The Phantom Tree

I really enjoyed this book!!

The Phantom Tree by Nicola Cornick
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a very enjoyable book. The premise was intriguing--a time travel, missing persons, murder. I have read several romance novels by this author, so I was very interested to try this one out.
The beginning immediately drew the reader in: a woman in an obviously modern-day town happens to see a centuries-old portrait reportedly of Anne Boleyn. But the woman, named Alison, knows that this portrait is actually of a key person from her own past: Mary Seymour, daughter of Katherine Parr. As the book unfolds, the reader discovers that Alison and Mary became roommates at Wolf Hall in 1557. Mary is sensitive to otherworldly occurrences, and Alison becomes an inadvertent time-traveler. Alison has been trying to find a way to connect with Mary again for years, and believes that Mary has left her clues to unlock a mystery that will be the key to Alison's future.
The author creates a wonderful tone in the book that is tense, ever-so-slightly ominous, and a bit magical. I wanted to keep reading because the narrative switched back and forth between present Alison, past Alison, and past Mary. Once I finished the book I had to go back and re-read certain passages that were clues as to what happened later in the book.
There were a few places where I wished the author had elaborated a bit more on key events and things were glossed over that deserved a bit more attention.
Overall, however, I found this to be a great book, and once I finished it I was disappointed that I had to leave the world and feelings that the author had created. I would absolutely recommend this book.


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