Sacred and Profane by Nina Merrill

TITLE: Sacred and Profane
AUTHOR: Nina Merrill
PUBLISHER: Amber Quill Publishing (Amber Heat)
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 39k)
GENRE: Time travel romance
COST: $4.50

Scholar Jennie Pierson is completely enamored with the history of the Templars. When a cryptic cipher throws her back in time 700 years, though, the reality of Paris and the men of honor she studied colors everything she ever believed. She is drawn inexplicably to Templar Tibald de Bergere, but there are more obstacles to their growing feelings than just his devotion to the Order. There is his companion Napier, a traitorous spy in the Order’s ranks, and the ever-growing fear that she could return to the present day at any time.

You know, for as much as I love time travel romances, I hate the history lessons that invariably go with them. Well, they go with the not-as-well-written ones, at least. For as many good things as this story has going with it, it falls into the same trap. A good chunk of the opening scene is an explanation of the French Templars and the highlights of their history, a primer for the uninformed reader. It’s clunky, and it’s boring, and it does nothing to suck the reader into the story whatsoever. The author makes her job all that much harder by doing this, and I can’t help but feel that the story would have worked so much better if she’d found a more interesting way of disseminating the information. If she even needed to at that point. Maybe it might not have been necessary until later on, like after I’d gotten to know the heroine? As it was, it took me forever to get past the first few pages of this novella, simply because I wasn’t interested in reading a history lesson. I bought it for the romance.

…Which works for me, by the way. Once I got into the past – or Jennie did, at any rate – it was very easy to get sucked into the story of her trying to get the Templars to believe her warnings about their fates. Tibald is a charming hero, one of those noble ones that make me melt a little bit on the inside. He fights his attraction for Jennie far longer than most writers would have made him, which is a credit to the author being true to the spirit of the Templars. Then when he does yield to it, it’s totally realistic. This man who’s rarely had sex comes like a virgin, which, trust me, is just as frustrating for Jennie as it was for me. Thankfully, he’s an excellent student, so later scenes are far more satisfying.

There’s a subplot where his companion and best friend Napier is in love with him that feels tacked on, at best. Nothing happens between the two men, but I’m never completely sure that it won’t, which, with the open ending, was one of my problems with this book. It’s not that I was looking for a ménage. I wasn’t. Well, I’m always looking for a good ménage, but I knew from the get-go this wasn’t it. What I mean is, I liked Napier too much to leave the poor guy hanging like that. Limbo is never fun for favored characters.

I can’t say that Jennie was a favored character, though. Even she disparages how much of a girly-girl she acts like in the story, and her dialogue is way more stilted than the 700 years in the past men.

If you’re looking for a hot, sexy read, this isn’t the book for you. There’s a reason it has Amber Heat’s lowest heat reading. But the romance is sweet and believable, and if time travel or this period interest you, I say go for it.

Readability	6/10 – Some clunky historical lessons in the beginning segues into smoother reading. Except for our heroine’s dialogue. Oy.
Heroine	5/10 – A lot of fainting and dialogue I couldn’t believe made it hard to connect with her.
Hero	8/10 – Believable with the period detail, and charming
Entertainment value	6/10 – The open ending and my issues with the heroine keep this from being higher.
World building	8/10 – The period details are vivid and consistent, as well as realistic.
TOTAL:	33/50