Time of the Wolf

by Elizabeth Harris

Henry and Thea both have links with the fens of East Anglia and Florence who lives there. Thea is tormented by visions of a dark man, while Henry has stories of dark age kings related to him by Florence. When they meet Henry and Thea fall in love, only to be parted and thrown into the Dark Ages.

Genres: Fiction

500 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1994

About the author

Also writes as Alys Clare.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

Reviews

[Bonnye Reed]

MyNextRead

[Alison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting story about ancestry, reincarnation and destiny. I found the engineering of lives by Florence quite weird and uncomfortable though.

Also, the empire lifestyle of Henry's parents and his dislike of a Chinese character were rather dated and made me squirm.

[Suzie Groers · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the fourth book I have read by Elizabeth Harris and it may well turn out to be my favourite. The story of Henry, who at the beginning of the story is a small boy living with his parents in Hong Kong. All Henry wants to do is return to England and live with his grandmother, Florence, in East Anglia. After a well thought out campaign Henry gets his wish and is eventually dispatched back to England.
Once there Henry meets a young girl, Thea, who has been looking after his dog in his absence, but once Henry has his dog back he is haunted by the sadness of Thea, and eventually gives the dog back to her permanently. From there Thea leaves East Anglia and goes to live with her father. But Henry and Thea's lives are being guided by Florence, who goes out of her way to bring the two together as they grow older. She believes that their relationship is a reincarnation from an ancient story of the dark ages and she manipulates to get them together.
This was a very enjoyable story with plenty of rich historic details spanning the mid 1960's and right back to the dark ages. There is menace from the dark man who appears in Thea's life and in her trance like dreams of the past, but also humour within the thoughts of the two main characters. All in all a very enjoyable read with plenty of historical and mystical details.
Thanks to Endeavour Press and NetGalley for the advance reader copy.

[Gime Peña · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, it was a nice summer read. The beginning was brilliant: it was intriguing, fantastic and well written. The characters were lovable since the first encounter and the mystery kept me on the edge.

However, I felt a little disappointed. I was so thrilled with the plot in the beginning that was expecting a much complex resolving of the main conflict.

[Josephine (Jo) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Finished 23rd December
Not a bad story but too similar to The Herb Gatherers which I read earlier in the year, same sort of plot with different characters.

[Carol]

We are about to start reading this at our weekly book group meetings. Further comments will be made once we have finished reading this.