The House on Hound Hill

This well-researched but predictable time-travel novel, the British author's American debut, takes readers back to 1665 London, the site of a plague. After her parents' divorce, Emily, her brother and mother move to a ramshackle but historic row house on Hound Hill. Emily's peculiar visions begin when an oddly dressed, strangely formal boy named Seth comes to Emily's door, searching for his cat, and gives his address as her own. As Emily hears clanging bells at night, smells bitter tallow candles, meets crowds of beggars and confronts a supposedly extinct black rat in her chimney, she finally realizes what is immediately obvious to the reader: that she can perceive the events of another time and even visit 1665. But when the curator of the local history museum contracts the plague, Emily learns that others can see the former residents and that it may be dangerous to stay too long in the past. The premise of concurrent planes of time and space is compelling but not always consistent; Emily's longest encounter occurs while she is unconscious, but all others happen in parallel time. Ultimately this unevenness detracts from the momentum. The plague proves the story's most important character, and readers will remember more about the barbaric practices of locking families in their homes and the nightly collection of the dead in street carts than about Prince's cast or plot. Ages 10-up. (Oct.)