The Light Between Worlds

The Light Between Worlds by Laura E. Weymouth                 Audio Book:  9 hours, 30 minutes     Paperback Book:  384 pages              

At first I though, o.k. this is a Narnia knock-off, but then midbook it takes a different turn.   Instead of staying with the fantasy of the magical other life in the Woodlands, when war begins to rage in the Woodlands though they have spent 6 ½ years in the fantasy world they are sent back to their childhood selves in London to the time before they were allowed to enter the Woodlands.    Lots happens and a really good account of what it must have been like living in London during the dropping of the bombs from German planes.   Also a trip into the brokenness of a young girl’s mind when she finds she cannot cope with living in this world anymore asit is killing her.    She loses her adventuress spirit as she does her best to contend with boarding school life amid growing up a second time, being cut-off from the sister who had been more a mother to her as the bonds between her and her parents were fairly non-existent.   While the parents tried to save the children by bundling them off to relatives and friends evry chance they got to keep them safe, they also destroyed whatever bond there had been between the children and themselves.  The only thing the children could count on was moving to another locations and staying with people they hardly knew some who expected them to work for them others who tried to be understanding but they had no real ties to.   Escaping to the Woodlands made the children feel loved and cherished, but, even after all the time they spent there proving their metal they still were made to leave.   Like Alice down the rabbit hole then returning home once changed home is never home any more.  As the sisters do their best to make their way and their brother remains concerned but aloof, Ev, the youngest sister slips into a lethargy she cannot shake.  She stops eating, she loses weight, though her brother has a friend watch over her, who falls in love with her, nothing can ease the sorrow Ev undergoes having to stay in this world when the world she feels a part of is denied her.    She calls for the Guardian of that world to please let her return as he always said while they were living with him, “A Woodlanders heart will always find a way back home.”  But how?   It turned out to be a good story, more cerebral and bound by WWII, tea time and a family that just cannot find its way back together, though, the parents were caring they just didn’t know how to repair the gap they created with their children.    The fantasy world seemed like a place so many of us would love to visit and maybe stay in though it wasn’t without its evil, too.    I would recommend this book, I think it would be better received by those unfamiliar with the Narnia series by C.S. Lewis then there wouldn’t be that mental comparison going on, but, the story does go off in a different direction so readers can wonder which world would have been their choosing and if that world was actual or a means of dealing with the horrors of war?   A lot like Narnia.

  - Shirley J