CRUCIFIX LANE

Title: CRUCIFIX LANE
Author: KATE MOSSE
Pages: 307
Date: 08/04/2007
Grade: 5-
Details: Time Travel
Library

This is the first novel by the author of LABYRINTH, a book I loved. And this one doesn't disappoint.
It is 1997, and Annie is leaving a nightclub, early in the morning. Annie's life isn't going anywhere, consisting mainly of partying and drugs, while she avoids going home, because she doesn't want to deal with a failed relationship.
After leaving the club, she gets caught in a very thick and very sudden fog, and on Crucifix lane she falls and knocks herself unconscious.
When she comes to, the world around her has changed. While she is still in London, it is now 2008 instead of 1997. And although London is still recognizable, it is very different from the place she knows. The Thames is no longer tidal, and climate change has turned the suburbs into insect ridden swamps.
Shortly after her arrival, Annie hooks up with an organization called the Network. She is very impressed with the charitable work the Network does, and charmed by it's charismatic leader, Kellen. And before long, Annie and Kellen are in a relationship.
Never one to face on to life, Annie tries to ignore the questions and implications resulting from her time travelling. But Kellen and others won't let it rest, and keep on bringing it up, forcing Annie to look at things she would rather have ignored.
She also meets Mary, another time traveller from 1997 who arrived three months before her and is refusing to integrate in life in 2008, focussing instead on figuring out how and why she arrived there and how to get back.
While there is a struggle going on between Kellen and a government body dealing with cloning, Annie refuses to see any clues that all is not as it might seem with Kellen.
When Mary asks Annie to travel back to 1997 with her, she is very reluctant, but when Kellen asks her to go, and to come back with things he needs, she does agree to take the risk.
This leads to a show down during with the background of the struggle between the government body and Kellan becomes clear, Annie's eyes are opened, her and Mary's reason for being there becomes clear and a major disaster strikes.
This was a very good story, but I had a hard time with how thick Annie was made out to be. And, as is often the case with time travel novels, it leaves a lot of questions unanswered;
- if you travelled forward in time by 11 years, could you resist looking into yourself or others you know? Or would you like Annie and Mary never even think about it?
- Could the climate and London really change as much as described in this book in only 11 years?
- While it makes sense for Annie to be there, what was Mary's reason for being transported 11 years ahead?

Despite these questions, I would recommend this book to others though. Once I started reading, I found it very hard to put the book down again.