The task of repopulating the senior library has been an exciting and daunting task aS in a boarding school our aim is to encourage all members of the community to read. Because of this, I have been searching down a wide and diverse range of books to read that will entice a wide cross-section of the school to come in, browse and find books that they love.
Books like this will ensure that the senior students in the school see the library as a diverse, modern and exciting place with books that speak to them and they want to recommend to their friends, classmates, teachers and tutors.
It is an engrossing and exciting read with fully-formed characters and a plot that ensures that it's hard to look away. It is as far from formulaic as it is possible to be and kept me up far too late in order to finish it. I immediately wanted to read all of this writer's other books as I loved their voice and found that it really drew me into the story and made me think about it even when I'd stepped away from this tale.
This is a thought-provoking read which I'm sure will be a popular and well-read addition to our new library; I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to read it and I know that the students are going to absolutely love it too!

DNF at 10%

I'm just not interested in opera or Venice enough to enjoy the underlying backdrop and themes of this. The lack of quotation marks for dialogue was a bit annoying, and I just felt myself passively reading this.

(Rating solely based of off what I did read and considering the overall concept of the story.)

The Hourglass by Liz heron (Unbound), £10.99, completely transported me to Venice, a city close to my heart, to follow the mysterious life of the fin-de-siècle opera singer, Esme Maguire, a woman who is rumoured to have lived for 300 years.

There is a plot point that sets this up in contemporary Venice as we follow a journalist digging around the private papers of a woman who has possible connections with Esme but actually this is a book that brings the past alive.

We start in the 1680s, moving through the city’s later history of Enlightenment and revolution. Liz captures Venice wonderfully – its dazzling society and its dark shadows – but she also demonstrates how the status of women has changed in the years as well. Maybe the plot point set in the present isn’t the strongest – after all it probably is a simple device – but it worked for me as the vast majority of the book is spent navigating the history of an incredible city which is both weighted with history yet seemingly ageless.

In the present day, Paul visits Venice where he meets a mysterious woman he becomes fascinated by. Eva owns a trunk full of historical objects and diaries owned by the subject of Paul's research, the opera singer Esme, and gradually he pieces together the lives of various women. But is it just one woman or many, and how is Eva linked? A mixture of mystery, historical fiction and magic realism, this is an evocative novel with some very good descriptions of Venice. The central female character is fascinating as she moves through different periods, meeting famous figures along the way as a famous opera singer. The weaving together of the stories is well done and the magic realism is subtle - it is not explained how Esme lives on over 300 years, but it's not needed - it's inspired by an opera, and after all, Woolf didn't feel the need to explain what caused Orlando to live on. Overall, a thoughtfully written novel that would particularly please opera fans.

What would it be like to live for centuries, while those around you age and die?
This is the fascinating premise of Liz Heron’s book, The Hourglass, which I was able to download from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

It’s a story about immortality set against the backdrop of timeless Venice, with its ambiguities and fading glories.

What is real? What is merely a beautiful façade with decay and ugliness behind it? What lies behind the masks that feature on the cover? Usually in dual-time novels, I prefer the historical to the modern story, but I felt that the relationship between researcher Paul and Eva was very well done.

I found the premise of the story interesting but I just couldn't immerse myself in the way the book is written. The plot itself is extremely interesting and I like the fact that the entire story is about one single woman and what time means for women in particular but that wasn't enough for me. I loved the book cover.

A really unique and interesting read. The dual storyline keep my interest and the characters were well written. I highly recommend

The Hourglass is the tale of a woman who lived for over 300 years, constantly reinventing herself. I have to say I was hooked by the premise. The pageantry and beauty of the Opera and Italy made the story quite beautiful. I did not make as close of a connection to the main characeter, Esme, as I would have liked. I think it was due to her ever present need for secrecy, and she remained a little distant even to the reader. I was torn when choosing a rating, but went with 4 stars based on the complexity of the story, the beautifully detailed settings and the trip through 300 years of history that The Hourglass became. I was entertained and I would read work from Liz heron again.
I received my copy through NetGalley under no obligation.

I loved the premise and the cover. They were both enough to pull me in, however, upon actually starting it there was just to much romance for my taste. I'm sure someone else will enjoy this book more than I did.

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book free of charge. This is my honest and unbiased opinion of it.

This one was just ok for me. I like historical fiction but this one jumped around to much for me and just wasn’t believable.

An incredibly interesting concept, with a very promising start, however the writing style was difficult to overcome. I enjoyed the dual point of view narrative greatly, and it was used well by the author. However, the style of writing, especially when characters were speaking, was off putting and led to me DNFing the book. This is a shame as I was genuinely interested in the premise and the story was original. More editing would make this a more enjoyable read.

Well, this was certainly a unique and intriguing read! I love books that feature artists - probably because I don't have an artistic bone in my body and those that do are fascinating to me. Add in a dual story-line and a woman whose life spans 300 years and I'm there! Per the author, The Hourglass was inspired by Janacek’s opera The Makropulos Case, in which a singer lives for nearly 300 years.

"I do not tire of life, but sometimes I tire of being endlessly remade."

Heron has a unique way of writing that took me a little bit to get into, but once I did it had a great flow to it and I found it compelling.

Paul Geddes is a lover of Opera and has been fascinated with Opera singer, Esme Maguire, since reading an article about her. He reaches out to Eva Forrest who has more information on Esme. As the story progresses we follow Paul, on his quest for more of Esme's story, and his relationship with Eva. Switching between Paul's story we also hear from Esme herself as she narrates her life, her loves, her relationships, and how she reinvents herself over the span of her very long life. As she reinvents herself (changing her name every time, but always with the initials E.M.), traveling to different countries to start anew, the readers are taken on an international virtual tour of the most beautiful places in the world, and witness to some of the most important events in history. I must say, that part was my favorite.

Three hundred years of becoming my truest self.

The opera singer, the character in The Hourglass who lives for three hundred years, whose name changes from Elena, to Elisa, to Elenora, to Esme and finally Eva, whose fabricated identities are a tangle of deception—this is someone desperate to find her truest self.

That phrase in fact appears five times in Liz Heron’s novel: the first, just as we begin to meet the enduring Eva Forrest, and the last, nearing the end as she clings desperately to her secret. It’s notable because truest self has become the mantra for so many self-help books and websites. It’s invaded the general discourse about mental wellness, and certainly entered into heartfelt conversations over lattes at the local Starbucks. I bookmarked each cite because that phrase along with the word authentic, as in being authentic, baffles and annoys me, but more about that later.

Liz Heron’s light fantasy novel is an ambitious effort to bring forth life in old Venice beginning with the Italian Renaissance. In concept her work reveals the beauty of high culture, art
and opera through 18th, 19th and 20th century Italy as told by a character who lives it all. That character Eva Forrest, an illustrious opera singer, is pursued by a supporting player, Paul Geddes, a researcher of operatic works.

The Hourglass follows an unusual pattern of storytelling, the perspective flipping from the personal narrative of the Eva character through the centuries, to the nearly present day third-person narrative of the Paul character. As a researcher, Paul is looking for the elusive personal papers of Esme Maguire, an obscure and mysterious opera singer—cue the spooky music—which happen to be in Eva’s possession. Eva it seems, is more interested in being mysterious herself than helpful to the quixotic Paul—more spooky music—though she quickly falls for the Scot and they carry-on a love affair that lasts through most of the novel.

While the happy couple is playing tit-for-tat about the secret buried deep in the heart of one opera star, Heron begins to tell the centuries-long history of the diva singer. It isn’t giving anything away to say that Eva has to take extraordinary measures to conceal her long-lived existence. As her contemporaries begin to die out, she slips away, severing relationships and assuming new identities.

With each incarnation of the Eva character, Heron maintains the same initials—E.M.: Esme Maguire, Elena Merlo, Eleonora Marini, etc. Perhaps it’s so Eva doesn’t have to keep changing the monogram on her full length gloves or her elegant leather trunk. For someone who goes to such length to conceal her identity, it makes no sense to maintain her centuries old initials. It may be Heron’s way of maintaining the mystery surrounding her character, or maybe the magic is simply that she desperately wants someone to discover her secret, someone like an operatic researcher. It’s but one of the puzzling things about The Hourglass.

Within the first few pages of her book, it’s clear that Heron’s account will be rich in detail—flowery, abundant, heavy and prosaic:

"Outside, in a garden sheltered by a sturdy dense-leafed tree, everything rustled – with what might have been the murmur of a breeze or else the pattering of rain. Whatever it was, and he couldn’t reach past the overhang to test the moisture of the air, it made the garden active and vibrant, a presence separate from the inert stones that surrounded it, and joined instead to the deep night sky above."

The writing should have painted a lavish, thoughtful and fascinating canvas of a city in motion, buffeted by constant change. Instead, it is a head scratchingly-detailed, sometimes shallow view of both people and place. Clearly we’re in traditional literary fiction territory, which takes skill—lingering in the minutiae and intimate moments in time. The key to this genre is determining when to linger, instead of assuming that being literary means describing every single inch of ground between the narrator and the distant horizon. When I think of the craft of literature (even though it’s considered historical fiction), it is Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See that demonstrates the extent to which a writer can loiter in the intricacies of what is ordinary. Doerr’s description of a discovered radio, the wires, the earphone, the extent to which a character lovingly restores it, is simply beautiful. And because of that, that attention, that clarity of purpose even in the smallest parts of life, All the Light We Cannot See draws closer to the literary spectrum of writing, not to mention, it’s just brilliant work.

Heron demonstrates that she can craft prose that is eloquent and thoughtful; she can unearth the tiny moments in a character’s existence, but in this novel she loses her way a bit, particularly when the focus is not on her main character. Paul’s study of Venice, his curiosity about Esme and then Eva, and eventual romance with the later, feels sterile. And the third person narrative does little to help. He seems at times detached, which makes his role as a central figure in the story diminished.

His character too, feels older than what Heron intended, as does Eva’s (though a three-hundred-year old woman might be excused for acting her age). There is a fundamental difference in the way a thirty year old thinks and behaves—impassioned, impulsive, unfiltered—and a fifty year old. And age is what taints their affair, both the physical and emotional interactions. Like so much of The Hourglass, something so intimate and intense is neither. I also found myself wondering why they seemed older. I realized that this too is connected to Heron’s desire for achieving the literary art form, but the abject details in this book never seem to accumulate and build the core of her characters. It reminds me of conversations with a grandparent, the way they tell you about every aspect of their daily life, no matter how small and insignificant. To them, it all might be significant. For Eva and Paul, this obsession with detail ages them, which is remarkable in a book about an ageless woman.

At the end of three centuries, The Hourglass is all about Eva; the other characters are just supporting cast. Her personal account is the one thing that keeps this book from drowning under its own weight. Eva’s journey is a sad testament to a life lived quite alone. Those she knew and loved, are gone, some so far gone that she can no longer remember them. It’s one of the interesting perspectives that Heron is able to bring—that there is little that is pleasurable about an immortal life. Human beings were not designed for such existences. And one of the great sadnesses in The Hourglass is the length to which Eva must go to depart from one of those existences to the next, to deceive everyone around her, and to leave the people in her life before she is discovered.

Although Heron is never able to achieve her ambitious goal, she does in fact create an empathy around Eva, that is deep and soulful. I still detest todays’ truest self epidemic, and it’s surely out of place in 17th Century Italy, but I appreciate the sentiment. In Eva’s world there is mostly lies and deceit, but there is opera. The one place where she finds her only true self, is on the stage. If I never have to hear that phrase again, at least for once I can imagine what it means for Eva Forrest to be her truest self.

"To sing so well that I’m impervious to hurts, to sing so well that it cancels my loneliness, makes my art my best companion, makes me my truest self." The Hourglass, Liz Heron

The description of Heron's book fascinated me and I was excited to read the book, but I don't think I am the right reader for the story. Descriptions painted Venice perfectly, but the characters felt flat and monotone. I just didn't feel connected to any of the characters. The author's choice to not use quotation marks and use (-) instead made for an odd read as well.

Liz Heron’s The Hourglass is a breathtaking, mystical and musical novel that will captivate any reader who has traveled abroad or even merely traveled within the pages of a good book. The romance and mystery drew me in until the exquisite final few pages. I can’t wait to see what Heron writes next!

I enjoyed The Hourglass written by Liz Heron and published by Unbound. It was a romp
Through 300 years of Italy and it’s history. I felt, at times, like I was there in Italy with
Esme Maguire. Vivid descriptions of locations in Italy, clothing over changing styles
and delicious foods made me feel closer to Esme across the centuries. The well-written
characters and setting helped me persevere to the end.

The hourglass tells the story of Paul Geddes, a Scott living in London, who visits Venice to research the life of a rather obscure opera singer named Esme Maguire. The sources about this opera singer are really sparse and the only one who can provide him with some documents about her is a wealthy widow named Eva Forrest, but she gives him papers about other opera singers through the last 3 centuries instead.
As it turns out the papers form a kind of diary about a woman who lives literally for centuries and changes identities regularly. A troubled and complicated relationship develops between Paul and Eva.
I liked the setting in, and the descriptions of Venice, and the information about all the opera singers, artists etcetera. While reading the story I had the impression that I heard this story before which proved to be true. Years ago I saw Janáček’s opera The Makropulos Case and the main character in the book is based on Elina Makropoulos from the opera.

I liked the book as a whole and the way the story of Elena/Elise/Eleonora/Edita/Esme etc. and the story about Paul and Eva were intertwined. I kept wondering if Eva was delusional or if she really was the same character.

That said I think that there are flaws in the book too, for instance the characters are rather flat and at the end I didn’t have the idea that I really knew Paul or Eva or what motivated them. Especially the character of Paul would have benefitted from some more background information, but also all the different identities of Elena were rather flat.

Would have been 4 stars if the characters had been better developed, but as it is, 3 stars.
I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this book. The story within a story structure created an eagerness within me to find out the truth and the ending.

I thought that this book was unputdownable and I read it in one sitting. It was really well-written and I felt emotionally invested in the characters. I would definitely be interested in reading more from this author.

The cover is also beautiful and a great design for the book!

The ending had a good length build up and I was happy with the resolve. It was beautiful!

For the first 3/4 of this book, I was loving it. Venice was a character in its own right and a wonderful one. The historical parts were fascinating and the modern ones intriguing. Who was this woman and was Paul speaking with and interacting with a woman now 300 years old? Alas, the final section of the book crashed on my head and ruined everything that went before. Besides having the fantastical illusion shattered, I didn't buy the too quick romance wrap up of the story. It was like anticipating Christmas and then getting a lump of coal instead.

While I generally love historical fiction, especially of foreign cultures, this book was not all I hoped it would be. I think a bigger fan of opera would enjoy this one.