Sarah Parsons is the narrator of the trilogy.
In Amber House, Sarah returns to her family’s ancestral estate after her grandmother Ida’s death in order to assist her mother in selling the old mansion. After spending some time in the house, Sarah begins to find clues related to her family history and she becomes connected to the house in a very serious way. Sarah starts experiencing echoes left behind by her ancestors, and in time comes to unravel the mysteries surrounding her mother and grandmother's dysfunctional relationship, and the very intense legacy of Amber House.
She is sixteen at the start of Neverwas, and has never been kissed. Unbeknownst to Sarah, her actions at the end of the first novel propelled her and her loved ones into an alternate timeline. Sarah must use her ability to see "echoes" of the past to remember the way things used to be, and with the help of Jackson's precognition, attempt to reset the universe once again.
Relationships[]
Sarah is the oldest child of Anne, a gallery owner, and Tom Parsons, a surgeon. In Amber House, she is emotionally distanced from Anne and Tom, likely due to the deterioration of the couple's marriage. But Sarah is very fond of her ten-years-younger brother, Sammy. She also grows close to both Jackson Harris and Richard Hathaway while staying at Amber House in October 2010. Richard gives Sarah her first kiss while idling in his car in Amber House. By the end of the book, however, Sarah finds herself wishing she could kiss Jackson.
In Neverwas, she is somewhat bitter with her parents for choosing to move the family from Seattle (located in the free nation of the Pacific Northwest) to the American Confederation of States, where she knows her brother Sammy will grow up exposed to the racism and sexism rampant in the dystopian South.
Because Sarah rescued her aunt Maggie from her coma at the end of Amber House, Anne's relationship with Sarah's grandmother Ida was never strained, and the family often visited the estate while Sarah was growing up. She formed an almost familial bond with Jackson, whom she long-considered her best friend, and she grew up harboring a schoolgirl's crush on next-door neighbor Richard. Since her grandmother's funeral, she hasn't been able to figure out why she is no longer attracted to Richard, despite his palpable interest in her, and why she has suddenly developed feelings for Jackson.
Appearance[]
According to a guest at her grandmother's funeral in the first book, Sarah is the "spitting image" of her late grandmother Ida, who is described as blonde and blue-eyed. When Sarah gets made-over for her "coming out" party toward the end of Amber House, however, she mentions the stylist lightening her hair with honey-colored highlights, implying her hair is more of a light brown or dirty blonde. Sarah insists she does not share her mother Anne's beauty, but Anne tells Sarah in Amber House that Sarah is "lovely." Sarah often wears her hair in a loose braid or up in a messy bun. For the majority of Amber House, Sarah sports a large bruise on her forehead, which she attempts to hide with inexpertly-applied cosmetics and her sideswept bangs.
In Neverwas, Sarah reveals she prefers having short hair. She wears makeup as a rule, and is very particular about the clothes she wears. In a twist, she claims her knowledge of fashion trumps her mother's.
Character traits and abilities[]
Sarah is perceptive, empathetic, protective of those she loves, and suffers from arachnophobia.
In Amber House, Sarah has the inexplicable ability to find her brother Sammy wherever he hides. The two often play hide-and-seek, with Sammy hiding and Sarah using her ability to find him; this becomes vital to the climax of the first book of the series, Amber House.
While at Amber House, her mild psychic ability is seemingly heightened: she finds she has the family "gift" for seeing and sensing "echoes" from the past. This eventually enables Sarah to change the present and future by altering the past.
According to Sarah, she inherited neither of her parents' skills -- she is not artistic like her mother, Anne, nor is she particularly motivated academically, unlike her father, surgeon Tom. But Sarah is a skilled runner; in Amber House she establishes that she can outrun Richard Hathaway.
In Neverwas, Sarah spends the first half of the book feeling she is missing some part of herself. In her words, she is "weaker, somehow." Because she has grown up living a life of privilege, she never had to deal with the sort of loss and dysfunction the Sarah in the first book endured. Jackson tells her the Sarah he fell in love with "knew pain."
The third book in the trilogy, Otherwhen, is schedualed to be released in 2015. hereisasamplefthepowemotherwhen
Trivia[]
- Her birthday is October 23. Sarah was born in 1994. She is a Libra.
- Sarah's middle name is in honor of her aunt Maggie.
- Sarah is represented in the book by the Tarot card the Page of Swords, commonly associated with strength, honesty, justice, idealism and isolation.
- Sarah's ability to see the past in objects is known in the psychic community as psychometry.
- Sarah reveals the time-bending ending in the first line of the book, when she states: "I was almost sixteen the first time my grandmother died."
- Sarah reveals the parallel reality in Neverwas in the first line of the book, when she says: "I was sixteen the second time I had my first kiss."