The Forgetting Time by Sharon Guskin - Quirky, and Unputdownable!

I love books that are a bit quirky: those where time slips and two people meet in different times, like in The Time Traveller's Wife, or Tantalus: the sculptors story, but The Forgetting Time by Sharon Guskin is something else entirely. Noah can remember another life; another home and another mother. He is just one small boy who can remember living in a different time.

'Noah is four and wants to go home.
The only trouble is, he's already there.'

This is the totally absorbing story of Noah who is driving his mother, Janie, to distraction because of his fear of having a bath (she has to use wipes to keep him clean); his nightmares when he cries 'Mama! Mama!' (although his name for Janie is Mommy-Mom); and his overwhelming desperation to go home. After trying many doctors who cannot help, she finds Jerome Anderson on the internet.
Anderson, in his sixties, has aphasia and is losing his ability to use words to speak and write. He has been studying reincarnation in Asia and wants to publish his life's work on the subject before it's too late, but he needs one last American case, according to his publisher, to make his book relevant to the US market.
He helps Janie and Noah find the family of Tommy Crawford, who was murdered at the age of nine, and whose mother, Denise, and brother, Charlie, Noah recognises.
Sharon Guskin then skilfully examines the delicate relationship that develops between Noah and Charlie; the trust that Janie puts in Anderson; the still raw emotions of Denise who has lost her son, and her coming to terms with the fact that Noah might just be the reincarnation of Tommy; the relationships between Noah and Janie, and Noah and Denise; the fact that Noah is white and Tommy was black; and the story of how Tommy was killed.
This is a brilliant debut novel and was totally unputdownable: I had to keep sneaking back to it to find out what happened next.

I'm Being Tantalized by Tantalus, the Intriguing First Novel by Jane Jazz

To tantalize means to torment with the sight of something that is out of reach.
This is the clever premise of Tantalus by Jane Jazz.
Sylvia and Tom are tantalized by the sight of each other, but they cannot reach each other because they are fifty years apart: separated by time and a wall between their studios which disintegrates to reveal each to the other, but will not let them touch or visit each other's time.
This first occurs in 1975 when Sylvia, a painter, is 25, and Tom, a sculptor, is 28, but is living in 1924.
It's a beautiful story, rather like The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger or Ferney by James Long where two lovers are kept apart by time. However, in those two books, the lovers do meet through the years, but Sylvia and Tom are kept apart only to see each other through the wall. However, they discover that they can communicate by letters pushed through a hole, and their words are full of emotion.

Jane has written a Romantic story with a capital R, calling on poetry from Keats and paintings by Millais and Burne-Jones.
To find out what happens to this couple so deeply in love, you will have to read her novel, which at the moment is only available as an ebook. I can't wait for the paperback version because I'm being tantalized by this beautiful story and would love one to hold in my hands and treasure it for ever!