Lynn Kurland

I picked this up for the time travel aspect, as it was a recommended read - thought I'd give it a whirl. The writing is engaging and for the first third-ish of the book the plot moves nicely. The world and characters are fairly well built and plausible. There are a few oddities in the beginning sections - one is the bit where the main male protagonist decides to leave suddenly and careens into a vehicle. These scenes, given the characters actions beforehand are jarring and don't fit - it reads like an editor said "we need a romcom moment here put this in".

Moving on, the plot unwinds after this and the storyline just peters away. It isn't that there isn't anything that could have been done or etc - there is a lot to work with in this - but it feels like the author lost their way or maybe lost interest in the work altogether. There isn't a lot of romance ..let me put that differently... what romance there is, is in context to the storyline, which is good. It isn't romance for the sake of romance. Ex. Ok we've had scene "x" time for romance type 4 insert x# of paragraphs of steamy whatever then return to stock storyline. Some people like that..heck Harlequin has built a publishing empire on it. (Format = just change the names, locale, and minor plot dilemmas and voila you have 300 novels in no time!) apologies to those who love them, they just aren't my thing.

Getting back to my review - it is a shame because we don't get to see much of what Nathaniel is doing (or why) in the previous era of Scotland, and Emma's one real trip (dungeon free) isn't really detailed either. I'm trying to avoid spoilers so yes that's vague. We get modern day stuff, but the linking isn't done well, even when we get some linking. It could have been so much more meatier and ...

Ok I'm just going to say it..this really had some fracking potential to be a great novel and the author missed it. Hopefully in a future one they will grab hold and just do it. There is a good writing voice and excellent potential here.… (mehr)