Reviewed by Saifunnissa Hassam for Readers' Favorite

Martha Conway’s novel, We Meet Apart, is a deeply haunting historical novel interwoven with intriguing speculative fiction and supernatural elements. The story, set in 1940 during WWII, has two concurrent timelines. In one timeline, Ireland is a free, neutral country. In a second timeline, the Otherworld, Ireland is under German occupation. Two American sisters, Gaby, 18, and Sabine, nearly 17, are in France in 1940, with their parents. When the entire family falls ill with typhus fever, the parents die. The story turns surreal as each sister believes she’s the sole survivor. Gaby flees to Ireland, which is still free. She journeys to Kilcurra House to seek help from a distant relative, and accepts a job as a servant at the House. Gaby’s sister Sabine also flees to Ireland. Almost immediately after she arrives in Ireland, the Germans invade and occupy Ireland. She finds her way to Kilcurra House in the Otherworld and is hired as a maid. Neither sister is aware the other is alive, nor do they suspect how different their two worlds are until one evening, at dusk, Gaby and Sabine meet, unexpectedly, in the woods near Kilcurra House. Their two worlds are visible to each other only at dusk.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading We Meet Apart for its unforgettable principal characters, Gaby and Sabine, and the incredible worldbuilding of two concurrent timelines. I particularly enjoyed their character development. Both are faced with the challenges of survival, grieving the loss of their parents, and for each other. Their different timelines gave the story great depth, and their youth also added great complexity to their unusual situation. I liked how the two sisters are overjoyed to see each other, alive and real, and then the very realistic tension between them, especially as Gaby, the older sister, cannot help being concerned about her younger sister’s safety and her ability to make her own decisions. Sabine has just turned 17, and is convinced she knows how to take care of herself. I loved how their deeply emotional meeting at dusk springs to life, the setting in the woods, their dialogues, and most of all, how each sister reacts to the utterly incomprehensible differences in details of Kilcurra House, and Ireland itself. I loved the multiple twists and turns in the story, different for Gaby and Sabine. For me, this intricate multilayering of stories within the story made reading immensely enjoyable and poignant at the same time. I highly recommend Martha Conway’s intriguing and remarkable novel to fans of historical and speculative fiction.