Staff Review – The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston

Does anyone remember the movie "The Lake House"? Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves falling in love while separated by two years? This magical realism story is all I could think about as I started reading Ashley Poston's latest novel. In "The Seven Year Slip", Clementine inherits her aunt's magical apartment after she passes away. At random (or, when it thinks you need it), the apartment will transport it's owner to a time seven years in the past. One day, Clementine opens the door and, instead of entering into her newly empty apartment, she enters into her aunt's apartment that is being rented out for the summer by Iwan, a friend of the family. Clementine has no control when the apartment will bring her back to Iwan, and it's not exactly something you explain to a stranger who you're slowly falling in love with. And when she finally finds Iwan in her present, he is not quite the same person from the apartment.

This book is more than just your average love story. With Clementine and Iwan meeting seven years apart, this causes Clementine and the reader to think about how people can change over time. When Clementine meets Iwan, he is a young dishwasher looking to make his way into the culinary world. Her present is seven years in his future, and while nothing has changed for her, his life has likely changed quite a bit during the last seven years. Time can change people, and the person Clementine fell in love with has lived a life and evolved in the last seven years. Even couples in the real world, and not this magical one, can experience changes over time, as we learn new things and experience new parts of the world and ourselves. Am I the same person I was seven years ago? Are any of us? Sometimes looking back on the person you met seven years ago can make you realize how much things have changed, and for Clementine, this means finding ways to love a new version of the man she met.

Poston has been making a name for herself in the world of magical realism romances. Her previous novel, The Dead Romantics also features a love story mixed with the magical. Magical realism is a subgenre of fantasy, where mostly everything in the universe is real, except one element. In the case of "The Seven Year Slip", it's Aunt Analea's magical apartment. Even you're not a big fantasy fan, this novel will just warm your heart. It's filled with real people, life struggles, female friendships, delicious food, travel plans and a love story seven years in the making. Be sure to pick up The Seven Year Slip today!