We often hear that books are “unputdownable”. This one is.

I didn’t want to leave Lou’s world, either in the present day or through the veil of time to 1913. I needed to know what happened next, had to find out if Lou could change history and give Hill House and the Mandeville family another chance.

Would Lou also find the happiness and fulfilment she was denied so far?

I was in tears and emotionally drained by the end of this book. I tried to tell my husband about it and started crying again as I recounted Lou’s story.

Rating – 10 shining stars

Do yourself a favour and read A Time To Change. Find it HERE