THEN AND NOW by Willa Hix 
Time Passages
Jove – April 2000
ISBN: 0515128368 – Paperback
Paranormal / Time Travel

Reviewed by Brenda Weeaks, MyShelf.com
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Some choose to believe the past is dead and gone, never to be seen or heard from again, except in archives. Some believe the past is bound to repeat itself through others, in time.  The most unique theory I have ever heard is that we are living on a parallel earth where the past and present are in tandem, and if you stay still long enough and look to the side at just the right moment, you might capture a glimpse of it. 

In the prologue, Willa Hix starts us off with a beautiful quote from Dante Alighieri about waking up lost in the middle of one’s life. The story begins in New York, in December of 1899. Virginia Thornton is trying to hock some jewelry to hold the creditors at bay and help cover her holiday fortnight of guests at Malmaison until New Years. A tradition her parents started when they built the house where Ginny grew up and holds a lifetime of memories. Since her parents died, Ginny has been lovingly living up to the traditions of Malmaison, but her selfish husband Thomas is about to turn her secure little world into a nightmare. During the celebration, Ginny learns that Thomas has destroyed their livelihood and lost their home, and if that isn’t enough, he takes the easy way out, leaving her to face a penniless, homeless future alone. 

Have your emotions ever become so overwhelmed that you were unable to speak? So much so that your soul had to cry out from the depths of your own being for you? This is the impression I get that Willa Hix used to create her time travel and the reason that a sleeping Ginny wakes in 1999, and this is also where the “past & present in tandem” theory comes in.  The man meeting Ginny in the future, in her conservatory, is Sam Sutter – a distant relative of the man Thomas lost the house to. Once they meet, Ginny accepts the curator job, and stays on with a goal to figure out how to go back in time and reclaim her home. In this time, she and Sam build a friendly relationship, and she really wants to tell him the truth, but can she trust him not to think her crazy and toss her out of her beloved Malmaison? The plot doesn’t stop there; readers can expect an extensive storyline that is handled well, with nothing silly, or off-the-wall. Then and Now is a sweet, touching, romantic time travel.

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