Product Description

In fin-de-siecle Copenhagen, part-time prostitute Charlotte and her lumpen sidekick, Fru Schleswig, have taken on jobs as cleaning ladies of dubious talent to tide them over the harsh winter of 1897. But the home of their neurotic new employer, the widow Krak, soon reveals itself to be riddled with dark secrets - including the existence of a demonic machine rumoured to swallow people alive. Rudely catapulted into twenty-first-century London, the hapless duo discover a whole new world of glass, labour-saving devices and hectic, impossible romance.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #168643 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
'Unashamedly gleeful: a kind of topsy-turvy Jane Eyre with added time travel Sit back, suspend your disbelief, and enjoy' Daily Mail 'Less science fiction than fairy tale, it is also a love story, complete with many dramatic reversals of fortune and narrated in appealingly breathless, energetic style Jensen is a consistently inventive writer' Sunday Telegraph 'This sweetly entertaining story is enough on the magical side of realism to allow love, for once, to conquer all' Sunday Times 'Captivating There are moments of genius Packed with charm and energy, this is definitely worth taking the, er, time to read' Time Out

Independent on Sunday
`Wickedly funny and fantastical gothic farce ... a pitch-perfect
voice packed full of little comic detonations'

Daily Express
`A delightful read, fuelled by love, time travel and Viagra, with
anachronistic vacuum cleaners tidying everything up'

Customer Reviews

Love and Time Travel - familiar plot? Nope.
Liz Jensen is in love. In real life, that is, she is in love with a fellow author who lives in Copenhagen with his daughter. Liz Jensen lives in London with her two children. Problem? Nah, she just flies to Copenhagen for one week in every two and leads her double-domestic life. It's the not-quite-perfect solution and it's also the inspiration for this delightful novel. And oh, can't you tell she's in love!

Jensen has a remarkable ability to become your immediate and intimate friend within a mere page or two of her novels. This is never more apparent than in this novel where the reader is occasionally addressed as 'my darling', or 'dearest', and is also complimented on how splendid he or she looks! This intimacy, combined with Jensen's familiar, easy-going, but sparklingly observant and beautifully expressed writing, ('The era you have come to is called the Information Age. You will have access to all the knowledge in the world, but never, I wager, will you have met folk with less wisdom, curiosity or insight.'), are partly what make this another of her most original and satisfying reads.

This is more than a novel about time travel and Crocodile Dundee-esque stranger in a strange land observations. Jensen does all of this very well and in her usual astute and hilarious way, but what we get is ultimately much more than that. Since I first read the astonishing 'Ark Baby' I've always thought that Jensen writes men really well. She gets us. This novel is no exception (Fergus and Professor Krak are endearing and believable, the aptly named and deeply unpleasant Dogger is believable, sadly, but most definitely not endearing!). However, in 'My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Time' we get a female protagonist, Charlotte, who is at once sexy, engaging, intelligent, savvy, loveable, likeable, and has you rooting for her with every word she writes. Rarely have I so wanted a character's situation to work out well. She inspires, moves, amuses, and amazes.

So this is much more than a book about travels in a Tardis-like machine; it is about love having no boundaries, not even time (but without the cloying sentiment of 'The Time Traveller's Wife'), and how, when surrounded by those who love you and given their support, seemingly insurmountable problems can still be solved. Liz Jensen only has the logistics of physical distance (as opposed to a gap of 100 years) to contend with. But I'm glad she does, for perhaps, if her unusual and romantic situation didn't exist, this hilarious, moving, quirky, and joyful story would never have been told.

PURITANS BEWARE !
Beware, puritans! But for all warm blooded humans, it's a kaleidoscope of fun and fantasy; a fairy story in which anything can happen, and essentially for grown-ups. Liz Jensen's imagination carries us back to 19th Century Copenhagen, and with a perspective of that century, forward into our own, viewing our lifestyle with a fresh and sometimes satirical perspective. Its sexiness is light-hearted and funny, and her wit - for as ever Jensen's wit sparkles from every spage - carries us through outrageous fantasy, to a happy denouement, and a well-rounded narrative. There's a laugh a line, saved from superficiality by Jensen's idiosynchartic touches of darkness. It's fresh and original, and if it's sometimes daring, then why not?

an uplifting gem
Liz Jensen is great. You never know what to expect and her latest is a gem. Jensen has stepped away from her darkside, portrayed in the fantastic Louis Drax, to give a light, enchanting, funning and infectious love story with a difference.