A Time Machine That Actually Works - an Editorial Review of "Beyond Australia"

Book Blurb:

So Gramp's time machine actually works!

Fourteen-year-old Susan Ferguson is startled when she's catapulted into the wild streets of 1872 Manhattan—where danger and adventure await at every turn. The errand she volunteered for is scary enough—to bring home a brain that holds the key to her grandfather's survival—but her mission quickly spirals into chaos when she has to navigate a perilous landscape filled with street gangs, narrow escapes, and diseases from a bygone age.

Susan has always been an instinctive liar, but now she's playing in the big leagues. She's mistaken for a boy but goes along with it for safety. To conceal her spooky time travel she tells people she's a visitor from Australia.

As an Australian boy she becomes an assistant to the surgeon who removed the brain, but must escape bullies and dodge a suspicious detective while tumbling into a historic blackmail case. Her only ally is a street-smart newsboy who sometimes helps her with a mixture of bravado, misinformation, and genuine skills. Could they become a team?

Book Buy Link: https://geni.us/2vnaelt

Author Bio:

Lee Forrest was born in upstate New York and went to high school there, followed by Yale College and Harvard Medical School. He has published his scientific research in two books and many articles with Cambridge University Press and other leading presses. He lives with his wife in the Philadelphia area, near their three grown children. He enjoys working in the local theater, traveling, and studying historical lifestyles. Beyond Australia is his first work of fiction. Some background to the story is covered in the Blog on his website.

Editorial Review:

Title: Beyond Australia

Author: Lee Forrest

Publisher: Lamp Light Press

Publishing Date: 08/17/2025

ISBN: 9798991625500

Rating: 5 Stars

"Beyond Australia" by Lee Forrest, a clever, time-bending coming-of-age novella with historical tones, will leave you slightly dizzy, unexpectedly charmed, and quietly thoughtful about what it means to grow up too fast or maybe, not fast enough. It follows a teenage girl who feels misunderstood, stifled, and just a little bit invisible in her ordinary life- until something decidedly not ordinary hurls her into a place that seems to exist somewhere between memory, fantasy, and history. But just when you think this is a whimsical detour into the past, the story tightens into something stranger, sharper, and harder to shake.

Set between the modern world and a vivid, almost dreamlike past, "Beyond Australia" is part emotional journey and part speculative portal tale. While the narrator (whose name is cleverly held back at first) battles through parental expectations and the usual teenage angst, she’s suddenly thrust into a reality where cigar-smoking gentlemen, museum-like streets, and ghostly reminders of another era surround her. She’s not sure where she is or how she got there but every step she takes feels less like escape and more like confrontation with herself, time and history.

The book opens with a raw and refreshingly honest portrayal of teen frustration:

“At the end of August after we’d taken her vacation, when I was going to start high school the next week and pick up my gymnastics and piano lessons, it was Young Lady this and Young Lady that every day till my head rang. The only bright spot in my life was my grandfather, the one person in the world who didn’t think I was just a snot-nosed kid with an attitude.”

Right then, I felt like I really knew her, and I wanted to hear more. The voice is bold, weary, funny and heartbreakingly real. You can feel the edge of sarcasm coating a deeper loneliness. Forrest nails that early-teen tone without overplaying it, and it made me care about this girl almost instantly. Then the story shifts, and so does the language. Suddenly we’re in a place where time is slippery and reality is stranger than it should be:

“I was really, really alone, like nobody I knew was with me on earth, and all the dead things from attics and museums and family albums had come alive around me. I wanted to curl up someplace and cover my face so I couldn’t see anything.”

This passage is a great example of Forrest’s stylistic range. The prose walks a fine line between dreamy and eerie. I loved that moment of panic and how it’s not over-explained with the reader left to feel just as unmoored as the narrator. The world she’s fallen into isn’t immediately threatening, but it’s unfamiliar, layered, and full of oddly formal strangers.

The strangers she encounters are more than just odd- they feel like puzzles waiting to be solved. One scene, in particular, stood out not because of high drama, but because of the weird tension between politeness and absurdity:

“An’ did I say it wasn’t? Ain’t it a fact that we’re gentlemen o’ layzure makin’ the grand tour?” And he got out a cigar and offered me one... Rather phony.”

It’s such a brilliant moment and the narrator is still herself, still snarky and modern, but she’s surrounded by these theatrical, slightly ridiculous characters who might be harmless or just maybe, might not be. Forrest doesn’t rush to explain them, and that restraint keeps the reader a little on edge, which I liked. There’s a kind of low-key absurdist here that reminded me of Alice in Wonderland with a grittier texture.

In terms of structure, the story is compact but layered. Forrest isn’t spoon-feeding the reader but is instead trusting them to pick up on the disjointed timelines, the unspoken grief, and the subtle transformation happening inside her protagonist. And that trust pays off and by the end, even though the plot isn't wrapped up in a tidy bow, the emotional arc lands. This is less about solving the mystery of where she is, and more about why she ended up there as well as what she learns by going through it.

Forrest's grammar and prose are clean, confident, and quietly stylish. The dialogue is sharply tuned to character, and the pacing never lags. She is admirable for knowing how to keep the tension humming beneath even the most mundane moments.

"Beyond Australia" by Lee Forrest doesn’t hit you over the head with meaning but instead it nudges, suggests, and lets you find your own interpretation. Its a book that just taps you on the shoulder, points you toward memory, fear, and unexpected growth, and before you know it, you’ve gone somewhere deeper than geography could ever take you.

Award:

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