Until We Meet Again

Gr 8 Up—Two emotional teenagers meet on the beach and bond over art, poetry, and feeling misunderstood, only to find out they live in the same house—90 years apart. Cassandra and Lawrence can only see each other on the strip of private beach behind the house that Lawrence occupies in 1925 and that Cassandra's family is renting in 2015. Cassandra takes to the library to do some digging on her new beau and discovers he was/is going to be murdered on that very beach in just 10 days. The love-struck teens are torn between staying in their own time periods to investigate (and try to prevent) the murder and spending what might be Lawrence's last days on Earth together. The romance is woozy and breathless, which gives it a classic feel, and the investigating the teens do on both sides of the event builds some suspense. While there's quite a bit readers have to accept here (not one person in either time period is interested in using this beautiful private beach except the teens, ensuring nobody figures out their secret until the very end; any culture shock Lawrence might be feeling at the language and dress from 2015 is brushed off a little too easily; and the explanation as to why they can see each other in the first place is spotty), readers with a flair for the dramatic and romantic will overlook these points easily.