Ask SHARON GUSKIN - author of THE FORGETTING TIME - a question now! Post yours by Wednesday 27 July

Thanks for my copy of the book, unfortunately it didn't live up to my expectations and was disappointing. My main problem was I didn't connect with any of the characters, I found Janie's reaction to what Noah was going through and experiencing implausible and extremely selfish. Janie is portrayed as an educated and professional woman with experience of using technology and therefore I found it hard to believe she wouldn't have been capable of doing more research herself online sooner to determine what Noah was going through. I also found it hard to believe that Janie wouldn't have picked up that Dr Anderson had a neurological condition. The story was disjointed and kept going off on a tangent, it just didn't flow. There were to many characters and I felt I didn't really get to truely know any of them. It was a book I kept picking up and putting down out of boredom. The only redeeming feature of this book were the extracts taken from Life Before Life which were extremely interesting and thought provoking, however these extracts did distract from the story and were poorly placed throughout the book.

A bit predictable in places but it still kept me wanting to read on - it's very different to the sort of books I normally read. It's very sad at times. I am not a believer in past lives but I still enjoyed this story.

I've only read a few chapters so far and what I've read I've enjoyed. It's well written and intriguing. Promising start to this debut novel

Thank you for my book, I was so thrilled to receive it!
It was an interesting story and I found the central concept fascinating. Overall I felt the characters were well drawn and the little boy's experience was both unsettling and poignant. A gripping, easy read

I am about halfway through this book at the moment and really enjoying it. I'm finding it difficult to put down when I start to read as I'm eager to find out what happens next.

I really hope things work out for Noah and his Mum.

I would definitely recommend this book.

I was thrilled to bits to win a copy of this book. However when it first arrived my initial thoughts were 'argh, a book about a child having nightmares - I don't want to read it'.
Luckily I was completely wrong, it was a real page turner and I'm still thinking about it now (always a good sign!). It was great having an excuse to have to read - "I HAVE to read this for MN, they need my review!" (please send more!).
I don't think I massively loved any of the characters but to be honest that doesn't really matter to me if the story is good and this was great - I wondered where it was going to end, how was she going to wrap it all up, what would the outcome be for Noah? I liked that she didn't try and over-write Jerry's role, and he was kept as the professional without morphing into some grandparent type figure. I thought the book was really well written and I liked the snatches of Shakespeare and Dickinson. Thank you for my copy.

I was delighted to receive a copy of this, particularly as I probably wouldnt have come across it otherwise.
I found it to be an easy but enjoyable read. The characters were engaging and I found myself wanting to find out what happened. I was particularly taken with Denise's character. The close bond between mothers and sons in 2 different families and very different circumstances worked well. I am sceptical about reincarnation but did find myself wanting to read more into it.
Thank you - an enjoyable read and a good solid debut novel. I will be interested to see what she writes next.

Thank you for my copy of this book. I have enjoyed reading it, and feel that it is really well written. I have not found it to be a 'page turner', but the characters are all well developed. I too am sceptical about the concept of reincarnation, but this did not effect my enjoyment of the book at all. I felt the setting and characters were portrayed realistically.

This is hard to get into characters ways. Having to put down think about each chapter. Not my favourite read at moment .

Loved this book and read it very quickly. Thought the relationship between Janie and Noah was well portrayed and the deterioration in Jerrys health was dealt with sympathetically. I don't think you had to believe in the central concept to enjoy the book (I'm sceptical of anything like that) but I did find the little case studies inserted into the book to be interesting. An excellent debut and I'll look forward to more from Sharon Guskin.

Another book I thoroughly enjoyed from start to finish. It's beautifully written and I loved the plot and the characters

What an intriguing read this is. It is extremely thought provoking making the reader consider ideas that might otherwise seem very outlandish at first glance. However, the way the characters and the story are built lends it self to treating the whole subject of possible reincarnation not exactly believable, but certainly something to be considered.This is a debut novel from Sharon Guskin and she certainly pulls no punches in tackling a subject that could potentially have been ridiculed. That it isn't is to the author's credit. It is certainly very cleverly written with intriguing characters. The relationship between the two main characters, a mother and her young son, is very sensitively handled in an unusual set up. How does a mother cope when her son keeps exclaiming that he wants to go home to his other mother. The desperate measures that a mother, a single one at that, goes through is imagined in a way that keeps the reader enthralled.

I have long been fascinated by the tales of children who can remember past lives in detail, and this book is a beautifully written story of one such child, Noah, who can remember a former life, and his struggling single mother, desperately trying to handle a highly intelligent child with his nightmares and seeming memories of a former life and death.
I wanted to read this book the moment I read the synopsis on Mumsnet, and I was fortunate enough to win an advance copy. I read it in a few sittings and was certainly not disappointed. A well researched and yet easily readable novel, full of fascinating questions and what-ifs?

Just finished reading the book, thank you for sending me a copy mumsnet. I was unsure initially if I was going to enjoy it given the theme of reincarnation and my non commital to believing this, but despite my feelings on the matter it made a good and interesting and thought proving theme to the book which I really enjoyed . It also made me think about life and death and the big questions and what my views are after finishing the book (although tbh I'm still not sure anything has changed in my opinion in this) and it's not often I find a book which gives me such a topic which stays stays with me to consider after I've finished it.

Just finished reading this book and loved it. I find it hard to concentrate on reading these days so a book has to grab me from the start and this one did.
It was obvious where it was going from the start, but I enjoyed the way it got there. A great holiday read, but with quite a sad conclusion I thought. Thanks for my copy!

This was an interesting read. It kept me turning pages for sure! Like others have said, for some reason I couldn't quite take to Janie....not sure why. The story was interesting and intriguing, and I loved the way it was written. Definitely worth a read!

Firstly, many thanks to Mumsnet and the publisher for my copy. It has been a treat for me to read a real book (and a hardback, dead posh!)

I really enjoyed this book, a lot more than I thought I would initially as I found it a steady read rather than a page turner until I got to the second part of the story. I loved the way the author writes, her prose is really beautiful and just flows effortlessly. This is real storytelling with a beginning, a middle and an end. So refreshing as I gave up reading for a while because so many novels don't bother with anything as mundane as story line never mind a proper resolution.

My whole reason for entering this giveaway was because I was drawn to the subject matter which fascinates me. In that respect the author manages not to fall into the trap of making it too "woo" or too sceptical. However, this aspect of the story became secondary to other motifs such as love, forgiveness friendship and the nature of loss.

If the book has a flaw it's that the characterisation was a bit two dimensional for me and things were touched on but never fully explored. This was a shame as it was difficult to feel much empathy with the main protagonists particularly the mother as she just came across as a cold fish.

I enjoyed the book very much. Once I got into reading it properly I found that I read it very quickly. It took me a little while to get into it properly and I felt slightly that the character of Janie was a bit different in the main body of the book than she was at the beginning (maybe that was intentional?).

I thought it was a clever and interesting idea for a book and I liked the way the story was interspersed with extracts from reported events. (I'd wondered if the author made these up and Googled them - was surprised that these were cases which really had been investigated :)

I liked that I related to aspects and feelings of characters that I didn't necessarily identify with. I thought the author did a good job of conveying real reactions and feelings to highly unlikely circumstances.

I have just started this book & I definately have been sucked in already it's my type of book! Recommend if you like a book to really get your teeth into

Awe have I missed this? This book sounds awesome.

I'm halfway through so far and I am really enjoying it, past lives is not something I have looked into much, except for one documentary I saw many years ago. It's definitely something i'll pay more attention to now though.
I will give a proper review once I have finished.

The Forgetting Time! I was so pleased to receive a free copy of Sharon Guskins debut novel! I had previously seen it mentioned on mumsnet and on another website and knew it was my kind of book.
It especially appeals to me because as a young child I had an experience which my parents told me had been a dream but I know it was more than that. I dreamt/remembered watching myself although not me in my current guise have a car accident with my mother driving (not my current mother) and a brother involved. We were in a car driving on the right hand side of the road not the left as we do in the UK. I saw that my mother and I were killed and I was floating above. I watched my brother who survived and my father (I don't have a brother and it wasn't my Dad in this life) hugging and crying. Somewhere within it I heard someone say it's 1971 which was the year I was born into this life. I was only 6/7 when I had this memory/dream and I don't have enough information to trace an accident that occurred. The odd thing is that I was born in Germany where they do drive on the right hand side. Did my soul leave that child and enter me? Something nobody will ever know for sure. This is why the book really appealed to me. It's interesting and the characters although we don't get to know them in depth that kind of adds to the mysterious atmosphere of the whole book for me. I found the 'true life' passages fascinating although they are written as if they are real articles of real experiences I can't seem to find out if they are fictitious. It would be interesting to know. Maybe I've missed that.
I won't go into too much further detail as to the storyline so as not to spoil it for others who are yet to read it. It was a very enjoyable book that left me looking forward to the next chance I got to sit and read it and the usual sadness at the coming to the end of a good book that's provoked thought and emotion. I really hope that Sharon Guskin is working on another novel and that it doesn't take her too long to write it!
Thankyou very much for my copy of this book.

Just finished this and I stick by my original impression - that it is an easy read but didn't particularly engage me. I would have liked more backstory on Anderson or perhaps more about the development of his aphasia. I can't see myself rereading it I think it's one for the charity shop.

Just finished reading this today. Overall I enjoyed the book and found parts of it very touching, especially towards the end. I was interested in the subject matter (re-incarnation) and felt that the characters of Denise and Tommy were particularly well drawn.

I am really looking forward to this, just got to finish one that needs to be returned to the library (need more reading time!!) then it's next.