This is a blast of a read, pure story adrenaline. The two main characters, Roan West and Melicent Tilpin, are psychometrists, people who can read the memories in objects with their hands. Roan, an antiques dealer, has been working as a psychometrist for years, while Melicent has only newly discovered her talent after a flea market watch “speaks to her” and turns out to be worth over a million dollars.
The classic story tentpole of an older, more experienced person teaching a younger person the ropes is here adorned with the stories that surface from the various objects Roan or Melicent encounter. Gwendolyn Womack makes each little story indelible or heartbreaking or moving—or sometimes all three. They pass by in a flash, and help to define the two main characters and their lives. In essence, the author is telling many little stories within her larger one.
There’s also a thriller element to The Time Collector involving the unexplained disappearances of Roan and Melicent’s fellow psychometrists. While Roan is not a member, there’s an international group of psychometrists who have been dealing with objects called “ooparts” or “out of place artifacts.” These rare and interesting objects have been discovered in different places and even different time periods from their origins and the group has been trying to find a connecting thread between them. Several members of the group have begun to disappear—one is discovered dead. When a tragedy befalls Melicent and her teenage brother, Roan must swoop to the rescue.
This novel is all kinds of things. It’s a bit of a romance, it’s a bit of an identity quest for Melicent, it’s an awakening for Roan, and there’s the element of time travel and the idea that time is somewhat flexible and can be, for want of a better word, experienced by these gifted psychometrists. They do, in effect, time travel when they read objects.
It’s hard not to love a book that creates great characters, has a great thriller story at the center, and lets the reader do some armchair travel and learning while reading. Some of the things discussed in the book had me headed to Google to see what they looked like, and that will probably happen to you as well, but not while you’re reading the book. You won’t be able to put it down.
