The House on the Strand

I absolutely love Daphne du Maurier's writing and I had actually read The House on the Strand on Kindle a couple of years ago. The version of the audiobook on Audible was abridged so I wasn't really sure about trying it - well, this year, I did and I could not stop listening to it! The story is a really great idea, with a scientist inventing an elixir that allows people to travel back to a certain period in medieval history - not their physical body, but they can see and hear everything that's going on. You then have the… show more.

This was a really unusual story. The way du Maurier writes draws you in to the characters and the situation. The historical parts are well grounded and you feel as if you are there in the past too. I have read several of her works and so far they have all be different but very well written. They are all stories that stay with you, long after you have finished them and this was no exception. I did find the ending a little ambiguous and searched on the internet about it - I found an interview with her in which… show more.

I fell in love with this author’s exploration into the hypothesis of drug-induced time travel written by one of our great English authors, skillfully weaving psychology with science and historical fiction. In it, Dick Young is persuaded by a friend to try a new drug. Dick likes where it takes him, and each time takes more and more. A classic case of addition but the story awakened in me a passion for asking what if… that later turned into a greater passion for the unexplained and paranormal in all its forms, in turn leading me to question whether re-incarnation, deja-vu,… show more.

As a teenager, I glutted on the novels of Daphne du Maurier, and revelled in their Gothic thrills and the hints of darker compulsions and ambiguity which I did not fully comprehend. On re-reading a few not so long ago, I discovered that Rebecca was toppled from my personal number one spot by The House on the Strand. A time-travel story written long before it was voguish, it manages to achieve the delicate balance between the traditional, (albeit far-fetched) romantic love story and the more troubling question about perception and identity. This is not a peaceful novel as it… show more.

I love the idea of time travel – if it’s backwards. I have no desire to see what things might be, only I’m constantly fascinated wondering how things were. When I visit an historic house full of antique furniture and ancient portraits hanging on the walls, weird objects whose use is now forgotten, I long to know what it was like to live there. The House on the Strand transported me into the distant past of medieval England in such a way that I was living the experience, just like the time traveller himself.  

There are numerous… show more.