After accidentally almost falling to her death, Louisa Casson winds up in a mental hospital, accused of trying to commit suicide. She discovers a "secret passage" to an abandoned part of the hospital that served as a medical hospital for wounded soldiers during World War I, 100 years ago. While exploring, Louisa somehow finds herself transported to 1917. She and a wounded British officer, Robert Lovett, become besotted with each other.

This book not only jumps between time periods; it also jumps between the points of view of Louisa and Robert. The author makes these transitions beautifully and it isn't at all confusing. She also clearly did her research because the scenes depicting the horrors of The Great War are vivid and realistic. The author also seems to be aware of the not-so-ideal conditions of today's public mental health facilities.

This was a lengthy novel, but I never got bored and it never seemed to drag at all. I enjoyed it thoroughly and look forward to reading more from this author. I thought it was a very strong novel, especially for a debut effort. It is historical fiction/romance at its best!

As always, many thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for the privilege of reading an advancec copy of this book!

This book is a time travel romance set in present day and the WWI period, with the story being told from the POV both leading characters. Louise, a medical student in present day, is unwillingly committed to a psychiatric hospital which also served as a hospital for wounded soldiers in WWI. While exploring an abandoned wing of the facility, the she hears a call for help, opens a door and is transported to 1916, where she meets Robert, a wounded British officer. Over the next several days, she returns to the room and develops a romantic relationship with the officer. What follows is the typical time travel between two periods, with Louise travelling back in time to save Robert. The author did a great job of incorporating small details so that I could often see or almost smell the scene. However, on occasion, there were too many details, and I found myself skimming past some of the text in order to move to the next action. I also felt there were too many plot lines incorporated and the story line rambled a bit. I did enjoy the style of writing and would read another book by this author.

When I first started to read I expected a typical time travel romance. Very light reading. This book is something both different and the same. It is the same in that it is about time travel and romance, but it is a very good historical novel about world war 1. It brought to life some of the horrors of war in the trenches, and what people will go through to find each other.

Very enjoyable time travel novel. Well researched, exciting and romantic with an excellent sense of time and place. Highly recommended.

Louisa Casson has attempted suicide, or so the modern medical world has decided. Sent to a psychiatric facility, she is resistant to any therapy and frightened by the patients. Wandering off one day to the abandoned section of the hospital, she meets a wounded soldier...from World War I. Suffering from hysterical blindness, Robert Lovett can not initially see this woman but nevertheless falls in love during her visits. When the truth is realized that they exist a century apart, he returns to combat. She begins an arduous journey to reunite with him, despite the obstacles to prevent this. She embraces a new identity, Rose Ashby, a nursing volunteer who sees firsthand the horrors of war and the primitive medical treatment available. Through her skilled writing Catherine Taylor enables her readers to take this leap between both worlds and to follow the course of the time-crossed lovers.

I received an ARC of this book and really loved it! The story is well written and the characters are unforgettable. I hated to put it down. I especially enjoyed being taken into the past. A great look at WWI and 1916.

In the year 2017, Louisa Casson finds herself in a rather perplexing situation in Beyond The Moon by Catherine Taylor. Through a series of unfortunate events, she finds herself getting drunk on a long saved and cherished bottle of brandy along the cliffs near her recently departed grandmother's home. After her mother's early death, she is then pawned off on her grandmother by her father who chose to instead spend his life with his new girlfriend instead of living with Louisa. After years of being raised by her grandmother, Louisa then ends up caring for her grandmother in later years as the cycle of life turns.

As she drinks herself into oblivion, a cold and rainy blinding fog sets in and Louisa struggles to find her way back. Meanwhile, the cliff collapses and falls towards the ocean. Somehow Louisa manages to hold on and only falls part of the way though, between the drink and the fall, she is knocked out cold. Once rescued, it is believed that this was a suicide attempt on Louisa's part and is admitted to Coldbrook Hall psychiatric hospital in Sussex, England. Coldbrook Hall is now a miserable for profit institution that offers only the minimum of care but was, at one time, Coldbrook Hall military convalescent hospital, back in 1916 during WWl, which was a much nicer place. The original building was a beautiful facility with nice grounds for the patients to go out for some fresh air. Much of the story takes place within these confines during both periods of time.

Though Louisa was not suicidal, no amount of reasoning will convince the authorities otherwise; hence, Louisa is, more or less, being held captive with no family to speak up for her and vouch for her sanity. Having no other option, she learns how to cope and maneuver her way around with help from Kerry, a schizophrenic patient whom she befriends, who gives her tips on survival while incarcerated.

Kerry shows Louisa a secret passage to a closed off part of the hospital that they wander off to during smoking breaks. During such an excursion, Louisa takes her own little tour of the building only to find herself entering a room where Lieutenant Robert Lovett, an injured soldier, is in need of help. If being committed to a psychiatric institution isn't enough adventure for you, this room is where Louisa drops down the rabbit hole, so to speak, as she finds herself in the year 1916.

It takes a little while for Louisa to figure out what's going on but finds that she is captivated by Robert which has her continuing her visits between time periods. Between the planned demolition of the blocked off wing and Robert's commitment to the war effort, we see the couple develop an amorous love obsession while trying to find each other around extreme circumstances that keeps them apart.

Taylor writes about many of the horrendous conditions Robert is exposed to involving putrid body parts, rats, mud and exposure to the elements. In some ways, it was reminiscent of David Halbertam's book One Very Hot Day which details a day in the life of a soldier in Vietnam. Neither are for the squeamish! The same can be said of when Louisa ventures back in time to live the life of Rose Ashby as a VAD (a volunteer nurse's aide) for the war effort while searching for Robert.

Jumping time periods, as well as telling the story from the point of view of each of their lives, can be quite confusing, but Taylor does a fine job at keeping everything straight and in perspective. I never got lost or confused as to what was going on or where we were at any given time.

Ultimately, this was much more a love story than some sort of sci-fi or paranormal novel, though could easily appeal to those with an interest in those areas. The book is fairly lengthy but, with that said, I still would have enjoyed a little more story. In fact, my only complaint is at the very end with how the author chooses to leave Robert and Louisa. Not the inclusion of what was written but that I would have appreciated at least a few lines or so about how they went on to live their lives. Not much but just a little taste of what they eventually did with this extra time given them. This was an enjoyable story that had my attention through the entire book and would easily recommend to those who like such books. Would also make for a good movie that, if done well, would appeal to a mixed audience with its blending of both love and war. Hopefully, we'll get to see that one day.


Thanks to NetGalley for a copy of the eBook in exchange for a fair and honest review.

View review on my blog, Tea With A Bookworm:
https://teawiththebookworm.blogspot.com/2019/07/beyond-moon-by-catherine-taylor.html

My Goodreads review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2913478586?book_show_action=false

I love time travel books! At times I the found the war chapters alittle drawn out and boring. I would have liked maybe more at the end. Overall I enjoyed it! Thanks to Netgalley for the copy

Romance isn't my usual reading fare. But I decided to give this one a chance because of the time-travel element (a current research interest) and the historical time period. World War I has always interested me because it was such a game-changer in warfare.

The book is beautifully written. It shifts between the past, when Robert fights in the war and recovers from his injuries, and the present, when Louisa fights to maintain her sanity in a psychiatric hospital. Overall, I found the historical parts more compelling than the present day ones.

Here's what I enjoyed.

1. Excellent portrayal of World War I

Taylor's words capture the horrors of trench warfare. Rats eating bloated corpses. Trench foot. Fear of a gas attack. Filthy, half-starved soldiers, weary of war, uncertain what they are fighting for anymore. Leaders writing merciful lies to victims' families--a sniper, one shot through the head, your son died immediately-- though the dead often die in agony. And back home in Britain, the powerful men who, from the safety of their own offices, are ordering more men into the battlefields. Taylor takes us there, into the trenches and makes us experience it along with Robert.  

2. Interesting insight into WWI-era medicine

Doctors tell Robert that his shell shock is the "result of a shell exploding too close to the head, causing lesions. 'An invisibly fine molecular commotion in the brain'" (chapter 10). A hundred years later, our understanding of this has changed. It's fascinating to read and compare the differences in medical knowledge. 

When Louisa accidentally ends up in 1917, people mistake her for Rose Ashby, a VAD nurse in a hospital in France. The nurses and doctors do their best. But the young men brought in from the nearby battlefield are often too wounded to survive. Things that are routine now--blood transfusions, chest compressions, antibiotics--were either experimental or completely unavailable. 

3. Louisa and Robert's first encounter

It takes a while to get to the romantic leads' first meeting. Robert is calling for help, and Louisa can't turn away from any injured person, even if they are unseen. Even when she knows she'll be in trouble with the psychiatric hospital staff for being in an off-limits part of the building, her instinct is to help. And so she goes to Robert. 

Both are drawn to one another. Obviously! But it's not just a physical attraction. It's a feeling of kinship: they are both unhappy, fearful, and lonely. They fill a need in each other's life. It's lovely to see them fall in love, even when being together seems impossible. 

4. Interesting minor characters

Robert's best friend is a conscientious objector/painter named Edgar. He's a fascinating person. I was also intrigued by the various ways the author uses Marisa, Flora, and Kerry, women that Louisa grows to care about. 

There are a few weaker areas, though.

It took me a while to warm up to Louisa. While her depression is understandable, she seems purposeless, like she is drifting through despair. Her backstory about her troubled teenage years and abandonment felt underdeveloped, too. Once she meets Robert and her compassionate side reawakens, I started to like and root for her. 

Also, I never quite bought the medical rationale for admitting Louisa into a psychiatric hospital against her will. The doctors are insistent that she's suicidal, though she knows better, but their evidence is circumstantial. (Where I live in the U.S., the process is also more legally complicated and not entirely up to the doctors.)

I also never understood how the visiting psychiatrists to Coldbrook Hall Hospital don't see how cruel the head nurse is nor how the hospital's "care" isn't helping the patients at all. They seem oblivious. Other than the medications, the hospital seems more Victorian than 21st century, and certainly doesn't reflect recent reforms in psychiatric care.

Overall, this is a strong novel.

If you like historical romance, you might enjoy this. I've read it compared to the novels of Diana Gabaldon and Kate Morton. While I haven't read Gabaldon, I think Beyond the Moon is a good fit for Kate Morton fans. 

Thanks again to NetGalley and AuthorBuzz for the opportunity to read Beyond the Moon in exchange for an honest review.

Note: This review will be posted to my blog on August 9, 2019. https://meredithrankin.com/beyond-the-moon-catherine-taylor/ I will also place a link to this review on Pinterest on 8/9/19.

I am usually a fan of ww1 and WW2 stories and this one was promising with the added bonus of being trapped unwillingly in a mental facility. Something just didn’t work well though for me for this one. Maybe it was the romance (who falls in love literally at first sight, who really truly has no friends or family who care for them?)
Maybe it was how some of the storyline gaps were just left gaping open, never to be acknowledged. Maybe it was the ending that, well, just ended. A decent story, but I had to force myself to finish as it just didn’t hold my attention and intrigue me to go on.

This was a great time travel novel told between modern times and WWI. I was rooting for the main characters the whole time! Thank you net galley for the advance reader copy of this novel.

I got quite caught up in Beyond the Moon. It is a time slip/reincarnation/ romance that bounces between the Great War and present time. Two people from two different times meet in a hospital wing that is active in WW1 and abandoned in present time. The big question is will they be able to connect and stay together? I was totally pulled in to this story, hoping for the best.

This is a beautifully written story that involves time travel and romance but so much more. The descriptions of WWI and its aftermath is horrifying and believable. I would hope that modern day psychiatric care is better than what Louisa endures, but in order for her to meet Robert, the suspension of disbelief is easily achieved. This was an enjoyable read with a satisfying ending.

Beyond the Moon by Catherine Taylor is a lovely romance with a mix of time split/time travel between early 20th Century and the present. The graphic historical details of World War I combat, cultural, medical practices of that era are well written and described. I found the medical/psychiatric care given in 2017 less believable and brutal. The reader is drawn in and shifted between times with this unusual story and characters in original ways. What a pleasure to have been chosen to read and review this exciting new book by Catherine Taylor. I look forward to reading more by this author.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from Netgalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. I appreciate the opportunity and thank the author and publisher for allowing me to read, enjoy and review this book.

Robert is a soldier from the Western Front of the Great War. Suffering from Shell Shock as well as physical wounds, he finds himself in the hospital in 1916. In 2016, Louisa loses her grandmother and through a freak turn of events finds herself in the hospital because they think she attempted suicide. In wandering an abandoned wing of the hospital, Louisa slips through time and ends up meeting Robert in 1916.

Beyond the Moon is well written, you feel the horrors of war, and the fear of being locked up in a mental hospital by accident. Ms. Taylor is very descriptive of both situations and you feel like you are watching Robert and Louisa as they live their lives. Thank you #Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

A romance for the ages - literally. Medical student Louisa Casson was palmed off as a child by her father to live with her grandmother at an isolated cottage on South Downs cliffs by the sea. Her grandmother becomes both surrogate father and mother to young Louisa. Love and affection were bonds that defined this relationship. An introvert and voracious reader, the death of her grandmother, her best and only real connection with society, devastated Louisa.

Depressed and without family or friends to offer support she seeks solace out of a bottle. On a foggy evening she looses her bearings and stumbles off the edge of a cliff. Fortunately, a ledge halts her death plunge. Unfortunately, she is discovered and thought to be attempting suicide and is committed to Coldbrook Hall for observation. Run down and run by uncaring and often cruel staff with sub-par professionals she becomes stuck in the institution.

One hundred years prior, in 1916 amidst the horrors of The Great War, Coldbrook Hall was a hospital for wounded from the Front. Among the wounded was a talented but unknown artist and front line officer, suffering from a form of hysterical blindness, 1st Lieutenant Robert Lovett.

Back in the future, Louisa makes a friend at Coldbrook, Kerry, who takes her to an abandoned wing of the hospital. As Louisa wandered about the ruins she opens a strange door. Suddenly, she is totally confused as everything turns weird, though she’s walked onto a stage set from the early 1900s.

She stumbles into Lt. Lovett’s room. Almost immediately there is a connection between Louisa and Robert. Over the following weeks Louisa darts between the two realities as she attempts to comfort and help heal Robert. Robert becomes enchanted with Louisa, who not only helps him with his injuries but become his artistic inspiration.

This story is intelligently written and combines several genres into the fabric of the narrative. First and foremost it is a romance. Louisa and Robert share a passion that spans the ages but not without suffering separation and heartache. Lt. Lovett provides the reader with a realistic and fatalistic historical view of the horrors of trench warfare and the trenches - and life as a POW.

The Edwardian fascination with the paranormal is also an important element in the story as Louisa tries to understand why and how this is happening.

The conclusion is a whirlwind of action that must be read to be fully appreciated.

I absolutely loved this book. A beautiful love story during a brutal time in history, Beyond the Moon went beyond my expectations. I learned details about World War I and women's roles that I had not known before while coming to know the main characters, Louisa and Robert. The time travel aspect added interest. If you are a fan of Outlander and historical fiction, this one is a must read.

3.5 stars

I had trouble rating this one because while I liked it, I wasn't quite so clear on how the whole time traveling thing was working and also the ending seemed a bit uncertain. I think the author may have left it that way on purpose, but I was hoping for a slightly more satisfying conclusion. Without revealing any spoilers, I wish she had been completely open with him about who she was. Perhaps it didn't matter in the end, but since we didn't really understand the way the time traveling thing was really happening, it felt like the ending could still be taken away at some future date. I think it's quite good for being the author's first book and I think she shows a lot of promise. I look forward to seeing what she will produce in the future.

A wonderful historical/time travel novel! Louisa was in Coldbrook, a mental hospital. She finds a portal to 1917 through a condemned wing of the hospital. She meets Robert a soldier in France and becomes Rose, a nurse. They fall in love. Very moving and interesting book. Complex and interesting characters and events. I truly loved this book.

When a tumble down an eroding cliff face in the dark of night lands Louisa in A&E, the doctors determine that she is a danger to herself and admit her to Coldbrook Hall, a psychiatric facility, and put her on suicide watch. 

Louisa is a former medical student and so hopes that if she can show them that she is not a risk to herself, that there has been some misunderstanding then she will be released. When she realizes that no one is going to believe her and the facility is too understaffed to care about individual patients, she knows that she has to keep her wits about her and her head above water.

When she learns there is a way to sneak away and into a closed and condemned ward of the hospital, used during the First World War for recovering British soldiers, she somehow stumbles upon a soldier recovering from his injuries. She is confused and shocked, but no more so than when she tries to show her friend ony for there to be no evidence of him ever having been there.

Her days then revolve around getting away and spending time with him. They gradually get closer, but how can they ever be together if she is only ever a visitor in the past, real only to him?

What follows is a beautiful and complex love story and an insight into the horrors of the new kind of war that soldiers had to face during World War I.

_________

This book, my god. I learned about this book in a recommendation email from NetGalley and I am so glad that I received the email. This is one of the most unique books that I have read for quite a while.

This book is told from two seperate first-person narrations, Louisa's and Robert's. Two life stories being told simultaneously and coming together. Sometimes dual narrations can make a story clunky, but it really worked for this book and truly the only way I think this story would have worked.

The author has a great voice and did such an amazing job with descriptive detailing that the parts of the story taking place in 1917 felt just as real and tangible to me as the parts of the story taking place in 2017.

I'll be completely honest I almost called it quits on this book when Louisa and Robert lost contact at about the midway point because I was worried that the rest of the book was just going to detail the seperate tragic endings for both of them. But I decided to have faith in where the story was taking me and keep reading. I'm so glad I did because the time apart and the journeys they both had to endure made the story so much more powerful. I loved this book more than I can express. I am astounded that this is the first book that Catherine Taylor has published. I am looking forward to more books from this author.

I saw some people comparing it to Outlander. And although it does involve a woman capable of traveling forward and backward through time, I found Beyond the Moon and the Outlander series to be quite unique from one another. They are both lovely and have a completely different voice from one another.

Many thanks to NetGalley's AuthorBuzz and The Cameo Press Ltd for recommending this book to me via email and sharing an electronic copy with me for reviewing purposes. I voluntarily read this book and this is my honest review.