Lily Tripp: Diary of an Accidental Time Traveller by Amelia Tait
published 2026 (this week)
This is a new book for Young Adults, and that high concept
title gives a pretty good idea of what it’s about. Lily Tripp, your average 13-year-old,
living now in the UK, sometimes goes to sleep and wakes up in a different historical era.
During this book – and I do hope it’s going to be the first of a series – she ends
up in the 17th century, and then in the 1970s. She also reminisces
about visits to other eras.
It is a great idea for a book, and the diary format works
vey well. Lily is a very convincing young woman, and when she goes
time-travelling she is surrounded by her same family, friends and schoolmates –
but they don’t realize they are doubling up, they just think Lily is a bit weird
sometimes. It is very funny and entertaining.
There is no reason given for the travelling, and the mechanics
aren’t explored that closely. (I’m all in favour of that: it’s made up anyway,
you don’t have to convince me.) Maybe all will be explained in a future entry.
The book is full of history, which has been very
well-researched, but obviously also is amusing and entertaining as our heroine
tries to cope, and not get things wrong, or be accused of witchcraft, and hopes to get off with the right boy.
I know Amelia Tait: she is an extraordinarily good
freelance journalist who does those articles that you didn’t know you wanted to
read: what happened to reality show participants, what is the Mandela effect,
how do they choose crisp flavours (well I would always have known I wanted to
read that one), what’s it like to ride in a miniature car. I have long loved
her work, and am very proud of the fact that occasionally when she has needed
an Old Person to talk about how they use technology she has asked me. Blog
readers will be pleased to know that I once made an impassioned case, for use
in her article, that the Paint app be preserved, as I find it a really easy way
to edit the pictures for my entries here. (Yeah, and I think Amelia and I pretty
much saved it between us, I mean it still exists, I am still using it every day
while everyone else has fancy editing software and AI. We nailed it. Or else, perhaps I am a time-travelling computer user, heading back to 1985 with my illos)
You can find some of her work on her Substack
(5) The Waiting
Room | Amelia Tait | Substack
And there is an excellent list of those articles I’m trying
to describe here on her website
While she was writing her book, Amelia did ask me a couple
of questions about being at school in the 1970s. Frankly, she should have asked
me more – not because she got it wrong, she didn’t, but wholly for my own
self-importance. So I am appealing to her now: send Lily back to any of my
eras, and I will give you all the info you need, I have a very good memory. Please note my careful discussion above of schoolbags - I am an expert.
Anyway, this is a hugely enjoyable, very well-written book,
and I look forward to the series.
There used to be a cliché about people saying that they
would like to live in the past – someone would answer ‘yes but you picture yourself
as rich, you wouldn’t want to go back as a servant would you?’ – and most
certainly Amelia has not fallen into that trap at all, the book is very
interesting on the lives of people in service.
I strongly recommend it. It is fun to read, but would also make a great present for
any young person
And now I’m going to ask my readers: if you could
time-travel back to any era, which would you choose? Where would you pick for
Lily Tripp to visit? I will pass on your answers to the author…
17TH Century women – from a girls’ annual from 100 years ago, a 1920s historical story about the era. So double history/time travel!
1972 – from fashion magazines of the era.
Oh Moira, I am beyond touched by this post - thank you SO much! I'm so chuffed you enjoyed the book. Thank you for reading (and writing!!), Amelia xx
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure Amelia - I loved the book, and hope it gets the audience it deserves.
DeleteJust to start things off on a wrong note, I can't remember ever seriously wanting to live in a past era. I love reading about other times, and the "culture shock" of time travel is always intriguing, but although I see things that I like, I see a lot that I don't like too. The "good old days" weren't necessarily all that good--especially if you happen to be female (assuming you wouldn't also get a gender change in your time-travelling). I guess I'm just not adventurous enough, but I see time travel as jumping out of the frying pan into the fire!
ReplyDeleteI have long had a theory that being a nun in the right kind of convent was possibly the best option for women over several hundred years: not at the mercy of men, or dying of childbirth, and able to pursue interests and studies. So if I ever were to time-travel I guess I should test that out
DeleteThat's a good point, but that vow of obedience might get in the way in my case! I agree the convent would make a difference (and the right kind of "boss" as in any profession). And at least one of the famous scholarly nuns faced opposition from church leaders....
DeleteThe records of medieval visitations show that a lot of nuns did not observe obedience nearly as strictly as the bishops thought they should. In particular, they were often upbraided for having little dogs as pets, and doing embroidery that wasn't strictly necessary. I'm with Moira on the convent, though I have a strong suspicion that if I'd actually lived in any era earlier than my own, I would have been one of those girls who "has" to get married at an early age, so I might have had to survive childbirth and enter the convent as a widow.
DeleteYes, the evidence seems to be that some convents were quiet charming places, fairly easygoing. And when wealthy widows retired to a convent I think they lived very comfortable lives, so your plan sounds good. Have you ever visited the beguinages in Belgium? That seemed like a very satisfactory life, with your own small house in a commune of women...
DeleteDo you remember the old American TV series Quantum Leap? I liked that it showed the hero spending his time-travelling in the bodies of "others"--people of other races, gender, class, etc. The timeline was very limited, but the show still demonstrated some of the problems of living in another time than your own.
ReplyDeleteI know the show you mean, but never watched it - you make it sound very interesting.
Delete.... and I know it has quite a cult following
DeleteIt must be on YouTube, or streaming somewhere. I'm not part of the cult, but it was a show I always tried to catch. The hero could only travel as far back as his own lifetime but it packed a lot of experiences into that short time. It wasn't necessarily social commentary, but it was fun to see Sam (Beckett) literally walk in other people's shoes. There's been a remake recently but haven't watched it--"wouldn't be the same" y'know!
DeleteYes it does sound intriguing, and I can see that you won't be spoiling it with a new version!
DeleteThe fact that everybody she knows goes along definitely should definitely make time travelling more comfortable for a child.
ReplyDeleteYes, we should make it a rule for all chlid time travellers. It is cleverlyl done here, because obviously it makes no sense at all in one way, but the continuing characters - eg the mean girl at school - give it a very entertaining coherence
DeleteOh, this sounds like a great story, Moira. I've noticed that a lot of books marketed towards a YA audience are actually appealing to adults and other audiences, too. Some of them are extremely well done. And I have to say, I appreciate an author who works to ensure accuracy when it comes to other time periods. That's definitely not always easy.
ReplyDeleteI'm always intrigued to know what's going on in YA books, and this one is a real winner. And what a great day to learn some history while enjoying a good story.
DeleteTo answer your question about where I'd send Lily, 1900s to 1920s--when things were starting to change for women, and there were decent girls' schools. I'm imagining a more realistic sort of Angela Brazil school story, TBH. (Personally I have zero interest in spending any time in any era [or place] prior to antibiotics, clean drinking water administered by a functional government, decent dentistry, and vaccines.)
ReplyDeleteYes - in this book Lily mentions having lived in 1922 but its not covered in detail so is definitely on the cards for another book. I will tell Amelia..
DeleteI’m with Dame Eleanor on the personal time travel front, at least in terms of a lengthy stay in the past, rather than a flying visit - any temptation to get romantic about earlier times is quickly dispelled by recalling eg Fanny Burney’s account of her cancer surgery.
DeleteAre the two black-and-white illustrations from the new book? I love them – very reminiscent of the illustration style in the Angela Brazil school story era. I was also reminded of a book I enjoyed in my youth - Penelope Farmer’s Charlotte Sometimes, in which the main character wakes up one morning at her new boarding school to find she’s travelled back in time to World War One and is in the place of a girl from that time who has travelled forwards to take her place in (I think) the 1960s. They keep switching unpredictably, and have to find ways to communicate across the years; friends and family don’t go along, though it helps that the boarding-school even in the 60s is distinctly old-fashioned, so the uniform and routines remain reasonably familiar to both of them.
Sovay
Yes indeed, Fanny Burney haunts me.
DeleteThe book isn't illustrated: my b/w pics are from a girls' annual from the 1920s (I am lucky enough to have a collection of them) - so you are spot on really with the Brazil comparison, very much that style.
I thought it would be fun to have a 1920s version of how a 1600s girl looked, given the general theme.
Someone else mentioned Charlotte Sometimes to me in relation to time travel - I will have to read it, it sounds very good.
For this book and another one, I have happened to be looking at schoolgirl pics over the years, and I noticed the same thing you did - uniforms didnt change that much over the years, and then suddenly there was a complete change. 1940s, 50s and early 60s schoolgirls don't look that different from each other, but after that....
Oh, I loved that book! Now I want to re-read.
DeleteI am so going to have to read it...
DeleteI believe there are at least two versions of Charlotte Sometimes - the original in 1969 and a revised version in the 1980s. Most of the story is the same but it ends slightly differently (not a big difference in plot, but in how it's told, IIRC). I don't recall the reason for the difference. Possibly it was restoring an original version that the publisher in 1969 wanted altered? That's a complete guess as I have forgotten the details.
DeleteOh how interesting! I have now ordered the book, but no idea which version, I shall check carefully when I receive it.
DeleteThis sounds as if it would be perfect for my 12 year old great-niece. I think - for visiting only, definitely not for living there - I would go back to the mid-nineteenth century to meet some of the people I have written about in my academic work. Chrissie
ReplyDeleteOh, that's a good idea, flying visits to the past! A little like camping, happy to be "roughing it" for a short while but happy to be coming back home too.
DeleteChrissie, I hope she likes it!
DeleteMarty - yes, coming back is always the key...
John Wyndham has several stories featuring your idea of flying visits to the past! A little like camping, happy to be "roughing it", Marty. His stories are from the angle of the people neing (reluctantly) visited. It's also a feature of Hobson's Choice, which I mentioned below.
DeleteI've never ventured far into John Wyndham, just the obvious ones. But I do always love a time travel story
DeleteI would not want to live in the past. I would not want to live in a racist, sexist, homophobic class society. But... the clothes. I want the clothes. From the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. From the 1910s. From basically all of the 1800s. So partly because of that and partly because I would like to see for myself what things actually looked like - not just the clothes, but everything: houses, rooms, furniture, lighting, streets, restaurants, food, everything - and how they felt and how they smelled and how they tasted and what they sounded like - I would absolutely love to time travel. In fact, it's the sort of thing I think of in bed before going to sleep. Surely, surely, I think to myself, there must be some way? And then I fantasize about travelling to particular places and moments in time: To meet up with my mother when she was a young woman in Stockholm before she married and I was born. (Well, it would have to be before I was born, otherwise it gets too complicated.) To be a guest at the dinner party where Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin met for the first time and got into a heated discussion and did not like one another at all. To be an invisible observer (and listener) that evening when Jane Austen had just received her advance copy of Pride and Prejudice and they had a visitor who didn't know Jane was the author but they nevertheless started reading aloud (as one did in those days) and it was Jane herself who read the first evening. She had a beautiful voice and was considered an excellent reader. Her niece Caroline only heard her read once but was enthralled: It was like being at the theatre. And I would like to go back to an old house I once lived in and loved and see it as it was when it was new in the 1890s. And... I could go on, but I won't. Surely, surely, there must be some way?
ReplyDeleteP.S. And it would actually be quite interesting to go back to the 1970s which I also remember quite well, I think, to see whether my memories are actually correct. And to see whether there are things/attitudes/sounds/smells which I never thought of then but would find striking now.
DeleteOh Birgitta what a lovely list, you describe it so well, that is beautiful. All of them.
DeleteAnd I know just what you mean: the clothes (obv) but yes what I always want to know is - how noisy was it? were the pavements crowded? how dark was it in your house at night with just candles?
And yes, good point about going back to check your memories. (and see myself behaving embarassingly)
I have a silly example: nowadays bought sandwiches are usually in a specific box, triangular, sometimes cardboard sometimes plastic. You see them everywhere and the empty ones in the bins. But they simply didn't exist before - what, 1980s? Sandwiches on the go didn't really exist either. So I want to take that ubiquitous universal artefact back to the 1960s and ask people to work out what it is for, see if they can guess.
(The universality of sandwiches, and people's favourite kinds, is exactly the kind of topic Amelia would write about brilliantly. Once you know her work, there is a way in which some thought or news story strikes you, and you think 'oh that's one for Amelia to investigate')
Yes, the light. Or dark, rather. I know it was darker before electricity was ubiquitous, but how dark? I remember waiting for a friend at the Copenhagen Central Station a couple of years ago and spending the time looking up at the great vaulted ceilings and the splendid windows, when it suddenly struck me that there were about a million electric lights shining although it was the middle of the day - and that this would not have been the case when the station was built. All those tall windows were meant to provide enough light during the day; lamps would only have been lit after sunset. This would still have been the case for several decades after electricity was introduced, so even in the daytime many places would have been much darker than we are used to. But how much darker? I want to know.
DeleteWe have twin thoughts, I worry about things like that all the time.
DeleteThough - another kind of worry associated with Copenhagen station, off topic, but...
A few years ago I was travelling to Denmark by train and asked online for recos for Danish crime novels. The one I read was called The Boy in the Suitcase, and had a young woman who claimed a suitcase in left luggage in Copenhagen Station, and found a boy hiding within. The book also featured a massively violent shootout in the left luggage.
I had to use this facility at the beginning and end of my trip, and it was genuinely scarey and creepy to go down there. It was also quite isolated and empty. I still think -worse than the shootout - that the idea of walking off with a suitcase and finding there is a child in it is a very high-concept heart-stopper. (nothing happened to me...)
I have yet another left luggage story, which did happen to me, known in the famliy as The Weeping Bride and her Baggage, but I will save that for another time.
I think there's something to be said for travelling in time in the way the time travellers of Elly Griffiths' new series do at first - invisible and intangible to the inhabitants of the time they're visiting, as observers only. The smells in particular would be fascinating because smells are so difficult to describe in meaningful terms.
DeleteRe sandwiches - they were obtainable to take away in the 1970s as I remember family holidays in Northumberland always included buying crab sandwiches from a quayside kiosk in Craster to take away to our favourite beach a few miles off. They were in brown paper bags though - certainly no specialised packaging.
Sovay
Left luggage was always sinister, going back to The Importance of Being Earnest. Doesn't Graham Greene feature them? aand there's the real-life cases of bodies in the left luggage from the 1920s and 30s
DeleteWho wrote The Boy in the Suitcase? It must feature either a very strong tung woman or a very small boy.
DeleteKieslowski's Three Volours White haas n entertaining incident involving travel in a suitcase...
Luggage cart? Porter?
DeleteBack to darkness, for fear of fires the Bodleian didn't install electric light until long after it became available (1930s, IIRC, and maybe I don't)--this always makes me think about the different rhythms of research and library use in summer and winter, when natural light was all you would have. Huge windows in the reading rooms, but still . . . !
The mention of sandwich shops gave me a Proustian memory. When I started working near Bank Station in the mid-1980s, there were quite a few sandwich shops on Cheapside, generally staffed by what looked like the extended family of the owner, which made a wide choice of sandwiches to order at an astonishingly quick speed (admittedly, they had prepared the ingredients in advance) and wrapped them in greaseproof paper. I remember mostly paying for them in Luncheon Vouchers, which, as a young professional (without quite being a Yuppie), I received 50p a day's worth.
DeletePerhaps on warm summer days safest to avoid the egg sandwiches, but they were inexpensive and kept me fed at lunchtime. If busy, I could return to my desk - if not, perhaps wander up to St Paul's Churchyard and eat them at my leisure.
On a similar theme, there was a gents hairdresser in the area which felt like it was still existing in the 1930s where I would not have been surprised to be asked: "Anything for the weekend, Sir."
You all replied to each other, so I will answer in turn.
DeleteSovay - yes sandwiches were easily availale and could be taken away (though not nearly to the extent they are now) going back a long time, but it's the packaging I was interested in.
In a 1950s book (Michael Gilbert) there was a hard-working solicitor who was going to have to eat at this desk, so had sandwiches sent in. But then he gets called out urgently, and he has to ditch the sandwiches. The idea of eating them on the go, or in his taxi is obvioulsy not entertained for a second.
Roger - left luggage is a good topic, and then I could tell my Weeping Bride story. I don't remember Graham Greene, but yes the Trunk murders are always being mentioned in crime stories.
The Suitcase book is by Lene Kaaberbol & Agnete Friis (i can't tell from my notes if the second person might be the translator?) I think it was both: the boy was undernourished I think...
I am a great admirer of Kieslowski and his films, but 'entertaining' isn't a word that leaps to mind. The hero is smuggled somewhere in a suitcase but caught by baggage handlers, something like that?
Dame E: Outside Vienna there is a very beautiful monastery, Melk I think, and as I remember it, there were no lights in the library, no candles allowed because of the danger of setting fire to the amazing collection of books there. But there were special window alcoves for working in, with huge windows to make the most of every bit of light.
DeleteAdrianDominic - what a lovely picture of your early working days. Sandwiches were often wrapped in clingfilm in those times, which made them look unappetisingly bulgy. Greaseproof and bags much better. Luncheon vouchers! I wonder when they stopped? Tallking about a 1950s book in the comment above - in my blogpost I said 'Five guineas to any contemporary author who is able to put a detail that perfect & authentic into a historical book'
I'm going to say in early to mid 80s Marks and Spencer started with the chicken tikka sandwiches - an absolute breakthrough.
My last potst was disappeared!
DeleteIn Three Colours White our hero is smuggled back to Poland in a large suitcase, which, iturn, is stolen by a pair of thieves. The take the case to a rubbish mountain, open itfind our hero and turn away in disgust (it's implued that they're disappoinyed but not surprised by what they find). Our hero climbs stiffly out of the case, looks around at acres of rubbish with pleasure and says "Ah! Home at last!"
(I looked in spam but it hadn't gone there. Blooming blogger...)
DeleteAh yes. What a bundle of laughs Kieslovski was.
Alfred Bester (again!) wrote an excellent short story, Hobson's Choice, about the perils of fantasising about going back to the past..
ReplyDeleteGood title, we can start to speculate. I am going to have to read him....
DeleteI read some descriptions of that story, and had serious questions about it--but then I'm not a good sci-fi reader. Lack of imagination, maybe?
DeleteOK, I had to go away and read the story before I answered this. Marty, are you saying you have questions but haven't read it.
DeleteI thought it was extremely thought-provoking and clever and contained much of the discussion there ever is on time travel in a very economical space.
I didn't read the book, and I don't think I want to, despite being curious! I don't doubt all the good things about it, but from what I read in the synopses (is that a word?), the setting and plot didn't appeal to me. My basic question was--Why would the characters want (or need) to do what they were doing? I wondered how the Hobson's choice came in, but not enough to actually find out.
DeleteIt's a short story, it's about 10 pages long, and it does not take long to read! And honestly, you can't really discuss it, or its central thesis, unless you have read it 😉
DeleteLily’s book sounds enchanting, and I loved your post, and all the comments, which cover such wide-ranging topics. I remember school satchels, made from leather by a man called (I kid you not) Mr Hyde! And sandwiches in brown paper bags! I read this a couple of days ago, and immediately ransacked the flat for Alison Uttley’s A Traveller in Time, where Penelope goes back to the Elizabethan period and a plot to put Mary Queen of Scots on the throne of England. Unable to find it, I’ve been immersed in Puck of Pook’s Hill, where Puck brings characters from the past forward in time to tell Dan and Una about their lives. I know Kipling has a bad press, but he really was a good writer, and this is such a magical book.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much - they are great comments aren't they?
DeleteI am a great defender of Kipling and have featured him a few times, but not Puck of Pook's Hill - one day. He has other fans among the readers here
The book sounds great, and the discussion has made me think of the terrifying story The Victorian Chaise-Longue....I often think back to the 1970s, and my father was fond of saying that he wished it was 1939. I would remind him that he'd have to go through the war again.
ReplyDeleteThat's Marganita Laski isn't it? I've never quite fancied it.
DeleteYour conversation with your father is very relevant to the story mentioned above, Hobson's Choice by Alfred Bester, which I just read today as a result of the comment.
1939 is one of the years I would definitely NOT want to go back to, or any of those WW2 years! But I've heard that the inter-war years did hold a lot of nostalgia for people (and the movies were pretty darn good too).
DeletePerhaps we could all go and live in a 30s movie - an Astaire/Rogers musical for preference
DeleteGreat idea, although I suspect I'd be playing the Edward Everett Horton or Eric Blore characters. Still, if that meant performing Let's Knock Knees with Betty Grable, maybe no hardship.
DeleteI'll be Helen Broderick in Swing Time - which has the best musical/dance numbers in my important view. Wise-cracking best friend - that's me.
DeleteI love Swing Time too, especially the Start All Over Again number! I don't know how I'd fit into it, though! I've read that one set was used for their pictures, with variations as needed, known as the Great White Set. Don't know if that's true, but it tickled my funny bone.
DeleteThat's my favourite too - I love the dress she wears (more than the floaty frilly ones she sometimes gets) and it's a fabulous routine, with a perfect ending.
DeleteNot heard that about the set, but hilarious idea!
Does anyone remember The House on the Strand by Daphne Du Maurier?
ReplyDeleteThe protagonist takes a very hippyish drug and travels back to the Middle Ages and falls in love there...
It's set, like many of Du Maurier's works, in an area of Cornwall that she knew very well. Like many of us, I presume, she was moved to ask ' What happened here, where I feel that it's MY home, before me...?'
I remember it! I liked it much better than the famous Rebecca, but I think it works better on the first read than subsequently. The drug really does require a lot of suspension of disbelief. It's not so much that the protagonist travels in time as that he *thinks* he does, can see things that happened in the past--but you can see how things like cliff erosion (trying not to be too spoiler-y) might make it dangerous to wander around the countryside seeing how things used to be rather than how they are now.
DeleteIt is a very very unusual book! Not my favourite of hers, but just so different, I reread it recently but didn't post on it. (When I was v young I got it out of the library thinking it would be some story of London theatre, bustling metropolis, the busy Strand. I was wrong there...)
DeleteI am going to be doing something about Daphne du Maurier in the future, so will be revisiting some of her books, look forward to hearing others' takes on them
This sounds like exactly the kind of time-slip chaos that would’ve got me hooked as a kid (and honestly still would now). A 13-year-old just casually waking up in different centuries like it’s a slightly buggy alarm clock is a brilliant premise — especially the part where everyone else just thinks she’s “a bit odd” instead of realizing she’s basically running her own personal multiverse.
ReplyDeleteI also like that the story doesn’t over-explain the time travel. Not everything needs a diagram and a 12-step scientific justification — sometimes “she falls asleep and ends up in the 1600s” is all you need if the story is fun enough.
Also, the author’s background in writing those weirdly specific “you didn’t know you needed this” articles makes total sense here — that curiosity definitely shows through.
Anyway, this is the kind of book that feels like it would pair well with a quiet afternoon, a bit of nostalgia for eras you never lived in, and maybe a random internet rabbit hole like https://BalmoralGreen.com/ tossed in for good measure.