The Time Between

by Karen White Narrated by Jennifer Ikeda, Barbara Rosenblat, Angela Goethals

Overview

New York Times bestselling author Karen White spins riveting tales of family, love, and redemption. Set in the South Carolina Lowcountry, The Time Between follows Eleanor Murray, who fled life on majestic Edisto Island for a job at a Charleston investment firm. Now her boss wants Eleanor to move back and help care for Helena, his elderly aunt. But that means confronting her childhood, including the accident that left her sister in a wheelchair. What Eleanor doesn't foresee is the bond she'll form with Helena--and the revelations that will set them free.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Praise for The Time Between

“From its mesmerizing first scene, The Time Between propels you into the sun-baked world of the South Carolina Lowcountry, and a childhood tragedy that haunts the lives of two unforgettable sisters in love with the same man. In clear and gorgeous prose, White spins a luminous tale of love and loss, of betrayal and redemption, and of a harrowing family secret buried in the upheaval of the Second World War. This is storytelling of the highest order: the kind of book that leaves you both deeply satisfied and aching for more. No one weaves together the present and the past with greater magic than Karen White.”—New York Times bestselling author of Beatriz Williams

“White...crafts characters who transcend their romantic roles through their frailties and weaknesses.”—Kirkus Reviews
 
“White moves smoothly between narrators as well as different time periods, crafting an intriguing and romantic family drama.”—Booklist
 
“White writes complex, heartbreaking novels with just enough pathos and plenty of redemption."—RT Book Reviews (Top Pick)
 
“Set in South Carolina’s idyllic Lowcountry against the bittersweet notes of a piano in mourning and a prophecy spoken in Gullah, The Time Between weaves a story as intricate and sturdy as a sweetgrass basket, with the fresh, magnetic voices of its headstrong characters.”—ArtsATL
 
“The Time Between is a lyrically written, beautiful novel about atonement, love, and letting go. Engrossing and unforgettable.”—New York Times bestselling author Eloisa James

Kirkus Reviews

Fourteen years after an accident left her sister Eve paralyzed and herself guilt-ridden, Eleanor Murray struggles to atone--not only for the accident, but also for falling in love with her brother-in-law, Glen. The accident fractured the family, dashing Eve's future as a beauty pageant contestant. And after their father dies, Eleanor's dreams of playing piano at Juilliard dissolve. Their mother holds Eleanor responsible for keeping together the family she broke apart. Eve knows she should forgive Eleanor, but she can't quite let go of her anger. Glen, too, is torn between his commitment to Eve and his attraction to Eleanor. Balancing her work at a law office with caring for her mother, sister and brother-in-law, Eleanor too often finds that neither time nor money will stretch far enough. So she arrives late or leaves early, grateful that her boss, Finn Beaufain--the handsome, gray-eyed, divorced father of an adorable yet fragile daughter--tolerates her erratic schedule. She gets dinner on the table, bathes her sister, placates her arthritic mother and occasionally slips on a slinky red dress to play piano at a local dive, hoping someone might offer her solace in his unfamiliar arms. Finding her at the bar one night, Finn gives her a chance: a chance to recover her lost self and perhaps a chance at love. Finn gives her a job caring for his aunt Helena on Edisto Island, where Eleanor grew up. White (After the Rain, 2012, etc.) once again crafts characters who transcend their romantic roles through their frailties and weaknesses. An appealing romance with intergenerational resonance.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169099256
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	06/04/2013
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

The first time I died was the summer I turned seventeen. I remember the air being so hot you could smell the pluff mud baking in the sun, the scent sulfur-sweet and strong enough to curl your toes, the tall stems of sweetgrass listless, their tips bowed in submission. Blood sat like melted copper in my open mouth as I rose above my broken body, splayed like a rag doll beside the dirt road. Let me go, I thought as I hovered, weightless. But I felt the pull of a gossamer thread of conscience and retribution that tethered me to this earth. Before I heard the screams of the sirens and my mother’s wailing, I knew I wouldn’t stay dead for long.

I watched, suspended between this world and the next, as my mother bent over Eve’s body, my sister’s legs bent in ways they shouldn’t have been. Two paramedics worked on her, trying to push my mother away, while another noticed me, my body nearly hidden in the thick underbrush by the side of the road. He squatted next to me, his fingers reaching for the pulse in my neck. I felt none of this. I watched passively, as if I were a spectator in a movie theater.

I noticed that the paramedic was young, with thick blond hair on his head and muscled forearms that reflected the sunlight and reminded me of the sweetgrass. I was studying him so intently that I didn’t realize that he’d begun to perform CPR. Still I felt nothing. I was more focused on my sister and on my mother, who hadn’t looked in my direction yet. I hadn’t really expected her to.

And there was Glen, tall and slender and strong, moving between Eve and me, helpless to do anything, his frantic pacing only stirring up dust.

I heard my name called and thought for a moment it might be my father come to take me away—away from the two broken girls and screaming mother and the air that moved in hot, thick waves. Flies buzzed and dipped over the thin trail of blood from my open mouth, but I couldn’t hear them or feel them. I was thinking somebody needed to swat them away when I noticed for the first time the wooden church set back behind the trees. When Eve and I had walked our bikes down the dirt road just a short time before, giggling like the little girls we had once been, I hadn’t seen it. It seemed impossible that I couldn’t have.

The bright, whitewashed walls and tall steeple shone like a benediction in the relentless sunlight. The words PRAISE HOUSE were hand painted over the top of the arched red door, and a fence with a rusty gate swung as if spirits were passing through. It made no sense for the church to be where it was, nestled between the giant oaks and bright green undergrowth. But the white paint glowed in the sun as if brand-new, the wood steps leading up to the front door smooth and worn from the tread of hundreds of feet. Seated on the bottom step was a large woman with skin the color of burnt charcoal, her fingers working her sewing bone through the strands on a sweetgrass basket. She wasn’t looking at me, but I was sure it was she who’d called my name.

“Who are you?” I wanted to ask, but all I could do was watch her and her fingers and the grass as it was woven into the pattern of the basket.

Grasping the basket in one hand, she stood and began walking toward where I lay. She stopped for a moment, looking down on me, her shadow blocking the sun from my baking body like the angel of mercy. Slowly she knelt by the paramedic and leaned toward me. He didn’t seem to notice the woman as she bent close to my ear. Her words were clear, and I thought I could feel a cool breeze on my cheek from her breath as she spoke. “All shut-eye ain’t sleep; all good-bye ain’t gone.”

The pain struck me like a fist as I was pulled back toward earth, down into the body I’d inhabited for seventeen years, and gasped with one long, icy breath. I opened my eyes, meeting the blue eyes of the startled paramedic. I turned my head, searching for the woman, but she and the church were gone. Only the sound of a rusty gate and the lingering scent of the heat-scorched sweetgrass told me that she’d been there at all.

I heard my mother crying out my sister’s name over and over as I stared up at the clear blue sky, where a white egret circled slowly overhead. All shut-eye ain’t sleep; all good-bye ain’t gone. I didn’t know what she meant, but I reasoned I’d been given another lifetime to figure it out.

Almost fourteen years later, I was still trying.

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