Customer Reviews

The Golden Hour

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The book The Golden Hour by Maiya Williams is an extraordinary read for children ages 10 and above.

In the beginning, we meet 12 year-old Rowan and his sister Nina, who are still mourning the death of their mother the previous year. Rowan and Nina are sent to Owatannauk, Maine to live with their two aunts for a month. They have the cliché aunts... Agatha, who is short, plump, and friendly, and Gertrude, who is tall, skinny, and has a great deal of rectitude. There is a mystery about this little town, though: everything looks as if it came from a different era.

Rowan and Nina befriend 12 year-old twins Xavier and Xanthe, and together, the four of them discover the alleviators - time machines - in an old, broken-down hotel that comes to life at the "golden hour." As they discuss the possibilities of going back in time, Rowan tells Nina about the Enlightenment, a time when learning and the arts flourished and people were optimistic. Later, he is horrified to find out that he'd told her the wrong dates and accidentally convinced her to retreat to France during the French Revolution!

Rowan, Xanthe, and Xavier travel to the late 1700s and experience the dread and hatred that took place during the French Revolution and particularly on Bastille Day. They are forced to watch the strident accusations and brainless assumptions made at that time. They are also fortunate to meet some of the more ardent and passionate people of the period. Rowan and the twins are almost killed, and then they discover something that makes Rowan wish he had never been born...
Fortunately for the anxious reader, a happy and encouraging twist occurs, to satisfy your hunger for a good ending.

This book is like an ice cream sundae; the dark chocolate ice cream is grief, with the vanilla representing happiness. The hot fudge (the part that makes the whole thing a great dessert) symbolizes the backdrop of history that is streaked throughout the pages - some of the characters truly existed, and most of the historical information is factual. The scattered nuts represent friendship, and the whipped cream is the icing on top: the reality of the story, how the characters, action, and dialogue seem so realistic. Last but not least, the sweet cherry symbolizes the romance between two of the main characters, which completes the whole book.

The story was very entertaining, and I always looked forward to reading more. The Golden Hour by Maiya Williams is a great book, with interesting and believable characters, and that is why I chose to rate it a five.

This time-tripping fantasy is so fast-moving and fun, your kids won't realize it's good for them. The non-stop adventure also contains lessons on self-esteem, racial harmony, and great dollops of French Revolution history. Ms. Williams is an amazing mix of J.K. Rowling and E.L. Doctorow.

This is a marvelous book, touching and exciting. Maiya Williams dos an excellent job of making the time period of the French Revolution come to life by having each of the four children who travel back in time become a member of a different social group of the time. Their attitudes towarad the events surrounding the French Revolution are therefore very different; most interesing are their differing views of Queen Marie Antoinette.
Although the book deals with children's loss of their mother, I'm not sure this book will be particularly helpful for other children in that situation. Rowan and Nina learn lessons about accepting loss and moving on with life, but we don't get a clear idea of how these lessons are drawn from their experiences. I think Maiya Williams could have made these connections a bit more obvious for the readers.
Overall, however, this is a delightful book, life-affirming, moving, interesting and exaciting. I look forward to Williams's sequel, The Silver Hour.

Maiya Williams' terrific novel reminds me of some of the great old adventure stories of my childhood, books that took me to exciting and sometimes harrowing moments in history in the company of a reliable hero. This would be a great book for families to read aloud together after dinner or for kids to curl up alone with at night. Sheer good fun.

Maiya Williams book belongs in the same category of children's books that I loved as a child and still remember as an adult: The Phantom Tollbooth; A Wrinkle in Time; The Wizard of Oz series. At once fantastical and rooted in true characters, "The Golden Hour" is delight to read -- well written, wonderfully plotted, surprising and fun. Not to mention the unusual backdrop of the French Revolution ... I gladly recommended this book to my niece who loved it as much as I did.

I really did like this book but at the beginning it seemed to be quite boring. But after a special event at a special place, it starts to get kind of interesting. Also near the end, many dangers that have a life or death outcome almost end up with death. But I don't want to give it all away. All I'm saying is that this book has everything. It has happiness, sadness, drama, and even suspense.

This story takes place in a fictional town called Owatannauk, Maine and has an enchanted old hotel with the same name as the town. Where Rowan a 12-year-old boy finds two other 12-year-olds Xanthe and Xavier. Then they go into Revolutionary France to try and find Rowan's sister, Nina. But at the end there is a little twist that puts the reader at a stump for thought.

The reader that would like this book is a reader who likes those stories about the future or about the past. This book does have actually real people from Revolutionary France back in the 1790's. Also a reader who likes to gradually go into the action and suspense would like this book to. Mostly, just people who like to read should read this book.

Rowan Popplewell is thirteen. He and his younger sister, Nina, have experienced a great loss. That loss so impacted Nina that she has refused to speak for over a year. To complicate matters, things are not going well at home. Their father is grieving and the family bakery is on the verge of bankruptcy.

With their home life on the skids, Rowan and Nina are sent to stay with two unusual sisters (who actually are not sisters) that are known as Aunt Agatha and Aunt Gertrude (but they are not really their aunts) in a tiny Maine town called Owatannauk, population 104 (twins were recently born).

Rowen notes that everything about the population and the town itself is strange. Few people use electricity and their cars, appliances and other items are really old, but look new. Something is amiss.

Shortly after arriving in Maine, Rowen and Nina meet twins Xanthe and Xavier Alexander. The four children investigate an unusual abandoned hotel in the woods. They've been warned not to go near the hotel, but their curiosity gets the better of them. What they find and what they lose when they enter the property is the adventure of a lifetime!

The Golden Hour is wonderful! Author Maiya Williams writes an adventure filled with excitement, history, love, courage, healing and friendship. It's a page turner that will interest 9 to 13-year-old kids and maybe a lot of young adults also.

Armchair Interviews says: The Golden Hour is the first in a series. Read it and then rush to pick up The Hour of the Cobra and The Hour of the Outlaw and enjoy!

The Golden Hour is a fictional book filled with excitement and suspense. When you look at a tiny detail on the front cover, you see a guillotine. This gives you a feeling that a guillotine will be involved in the content of the book. There is one, but not in the way you would think. This is a wonderful story with two girls, two boys, and one huge mistake in the time of the French Revolution.When a foursome run into a magical mysterious hotel with "alleviators", three of them travel through time to the wrong place, looking for the fourth character, Nina, who ran away through time. In this book, everything you couldn't get in Harry Potter comes alive. Reading this book makes you feel like you are in the midst of the raiding of the Bastille, and at the time period of the French Revolution. I recommend this book to everyone.

The Golden Hour has a strong premise and a backstory that should lend a hefty sense of dramatic weight, but it unfortunately falls a bit short of its potential, even given the allowances for young adult fiction. I have to admit that it came as no surprise that the author writes for television. Not that TV writers are necessarily bad, but the book had that not-quite-all-there sense of TV writing. It could have slowed down a bit in several places for greater effect but felt as if it were always rushing on to the next thing.
Rowan and Nina Popplewell, still trying to recover from their mother's sudden death, are sent by their father (also clearly not recovered) to stay with their mother's two eccentric aunts in an out-of-the-way corner of Maine. Nina, a child musical prodigy who has given up both piano and speaking since her mother's death, and Rowan, who must come to grips with his own buried sense of anger and abandonment, are quickly met with a set of small mysteries surrounding the aunts and the small town.
With their new friends, the twins Xanthe and Xavier, they learn the secret (though not really all that secret) of the town's abandoned Owatannauk resort. The old resort is actually a time-machine of sorts, giving its "guests" the opportunity to time-travel during the "golden hour," ("the short period of time between day and night.") or the "silver hour" (the analogous morning time). There are a host of rules involved, including the fact that one must have "need" to use the "alleviators", though some of the rules are more consistently applied than others it seems. Before the children can think through the opportunities and possible consequences, they are forced into trying to track Nina through the chaos of the French Revolution.
Most of the book is in fact set during that time, with the children taking on various roles (noble, servant, artist) and meeting various famous historical figures of all classes and sides (King Louis, Robespierre, etc.). Nina and Rowan's loss is the backdrop to the frantic search for Nina before she is hurt or the three are left in revolutionary France permanently. Further complexity is added by some group dynamic tension, some early adolescent sexual tension, and some social unease over the fact that the twins are black (forcing Xavier for instance automatically into the role of servant).
The book moves along quickly, but at times too quickly, even for the young audience it is aimed at. Characters, with the exception of Rowan, are not fully fleshed out (this is especially true of the historical characters), and even Rowan remains something less than a three-dimensional character. Lessons are learned a bit too easily, motivations and intentions shift too quickly, too much is glossed over.
The plot is overly contrived at times, the ending is anti-climatic, and some of the tension is robbed by the appearance of the aunts. The backstory of Nina and Rowan's loss plays out heavily toward the very end, but in expected and clearly foreshadowed fashion and while it can't help but be moving, its impact owes less to skill of story or writing as to simple sentimentalism (it carries, for instance, none of the true pathos that so often overshadows Harry in Harry Potter, another book allegedly aimed at a youthful audience).
The premise obviously leaves itself available for return visits, and the time-travel aspect gives literally a world of opportunity to explore. Here's hoping Williams and her characters grow into the potential that remains untapped in the first book.