I really enjoyed how this book weaved and ‘revealed’ in an unusual and pleasing fashion. Hints at how the reveal progressed didn’t give away the secrets of the subject.  Some of those secrets were a little unbelievable at first, but dropped into a relatable, understandable reality. Very nicely done and a great lesson in creative writing.

This book sure did surprise me.
I liked that is was Irish which fitted in with the Irishbookathon I joined in. And that they had moved to Birmingham. 

We get two timelines.
One when Mona is young and when she’s many years older. The back and forth was easy to follow. 

There’s a layer of sadness that emulates throughout the story but also hope.

Totally loved this book. I was so sceptical as I loved the authors previous book and wasn’t sure if she could better it. 

You get much more than you expect from this.

Finished my first book for the Irish read a thon, this one didn't fill any of the prompts but I was trying to clear some of my kindle books and this is by an Irish author.

In this story we follow Mona who is a doll maker, we follow her story in the present as we watch her build a new relationship and find out about her doll making and her relationships with the people around her, we also follow Mona in the past where we watch her fall in love, become a mother and suffer loss time and time again.

So I'm not sure how to rate this book, I adored the bits in the past and really went on the emotional rollercoaster with Mona, I found myself rooting for her and wanting to know what was going to happen next. However I wasn't so keen on the parts set in the present and didn't find them so emersive as the past sections, I found myself rushing to get them over so I could get back to the story in the past, I found myself drifting a lot when we were in the present and feeling a bit bored. I think had this book been soley set in the past it would have been a five star from me but that's not the case and I really feel this was a book of two half's for me, I sad also mega confused about the ending.

Oh my goodness, this beautiful book almost broke me! It smashed my heart into smithereens then put it all back together again. As soon as I realised what was going on, I was powerless to stop the tears from falling and I was openly sobbing as Mona's past was revealed.

I don't want to give away anything about the breathtaking plot as this is a book that needs to be experienced first-hand by every reader. It's certainly an emotional rollercoaster as we follow the path of Mona's life from Ireland to Birmingham. From the wise words Mona's father gave her in Ireland to the selfless acts that Mona now carries out from her home in Birmingham, The Trick to Time is an absolute delight from beginning to end.

Mona is a really interesting character; at first glance she's a sixty year old dollmaker who lives on her own but scratch the surface and you will find an angel with a broken heart. Although she has loved and been loved, Mona has had such a tragic life but she uses the experience of her own tragedy to help others. I wish everyone had a Mona in their life.

Written with sensitivity, warmth and humour, The Trick to Time is an exceptionally beautiful novel. Mona's father's trick to time is something that will stay with me for the rest of my life; time is something that we can never get back so use it wisely. Keep your tissues handy when you read this heartachingly beautiful book that I unreservedly recommend.

I am afraid that I just could not get into this book.  I persevered to the end but did not enjoy it at all.  Not for me, sorry.

Mona is a sixty year old woman running a toyshop in a seaside town with a sideline in supporting women who have suffered the loss of a baby. As Mona starts to make some changes in her life, her own backstory is gradually revealed.

It's one of those books that you are immediately drawn into and enjoy from the very beginning. Mona is complex  and her story is compelling. It tackles a very difficult and emotive topic in a sensitive way.

I struggled to get into The trick to time. I found the jumping between characters different to follow and although I tried to persevere I gave up in the end. This book was not for me.

I am in charge of our Senior School library and am looking for a diverse array of new books to furnish their shelves with and inspire our young people to read a wider and more diverse range of books as they move through the senior school. It is hard sometimes to find books that will grab the attention of young people as their time is short and we are competing against technology and online entertainments.
This was a thought-provoking and well-written read that will appeal to young readers across the board. It had a really strong voice and a compelling narrative that I think would capture their attention and draw them in. It kept me engrossed and I think that it's so important that the books that we purchase for both our young people and our staff are appealing to as broad a range of readers as possible - as well as providing them with something a little 'different' that they might not have come across in school libraries before.
This was a really enjoyable read and I will definitely be purchasing a copy for school so that our young people can enjoy it for themselves. A satisfying and well-crafted read that I keep thinking about long after closing its final page - and that definitely makes it a must-buy for me!

‘The Trick to Time’ is beautifully written and is the story of Mona, a woman who has just turned sixty and has arrived at a crossroads in her life.

I actually read this book late last year but I struggled to get my thoughts down into a coherent review. This is the first novel I’ve read by the author but it definitely won’t be the last. It follows Mona in two timelines: in the present she runs a business selling weighted dolls to help women deal with the loss of their babies, and in the past we see what made Mona the woman she is in the present. There is a lot of heartache in this novel but it’s the resilience that shone through for me. I’ve suffered a miscarriage myself and while I got over it as much as anyone can I still know how old my child would be now. I didn’t talk about it much at the time, I just picked myself up and got on with it. It feels like every woman going through such a loss needs a Mona in their lives. She knows pain too but she channels it into easing other women’s pain. I cried quite a lot reading this book but it was cathartic tears. This novel is such a special book, one I won’t ever forget. If you haven’t already read this novel then I urge you to, it’s beautiful and unforgettable!

I loved Kit de Waal's My Name is Leon, so when I saw The Trick to Time was coming out, I grabbed an ARC as quickly as I could. This book is fairly different from the previous one, but by no means less powerful. The focus here is on Mona, a sixty-year-old Irish dollmaker, and her efforts to live to the full the life she has left.

The book alternates between present-day Mona and her past, first as child in Ireland trying to cope with her mother's illness, and later as a young woman attempting to build a new life in England. I loved slowly getting to know Mona: as her past is unveiled and her present unfolds before our eyes, she gradually shapes up to be a wonderfully complex character. Supported by an unforgettable cast of secondary characters, Mona tries to put together pieces of her past life, and tries to overcome pain bigger than anyone should ever have to face. 

The author's wonderful writing style takes us back to a time when life was different, and when social tensions exploded, immediately contrasting that with the quiet seaside town where present-day Mona lives. And it just works. Mona is complex and charismatic enough to hold the whole story together, the settings and historical elements add depth to the story, and the final revelations did surprise me a little bit, as I had drawn completely the wrong conclusion! The only negative for me is that, at times, the narration felt a bit slow, making this feel longer than it really is, but it was definitely worth it!

An utterly charming story about a woman who lost her only love and now spends her life making weighted baby dolls for women who have lost their baby. It flits between the present day and the past, and we slowly piece together her love story, so it feels like the mystery of a person’s life gradually revealed (with a few unexpected turns). It also explores what it was like to be an Irish person in England at the time of the IRA bombings.  Kit de Waal, author of My Name is Leon, has produced another memorable story with characters you enjoy spending time with. Highly recommended.

I loved Kit de Waal's previous book My Name Is Leon, and this was a wonderful follow-up. There is a real art to rendering feeling in writing without falling into sentimentality, and this book has a bold command of tone - it's a very moving story. Settings and characters are wonderfully drawn; the author has a particular gift for bringing to life secondary characters with spark and vim. Her dialogue is cracking. This is also a good example of successfully done present-tense narration.

A simple but beguiling story. 4.5 stars.

In The Trick to Time, author Kit de Waal takes us back to Birmingham in the 70s, during the time of the IRA pub bombings. While the events of the time are pivotal to the story of the tragedy that unfolds in this book, they occur off to the side, with de Waal, instead, bringing her focus to the personal misfortunes of two characters: 20-something Irish immigrants Mona and William. At first, this is a story of love at first sight, but it soon develops into a beautifully tender story of marriage and grief, suffering and long-term devotion.

The story is told through Mona in concurrent past and present narratives. In the present day, Mona is turning 60 and living in a seaside town in England. Childless and living alone, she runs a specialised doll-making business, the premise of which is both intriguing and heartrendingly sweet. Without giving too much away, this business helps people who are suffering from loss and eventually hints at the compelling truth of Mona's sad tale. As soon as I read about Mona's endeavors and the manner in which she creates these dolls, I was mesmerised by this book. Lovers of de Waal's debut novel may say Leon is a difficult book to follow but, for me, the impact of this sophomore effort is even greater.

When we venture into the past with Mona, we learn about her mother's early death from cancer and the love she had for her father, which held onto her even when she yearned to flee her stifling Wexford hometown. We witness her eventual move to Birmingham and the overwhelming guilt she feels when a shock phone call brings her home again. We see her meet William and delight in her happiness when their relationship develops into something meaningful. But, sadly for Mona, loss is never too far away.

The emotional connection I experienced with these characters was intense. De Waal has a major talent in the effortless way she makes you care about the fictional community she creates. Every character in this story has a unique voice and we want to listen to them all: the caring, grieving father, raising his young daughter alone; the busybody relation in Wexford who eventually reveals her truth; the teenage assistant who works in Mona's shop; and, of course, Mona's husband, William, who breaks our heart. The care we have for these characters translates to a genuine fear for their well-being and, subsequently, a gentle suspense, which for me is far more effective than a story reliant on cliff hangers. I needed to know what happened Mona and William, and I needed to know that Mona would be okay, which made it impossible for me to put this book down.

The Trick to Time is a simple but utterly beautiful tale that really pulls on your heartstrings. It is about love and loss, and the burden of dealing with other people's tragedies. The dialogue is authentic and snappy, the pacing is perfect. There is nothing complex about the structure and the story flows perfectly. The story is emotional but not sentimental, with enough flourishes of humour to keep it from becoming too heavy. It is a truly special story and one that will certainly stay with me. Highly recommended.

4★
“‘. . . one day, you will want these hours back, my girl. You will wonder how you lost them and you will want to get them back. There’s a trick to time.’ 
. . . 
‘You can make it expand or you can make it contract. Make it shorter or make it longer,’ he says.”

Mona is a little girl who wants to play on the beach instead of spend time with her sick mother. Perfectly natural for a child. 

The story follows Desdemona, Mona, a young Irish girl, only child, and young William, a young Irish lad she meets when she leaves her widowed father at home to try her luck in England. They are a happy pair, absolutely penniless, but so content in each other’s company. They are like a pair of puppies, rumbling and tumbling and cuddling and walking hand-in-hand without a brass razoo between them, as the saying goes in Australia.

We have met Mona as a little girl and as a young woman, but the main character is the adult Mona, turning 60. Her good pal tells her:

“’We’re still young, Mona, for God’s sake.’
‘Are we?’ 
‘Sixty’s the new forty they say, even if it feels like fifty-nine.’”

How can you not have a chuckle? But tragedy struck her in her youth (why does it always ‘strike’, I wonder?), and the adult Mona is alone. For readers who don’t live in the UK or Ireland, it’s easy to forget how violent things were for the Irish in England. We can be dreadful to each other for all sorts of reasons, can’t we? 

She now makes dolls of a quite specific nature. They seem to be made according to some baby’s birthweight, and the clients are sent by a counsellor of some sort. Mona simply chats to them a bit, draws them out, and finally asks for a weight. We have to figure this part out ourselves.

There is a carpenter not far away who is pretty taciturn but meticulous with his selection of the right colours and weights of timber for each doll, depending on how light or heavy, how pale or dark Mona wants. He won’t take “payment” as such, but she manages to reimburse him somehow. It’s an odd relationship, but it works, and Mona spends a lot of time painting the dolls and making intricate clothes.

[Disclaimer: I have a friend who makes dolls which look like real children – I mean eerily like real children, and people clamour to get them and take them home. People will push them around in prams, the smaller dolls. They are gorgeous, and a little scary. But I digress.]

Meanwhile, Mona often wakes early, goes to her window, high above the street with her coffee, and one day notices an older gentleman in a nearby building doing likewise. He nods, they salute cups, and they gradually develop a relationship. He is a dapper German, while she tends to be more casual.

“He has a cashmere coat over his shoulders, impossibly elegant, and Mona wonders if she has dresses enough to keep up.”

He calls by unannounced one day, and she’s in old clothes with paint-spattered arms from working on a doll. He sits on the sofa and she joins him. 

“The cushions feel hard and unused and she realizes it is many years since she sat on the sofa, maybe only when she bought it and when was that? She looks at her chair and sees that differently too. It looks like a pathetic throne, taking up too much space with the delicate nest of tables at an angle, with the lamp and the TV remote control just at hand, as if an invalid sits there alone night after night, watching quiz shows and shopping channels. She is ashamed again and wonders if he sees her like that.”

I think anyone who’s lived alone (or doesn’t have visitors to speak of) will identify with this. I, too, have a comfy armchair with everything, including all digital devices, at hand, and it’s been referred to as my “nest”, which it very much is! But yes, it is a bit of an embarrassing mess sometimes.

The narrative weaves back and forth between Mona’s childhood, her young womanhood with William, and her adult life now, entertaining the thought of getting to know a new man. As an older woman once said to her:

“‘I had the chance of him, my darling. I had the chance of him. And let me tell you this. The chance of something is a good meal when you’re starving.’”

As an adult, Mona still loves the beach and the sea, although the kind of weather there doesn’t appeal to me. 

“Mona never covers her hair. Cold. She pulls her scarf round her neck, too tight, and has to ease it off a little. Wet. Sea-sodden air and giant curls of water pushing in, over and over, black-and-white slaps of sea as loud as a train, as a thousand trains. She loves the sting of wet sand on her skin and the sharp lick of salt on her tongue.”

There was a place in the early part where I thought this might end up some kind of cloying romance, but I very much enjoyed the author’s earlier My Name is Leon, and I know her background in Social Services, so I trusted there would be more to it. And there was.

I do hope the finished version has clearer breaks between chapters or sections, as the preview copy didn’t. It wasn’t all that hard to tell which part of her life we were in, but it helps me to have a demarcation.

I very much enjoyed this and am looking forward to her next one, as I’m sure others will, too. Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Books/Viking for the preview copy from which I’ve quoted.

This book just wasn't for me. The parts I was supposed to be moved by I just wasn't, and that's probably because I felt so detached from the characters. I never felt like I got to know them.

Kit de Waal writes so well about overlooked people, bringing to the forefront characters who would be marginalised in another story. Mona, The Trick to Time's central character, touches the reader's heart as her journey takes us from her childhood in Ireland, to 1970s Birmingham (at the time of the IRA pub bombings), and then to a seaside town in the present. There are real surprises in this warm, poignant novel.

My goodness you should absolutely give away free tissues with this book! It has stayed with me for the 2 weeks since I finished and think it will for a long time. Brilliant.

Ah beautiful book, a little gem and a lovely read tho sad in parts for obvious reasons....loved Mona and her story and was devastated when the book was over! A seriously gorgeous book and a great read I loved it a lot...

The Trick to Time is a slow burn of a novel.  A 60 year old  Irish doll maker living in a sleepy seaside town reflects on her girlhood and early marriage to William.  A story of loss and redemption, it will tug at the reader's heartstrings.