She's adopted and feels at odds with the world, as if no one can understand what she's going through. This is where she feels at home, safe and somewhere she can hide from her family. She has a mattress up in one of the rooms and some favourite things. She loves Tyme's End and sneaks in to spend time by herself. She feels an outsider and acts surly and unpleasant when in fact she is genuinely a highly intelligent and charming girl, a bit more mature than usual and also quite together, even if she has her various hang-ups. When we meet Bibi she's going through a tough time. Initially it did lift me out of the story, but only briefly, once I realised what the author was doing. I thought we would stick with Bibi's story and was therefore thrown quite a bit by moving onto Oliver's story.
The regressive storytelling where we go backwards in the house's history took me by surprise.
Secondly there is 1996 which is Oliver's story and finally, 1936 and it tells Oliver's grandfather's story. We have 2006, which deals with Bibi's story. The story of Tyme's End is told in three key stages and they are defined by the year the story is told. And nobody who enters Tyme's End must prepare themselves for terror.īR Collins has gone from a "writer to watch" to a writer who is so self-assured that she can tackle a haunted house story with the aplomb and skill of any of our grandmasters, including Poe, King, Layman, Blackwood, Campbell and well, anyone else you would like to name. It is a house that once had an evil and manipulative owner. It is a house that can be by turns romantic, beguiling, sinister and malevolent.
For Tyme's End is more than just a house. Bibi's and Olivers's lives become inextricably linked as they are both pulled towards Tyme's End. There she meets Oliver, the owner, who has returned after ten years away. Bibi feels out of place wherever she goes - everywhere, that is, except for Tyme's End, the deserted house she breaks into whenever she thinks nobody is nearby.
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