Pale Phoenix

A Time Travel Mystery

De: Kathryn Reiss

Narrado por: Raquel Beattie

Miranda can't stand the new girl at school; there's something very unsettling about her. So she's not happy when sullen Abby comes to live with her family. Miranda can't trust this new housemate, but she also feels sorry for Abby, whom she hears crying every night. That pity and anger turn to shock when Miranda learns the girl's horrible secret - linked to a tragedy more than 300 years old.

Fifteen-year-old Miranda Browne, the extraordinary protagonist of Kathryn Reiss's first novel, Time Windows, returns for a new time travel adventure. This time, it's up to Miranda to figure out the truth and find an end to a lonely soul's eternal misery.

©1994 Kathryn Reiss (P)2021 Tantor

Not a satisfying ending

For all of the buildup with the Phoenix and Abbey, the ending falls flat. The solution is too simple, the plot formulaic. As characteristic in all of Reiss’ books: The mom is strong, independent and successful, dad is a secondary character, just adding a sidekick for mom. There’s a teen age “friend-lover-romance” budding, completely paint by numbers. The main character embodies some wonderful ability to time travel but stumbles through the story trying to solve a transparent mystery. The reader comes to conclusions chapters before the main character. Not a good story.

The narrator is awful. She reads in a wooden, monotone voice. I listened to another book by Reiss and it was the same narrator and unfortunately she uses the same voices. I guess the author got a 3-for-1 deal with this narrator or something.

This bummed me out.

I really love Kathryn Reiss as a general rule. Some of her other books continue to be all time favorites of mine. I was excited for a continuation of Miranda Brown’s story, Time Windows is a top 5 of all time for me still. But dang! This was a flop! It had so, so, so much potential to be incredible….and it was….lame? I think thats the best word to describe it. It was not up to snuff to her other time traveling books, thats for sure. I am not a huge fan of the narrator, but even her siri-esque voice was better than this story line.