Faye, Faraway

Fisher unspools a quirky tale about a time-traveling British housewife in her enchanting debut. Faye, who lost her mother at seven, discovers an old box of toys from her youth can whisk her back to early childhood. There, Faye saves her six-year-old self from being hit by a car, and her mother, Jeanie, gushes with gratitude and invites her to come home with them. Faye, now a happily married mother of two daughters, basks in the opportunity to get to know her free-spirited mother from an adult perspective, noticing mannerisms kept in her memory’s “cold storage,” such as her mother’s wink and her way of sweeping her hair over her shoulder. But when the box is almost destroyed, Faye’s intense reaction alarms her husband, forcing her to confront what she’s been up to. Fisher invites readers to suspend disbelief along with Faye, who, finding herself back in time, “had never had such unequivocal, solid proof of something being real, yet at the same time not believed in it,” and Fisher’s achingly authentic characters leap off the page and capture readers’ hearts. This addictive, emotionally heavy page-turner marks a delightful spin on the time travel genre. (Jan.)