Past Her Time by Melissa Jarvis

TITLE: Past Her Time
AUTHOR: Melissa Jarvis
PUBLISHER: Siren-Bookstrand
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 81k)
GENRE: Time travel romance
COST: $5.50

As an agent for the Lineage, Alex’s job is to correct anomalies in the timeline without interfering with anything else. Being placed in 1793 Revolutionary France isn’t her favorite assignment, though. She hates the stuffiness, and the etiquette, and having to play the simpering female, but a job is a job…at least until she runs into an Englishman with an unknown connection to the man she’s supposed to save from the guillotine…

I’ll be honest. Even though I’ve had this book since its release last summer, I’ve been reluctant to try it due to its publisher. That was a trifle unfair. Though it might look like it on the surface, Siren does actually publish more than the outrageous ménages I associate with them. This certainly could’ve been published by any number of other e-pubs just as easily.

It’s a time travel romance about Alex, a woman from the 21^st century who works for an agency called the Lineage. Her job is to correct anomalies in the timeline without interfering in local events beyond what she’s instructed to. Her latest has her in Revolutionary France where her mission is to prevent a man named Fontaine from getting executed before his time. In a chance encounter, she meets Englishman Gabriel Huntington and quickly learns that he’s an associate of Fontaine’s. Since he has appeared nowhere in her brief, she keeps tabs on him, hoping to use that connection to get to Fontaine. It works too well. She soon learns Gabriel also helps to rescue people from the guillotine, which casts him in an entirely different light than she was expecting. For his part, Alex – or Alexandra, as he knows her – is different than any other woman he’s ever met, able to see through his pretenses, keeping him on his toes. Their chemistry sparks early on, but the rules of her assignment are clear. No involvement. She’s just having problems actually obeying them.

I do love a good time travel, and combined with how I was feeling guilty about shuttling this to my TBR for so long just because of its publisher, I was determined to stick this one out. It wasn’t easy in the beginning. The first chapter was good – tense, action-driven, sympathetic characters. But the first bit of exposition that occurred on Alex’s purpose, with her interaction with her partner Banderan, threw me into a tailspin. She specifically says this is their fourth assignment for the Lineage. Her partner considers her a rookie still. Yet, very soon after (in the same scene), there are allusions to a time when she broke cover and her claim it was one of only a few, the large number of broken hearts Banderan has left behind, as well as blatantly saying she’d been working with him for years. I couldn’t sort that out in my head. They’d had four assignments, and worked together for years? It could only be an editorial inconsistency, I thought, and debated giving up then. If there was such a blatant mistake that early on, it didn’t bode well for the book.

However, I decided to persevere. Eventually, I decided an assignment was a blanket term meant to apply to being placed in a specific time period, and that each anomaly they corrected within it was something else entirely. That was the only way to justify the inconsistency. That rationalization seemed to fit with what I was reading, and soon, I could let go my mistrust of the book to slip into the story.

The fact that it was action-packed helped. It wasn’t always clean – there were time and scene shifts within chapters that felt inorganic and jumpy – but it always moved the story forward. I also liked the characters enough to see it through. Neither one was anywhere near as smart as they thought they were – a couple times Alex made such stupid mistakes, it was hard to believe she’d been an agent for years – but they really did have some chemistry, and I was intensely curious about how it would get resolved.

The action and chemistry compensated for a lot of the other shortcomings. In addition to the things I mentioned earlier, the time travel isn’t handled very cleanly, and I had a lot of questions about how some things worked. This book is labeled as book 1, so I imagine a second will be out at some point that might do a better job at explaining. About Banderan, perhaps? I don’t know. Maybe. I’ll decide if I see its release whether or not it’s worth it to continue. Right now, I’m on the fence.

Readability	8/10 – Good detail and flow without being overbearing, though the lack of clarity on assignments near the beginning had me wary of editorial issues for far too long
Hero	7/10 – I liked him, but I thought his constant masks weren’t differentiated enough to be as stark as the heroine claimed
Heroine	7/10 – Not nearly as smart as she thinks she is, but still likeable for the most part
Entertainment value	7/10 – Though it took me a while to get past my misgiving at the start, there was enough action and chemistry to keep me involved for the duration
World building	7/10 – The historical detail was good – if a little coy at times – but the time travel element wasn’t as clear as it should have been
TOTAL:	36/50

Badland Bride by Lauri Robinson

TITLE: Badland Bride
AUTHOR: Lauri Robinson
PUBLISHER: Wild Rose Press
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 74k)
GENRE: Time travel romance
COST: $6.00

Lila Scott is on the run from a man determined to kill her. Skeeter Quinter is a ghost in the house she decides to hide in. Together, they manage to evade the psycho, but when Lila ends up in the 1880s and Skeeter comes back to his mortal form, their problems are only beginning…

I read the first book in this series quite some time ago, and have been buying subsequent installations as they come out, though they’ve languished on my TBR pile for quite some time. After reading this second book, I’m starting to wonder if I should have saved my money on the books that follow it.

It starts out in modern-day Kansas, with twenty-two year-old Lila Scott trying to escape the psycho who raped her. Pregnant with his child, she discovered his sordid past and now he wants to kill her before she can make things worse for him. She decides to hide in an abandoned house, but in actuality, the house isn’t nearly as abandoned as she thinks. It’s haunted by Skeeter Quinter, and when he realizes she’s in trouble, he helps her escape through a tunnel that leads into a nearby cave. When Lila emerges, she finds a half-naked man asleep in the cave, a man who turns out to be Skeeter back in his body. He rejoices that he’s not a ghost anymore, but she is determined to get back to the future. The only problem with that was Skeeter destroyed the tunnel so the psycho couldn’t follow them. With no other choice, Lila goes with him back to his family. His plan is to get his brothers to help him dig out the tunnel and help Lila find a portal back to her time, but once Skeeter’s Ma finds out she’s pregnant, another shotgun wedding takes place.

I wanted to love this. I had fond memories of the first, so I settled in thinking this would be a great comfort read. The beginning hints at some great tension, but almost straight away, technical issues arise. On the very first page, “loosing” is used for “losing” and by the third, the verb tense starts fluctuating between past and present. I hung in there, though, mostly because Skeeter got introduced. He’s charming, funny, and full of heart, and I was genuinely concerned about Lila enough to want to see her safe. So I plugged through the less than clean prose. Soon, however, I developed another stumbling block. Lila herself. The charm she exhibited at meeting Skeeter gets derailed very quickly as she becomes obsessed with returning back to the future. She’s convinced she’s going to die in childbirth since it’s the 1880s, and she builds this issue up to mythic proportions in her head. She does this so much that when she meets Skeeter’s pregnant sister-in-law, she begins badgering her about taking it easy, as if she’s some expert on pregnancy (it got to the point where every time she referenced looking up information on pregnancy on the internet, I rolled my eyes). Lila becomes so self-centered and annoying that I actually started to really dislike her, and when she’s half of the romantic equation, that’s not good.

It’s a good thing that Skeeter stays so lovely, because I would never have finished this otherwise. He’s helped by his colorful family, characters I find myself adoring all the more for putting up with Lila. Kid and Jessie from the first book are happy together, and hints of what might be a future pairing with Bug and Eva are appealing. I even liked Skeeter’s Sioux friend, Buffalo Killer (especially at the end with the exchange of secrets between him and Lila, that was particularly well done and very humorous). They helped make the story more tolerable. I needed something because I wasn’t getting it from Lila or the plot (the details regarding her psycho were dodgy at best, silly at worst).

I have more of the Quinter Bride books on my TBR pile. At this point, I don’t know when I’ll get to them. The charm has been tarnished a little by how much I disliked Lila and her selfish, immature attitudes. I can only hope she doesn’t show up very much in the subsequent stories.

Readability	5/10 – Editorial mistakes abound, including missing words, misused/misspelled words, and tense shifts, so it feels like a first draft rather than a polished copy
Hero	8/10 – His heart and humor are the sole reasons I stuck with reading this
Heroine	5/10 – Self-centered and so single-minded she comes across as highly immature
Entertainment value	6/10 – The romance flounders, and the plotting is shallow and almost silly, but I do love the Quinters
World building	7/10 – Points for the historical setting, but the handling of the time travel aspect was sloppy
TOTAL:	31/50

Waltz Me Through Time by Eileen Ann Brennan

TITLE: Waltz Me through Time
AUTHOR: Eileen Ann Brennan
PUBLISHER: Ellora’s Cave
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 30k)
GENRE: Time travel erotic romance
COST: $4.45

When vintage store owner Juliana Douglas buys a locked steamer trunk, she is thrilled by its contents once she finally gets it open. Containing memorabilia from over a century earlier, the trunk also holds a newspaper clipping with a dancing couple on it, a man and a woman very much in love. Juliana is shocked when she fantasizes about that same man that night, but even more so when she wakes up the next morning and he’s still in her bed…

Maybe I was just in the right mood for this, but for whatever reason, this highly romantic time travel story hit a spot in me few stories have recently.

Juliana owns a vintage shop called Second Hand Rose. She dates a pilot named Alex, who she only gets to see when he’s in town, and on this particular weekend, he’s gone, leaving her with work and a new acquisition. The steamer trunk is locked, but she finds a key that’ll fit it in her spares. Inside, it shows treasure after treasure of a time a century earlier, seemingly featuring a happily married couple. After a long day, she treats herself to wine and dressing up, but sounds from in the store draw her down to discover a man in a tuxedo dancing around. He claims to be Stanley Caldwell III, the husband from the dancing couple, and the chemistry between them sweeps her off her feet. Half-convinced she’s dreaming, she indulges, only to wake up in the morning to find him still in her bed, claiming she’s his wife, and that time travel is all too possible.

Though the time travel methodology in this is schmaltzy at best (he travels by dancing), I was able to put aside my reservations about it and fall into the romanticism of the story with little effort. Juliana is appropriately smart and independent, and her love for the store genuine. Starting out in her POV – and spending the entire story there, actually – was an incredibly savvy choice by the author, since it roots us in her sensibilities first, an eclectic mix of practicality and whimsy. Both are vital. The practical side keeps her reactions to the time travel claims realistic, just as anyone in the modern day world would feel, yet having that sense of whimsy, a hidden hope for something more, something magical, opens the door for both Juliana and the reader to accept the fantastic, and even better, to yearn for it.

It’s helped incredibly by the fact Juliana and Stanley have electric chemistry, almost from the moment they first lay eyes on each other. Their relationship leaps off the page, so tumbling into bed – or onto the trunk – with them is a breathless delight. I quite adored Stanley, though I’ll admit that perhaps he wasn’t the most well-rounded hero. He’s fairly idealized, much like a lot of the story, but because I was swept up in the depth of his emotions for her, and his need to get her back, I didn’t care. I’ll admit, too, part of my liking for him stems from a single action of his, something he did in the restaurant when he and Juliana went out for dinner. I cheered. It showed humanity as well as gallantry, and considering this kind of novella embraces the escapist romanticism of the genre, was a perfect gesture.

Is it perfect? No. I had some small issues with the length of time Julianna protested to Stanley, especially considering her history (which I won’t spoil since it doesn’t get revealed until well over halfway through the story), and the time travel explanations are either schmaltzy or incomplete. There are also considerable details that feel dropped in that never get fully explained. But in light of the sizzling chemistry between the two, and the romantic escapism it offers, these are minor complaints. It’s mostly uncomplicated, heavy on the sex (since this is Ellora’s Cave we’re talking about here), and ultimately, emotionally satisfying. That’s all I can ask for.

Readability	8/10 – Very romanticized and sweet
Hero	8/10 – Intense and romantic, I’m giving an extra point for doing something that made me cheer
Heroine	7/10 – Appropriately wary, though considering her history, I thought her protests went on too long
Entertainment value	7/10 – A romantic escape, with a couple that has sizzling chemistry
World building	7/10 – The time travel explanations are schmaltzy and sometimes incomplete, but the rest of it makes up for that
TOTAL:	37/50

Merlin's Daughter by Patricia Scott

TITLE: Merlin’s Daughter
AUTHOR: Patricia Scott
PUBLISHER: Wild Rose Press
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 35k)
GENRE: Time travel romance
COST: $4.50

In a quest to prove her family is entwined with the Semples, Sara Templeton goes to England and the Semple Manor House in search of answers. There, she meets a man who looks like the one she’s been dreaming of, and when she suddenly finds herself thrust back in time, in the role of one of her ancestors, she realizes the man she knew in the present is also in the past…

Though there might be a good idea somewhere in this novella, it’s lost amidst the technical weaknesses of the prose. It starts almost from the beginning. The prologue can’t decide on a verb tense, and it jerks me out of the story almost before it’s begun. It doesn’t improve very much once it starts, either. There’s continuity problems (the hero calls the heroine by name without being told it, a guide refers to Sara’s family history when Sara never said a word about being her family, and so on), there’s information dumps (how many times did I need to learn about the silver buckle at the auction?), and spelling mistakes (i.e., cliental for clientele). With that much going wrong – not to mention the excessive passive voice – it’s very hard to get into it.

Sara arrives in England and watches a battle re-enactment, and when she notices the Parliamentarian General, is immediately drawn to him: …His eyes met hers only briefly but for a second or so they were fused together, and inexplicably her heart leapt and somersaulted inside her. She swallowed hard and felt dizzy, her hands trembling… This kind of over-the-top reaction is typical of the heroine. She’s drawn to him, and then, out of the blue, decides she doesn’t like him. It continues when she goes back in time, and the muddy characterization turns into a headache. There is no indication of any kind of romance on her part – because she’s so against him – until over halfway through, and then, it all happens on the turn of a dime. None of it’s helped with the lack of clarity on who or why or how Sara is back in time. She understands everything that was going on, like she was in a dream, and yet, she wasn’t the old Sara but the present day Sara. There’s never a proper balance struck, and it triggered another headache to muddle through.

I just can’t think of much in this that might recommend it. A good idea just isn’t enough.

Readability	4/10 – Passive voice, lack of clarity, continuity errors, spelling mistakes…there was just so much wrong with this, it took me forever to slog through
Hero	4/10 – Seems nice enough, but the characterizations in this are so flat that it’s hard to see any kind of potential
Heroine	3/10 – Personality is all over the place, with no rational explanations for some her snap judgments
Entertainment value	3/10 – It could have been a nice idea if there’d been any sort of clarity or consistency
World building	5/10 – Bare bones, mostly on the historical stuff
TOTAL:	19/50

That Wyoming Wind by Jo Barrett

TITLE: That Wyoming Wind
AUTHOR: Jo Barrett
PUBLISHER: Wild Rose Press
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 25k)
GENRE: Time travel romance
COST: $3.50

Life couldn’t get any worse for Jodi Parker…until she gets picked up by a freak dust devil and dropped in the middle of 1907. She gets taken in by Maggie, a friendly nearby rancher, but being the new woman in a small Western town means all the single men are now looking in her direction, including one sexy ranch hand named Dan…

This sweet romance offers momentary escapism, based on charming characters that never place heavy demands on the reader. Jodi has had her life ripped out from underneath her by an awful ex-boyfriend, leaving her broke and looking for a new start when the dust devil steals her from the present day and drops her on her butt – literally – in 1907 Wyoming. She has absolutely no reason not to embrace her new life once she’s past the shock of being in the past, and with every single male in a twenty-mile radius sniffing after her, including two of the area’s most eligible bachelors, it seems like a situation too good to be true. It is, a little bit, but as long as you’re willing to accept the complete fantasy of her new life, it’s not necessarily a bad one.

Jodi is strong and resourceful, declaring her independence in a world filled with women who only want to snag a husband and then keep him. She’s helped by being found by the other independent woman in the area – a too convenient device – and that difference supposedly makes her even more attractive to all the men. Dan, the ranch hand, especially seems to respond to her attitude, though I never really understood why he was so determined to take her to wife except that he was incredibly attracted to her physically. There’s a vague attempt at a triangle, but Jodi never expresses anything more than surprised delight at Wayne’s interest. The romance for Wayne, in fact, seems convenient and far too easily resolved.

Editorial issues hold back what should have been an easy read. Coral gets mistaken for corral more than once, along with other minor issues. The author’s predilection for headhopping is minimal, thankfully. If it had been worse, it would have been harder to get through, due to the other errors. There is a loose – very, very loose – link to the author’s Challenge books, but those are absolutely not necessary to read this. If you’re in the mood for something sweet and completely unchallenging, this could fit the bill.

Readability	7/10 – Minor editorial issues slow down an otherwise easy read
Hero	5/10 – He’s charming enough, but there’s just not enough there to give him any depth
Heroine	6/10 – Resourceful and strong, albeit a little flat
Entertainment value	6/10 – It’s a sweet romance that begged for more than it got
World building	7/10 – A feel for early 20th century Wyoming, but nothing overwhelming
TOTAL:	31/50

Always and Forever by Pamela Labud

TITLE: Always and Forever
AUTHOR: Pamela Labud
PUBLISHER: Resplendence Publishing
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 77k)
GENRE: Historical time travel romance
COST: $6.50

Crippled after a duel to protect his sister’s honor, Robert Houghton finds himself in a sickbed with little hope for the future…until a cursed ghost whisks him away to satisfy the bidding of a Scottish lass in need of help. Jenna MacReynold is in desperate need of aid. She’s just fled the malevolent grasp of her would-be husband, a man who only wants to wed her in order to get to her untainted younger sister. She needs a man she can claim as a temporary husband so she can both get help from a neighboring clan and hold the evil Murton Carrick off. She just doesn’t expect to be so attracted to the man she ends up with…

Throughout this entire novel, I could never shake the prevailing sense of missed opportunity. I loved the blurb I read, and the romantic promise of these two desperate characters filled me with great expectation. However, while I liked both the possibilities behind the plot and the two leads, it never really lived up to the story I wanted it to be.

The problem for me started quite early. Though I generally liked the characters I was introduced to, the incredibly awkward information dumps about their histories and situations made for some very clunky reading. There was a ton of telling, not showing, in order to establish motivations and needs, and I found myself cringing when another passage would come along to convey needed backstory. It did a tremendous disservice to the characters that were being set up. Robert has a determined spirit, one that shines through in spite of his disability in his present time, while Jenna is plucky and strong without losing her femininity. Much of this comes through later on in the story, in the way they act and react to their increasingly awful situation, but I wanted it from the start and didn’t really feel like I got it.

The depiction of Scottish life in the thirteenth century was strong and vivid, with solid details to paint the world in which Robert and Jenna grow close. I sank into that portrayal much more easily than I did in Robert’s nineteenth century England, though that’s primarily due to the fact that Robert is mostly bedbound for all the time he’s there in the beginning. But in the end, a strong sense of place isn’t quite enough to compensate for the awkward information dissemination throughout the story. These enjoyable characters deserved a smoother presentation than what I read.

Readability	6/10 – Awkward information dumps hold back the promise of this idea
Hero	7/10 – I liked his spirit and determination, though I’ll admit I liked him more in the past than I did in his present
Heroine	7/10 – Plucky and strong
Entertainment value	6/10 – Though I liked the characters and the idea, the execution failed to live up to its promise
World building	8/10 – Some solid details that brought Scotland to life
TOTAL:	34/50

Sojourn Through Time by Susanne Marie Knight

TITLE: Sojourn through Time
AUTHOR: Susanne Marie Knight
PUBLISHER: Awe-Struck Publishing
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 40k)
GENRE: Time travel romance
COST: $4.99

An accident at the NYC airport terminal sends Alexandra Stanford careening into the past, specifically England, 1802. There, she is discovered by Malcolm, the Duke of Milcaster, but while she feigns amnesia to escape awkward questions, she finds herself torn between finding a way to survive in this new world and her burgeoning feelings for a man she can’t have…

The prologue of this story sets up the contemporary character of the piece, but beyond that, it never comes up again as a primary setting within the story. There’s never any explanation for the time travel that is involved, either. Alex just happens to show up in an earthquake and a flash of red light, pieces of debris from the crashed plane scattered around here. She gets discovered by Malcolm, a self-professed rake, who is immediately taken by her beauty. By the time he has returned her to his home, he’s already decided he’s going to have her as a mistress, even though he’s about to announce his engagement. In fact, he can’t seem to get rid of his about-to-be fiancée soon enough just so he can start an affair with Alex.

This attitude permeates all Malcolm’s interest in her throughout the beginning of the story. He sees Alex as an interesting possession, and when there’s this sudden about-face where he decides he’s in love with her, it’s completely unbelievable. I thought his initial reasons and demeanor incredibly despicable, and never warmed to him in the slightest. He doesn’t even speak to his young daughter, even. The only supposedly redeeming qualities he has are his wealth and good looks.

Alex’s characterization suffers as well. She becomes the savior of this household – saving Malcolm from a marriage to a woman his good friend sees as a black widow, saving the relationship between father and daughter, entrancing all of London when she finally gets there. The one good thing she does exhibit, though, is she never falls apart in the face of her predicament. She decides, “Well, this is my lot, I’ll just live with it,” and moves on from there. The drawback to that, however, is the story ends without her ever dealing with the truth with the hero. She mentions it once, he doesn’t really believe her, she decides that’s enough for her to have at least tried, the end.

It was the end of my patience with the story, too. I can’t invest in the romance if I don’t even like the hero.

Readability	7/10 – The period detail is fine enough, but the bad dialogue and abrupt ending fail to help it in any way
Hero	3/10 – Self-professed rake at the start, who never rises above my initial distaste for his motivations
Heroine	6/10 – At least she’s not a crybaby
Entertainment value	4/10 – I thought the hero was selfish and could never get behind the romance
World building	8/10 – This would be higher if it didn’t feel like everything and the kitchen sink had been crammed in
TOTAL:	28/50

Love in Waiting by Jane Beckenham

TITLE: Love in Waiting
AUTHOR: Jane Beckenham
PUBLISHER: Cerridwen Press
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 85k)
GENRE: Time travel romance
COST: $6.99

A trip to England gives Jayne Seatoun more than a vacation. It sends her spiraling into the past, into the life of Lord Callum Broderick. Though he rubs her entirely the wrong way, she can’t get him out of her head, even if she would rather be in his bed…

This almost went into my DNF pile. I had so little time to actually read over the holidays, wasting what little I had on a story I suspected after chapter two wouldn’t work for me seemed silly. But I kept hoping that I would be surprised. Sadly, I wasn’t.

The setting of sixteenth century English life is adequately created. The close historical detail helps to compensate the story’s other weaknesses. As a heroine, Jayne is presented in ways that I’m sure are meant to make her look independent and spunky, but come across as bitchy instead. Callum constantly remarks on her need to be contrary, and frankly, it’s deserved. There’s never a clear enough reason for her to be sharp with him, or for the about-faces she makes throughout the course of the story – often in the middle of a scene. It all feels incredibly manufactured to keep these two apart as long as possible, without ever feeling organic.

That sense of manufacturing is present in the plot as well. Early on, Jayne tells the story of how she’s lost her family, which is meant to make her more sympathetic. It doesn’t really work, but outside of that, there is a woman who works in Callum’s castle who not only has the same name as Jayne’s missing mother, but also is the mother of Callum’s best friend, Thomas Seaton. There is absolutely no mystery as to who Margaret and Thomas really are, and if I’m supposed to say to myself, “Oh, but there’s an extra u in Jayne’s last name, so that makes a difference,” the story missed its mark. But Jayne never puts any of this together until the end of an already too-long and tedious book, even though she is with these people for months and months. It’s blatant and clumsy, and reflects poorly on the heroine when she is already difficult to like. I have no idea why anybody falls for her, let along King Henry on top of it. She’s symptomatic of everything that doesn’t work for me in this story. Perhaps in the end, I should have listened to my instincts after all.

Readability	6/10 – Awkward tense shifts, an unlikeable heroine, and clumsy execution makes these a tedious read.
Hero	5/10 – Though there are attempts to make him interesting, most of the time he comes off as kind of a flake.
Heroine	3/10 – Attempts to make her plucky only make her look like a bitch
Entertainment value	2/10 – No surprises, no involvement, little enjoyment
World building	7/10 – Enough detail to make the past feel real
TOTAL:	23/50

Uncovering Egypt by Ann Cory

TITLE: Uncovering Egypt
AUTHOR: Ann Cory
PUBLISHER: Samhain
LENGTH: Short story (roughly 13k)
GENRE: Time travel erotic romance
COST: $2.50

Egyptologist Jasmine Devi is on the dig of a lifetime, unearthing historical treasures in the great pyramid of Giza. When she stumbles upon a beautiful bracelet, she is startled to discover it has called forth King Okpara from the past, intent on protecting his dead queen’s sacred jewel. One look at Jasmine and he is convinced she is destined to be his new queen. All he has to do is convince her of that…

The beautiful cover of this short story convinced me to look at the excerpt, and then to buy it, so it’s really too bad that it’s about the only good thing this particular e-book has going for it. The story is labeled as a red hot, which in Samhain speak is hot erotic romance, but there really isn’t that much that’s sexy about this. When the bracelet affixes itself to Jasmine’s wrist, she is immediately confronted by four men who claim to be the king’s guards. They demand she come with them, and she follows them to a room in the pyramid that has what’s called a body chamber in it. Basically, it’s a mesh cage in the form of a body, with openings for the occupant’s face, chest, and groin. The guards force her to strip and get into it, at which point Okpara shows up. He is convinced she is his new queen, and sets out to seduce her. Except…guess who does the foreplay? Two of the guards start out while the king stands back. He eventually kneels for oral sex, but when it comes time for the actual act, he has them remove her from the cage and form a human cradle for her, and that’s how they have sex. He is incredibly dissociated from the act. It’s not even his touch that finally sets her off. I’m supposed to find this sexy? I don’t think so.

It doesn’t help that Jasmine is an idiot. There’s a fellow Egyptologist named Mason who is introduced in the beginning as having a thing for her. So desperate to get away from him, she sneaks off to the room which has the bracelet, which is outside of the grid they’re expected to be in. She tells nobody where she is going, and yet, when Mason shows up looking for her, she goes off on him for being stalker-y. Because he was worried and couldn’t find her? She’s supposed to be a professional, but I just can’t believe that any professional would be so irresponsible, even if she was trying to avoid someone she didn’t like.

I have problems even believing this as a romance. Okpara never feels authentic, saying things like, “Everything about you turns me on.” The explanation for why he so blithely accepts coming to the future? Oh, yeah, he’d been summoned to the future before. I guess that’s where he learned English, too. He also decides within minutes of seeing Jasmine that he loves her, and then, when some artificial danger is introduced to separate the two, instead of finally getting some real story, there’s a jump cut to, “Oh, look, they live happily ever after.” It’s a completely copout and cheats the reader, but then again, the whole story did that so I guess it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise.

Readability	5/10 – Clean, but poorly constructed story structure
Hero	3/10 – Everything about him was told not shown
Heroine	3/10 – Annoying and dumb
Entertainment value	2/10 – This doesn’t work on any level
World building	4/10 – It starts out well, but any semblance of place/time in dialogue or setting after she finds the bracelet is gone
TOTAL:	17/50

Egyptian Heart by Kathryn Meyer Griffith

TITLE: Egyptian Heart
AUTHOR: Kathryn Meyer Griffith
PUBLISHER: Wild Rose Press
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 75k)
GENRE: Time travel romance
COST: $6.00

Egyptologist Maggie Owen is on the dig of her life, excavating for a new tomb when an amulet given to her sends her back to 1340 BC, and the company of Ramose Nahk-Min. Captured with a group of runaway slaves, she is immediately seen as different with her pale blonde hair and green eyes. Ramose, especially, is intrigued by her, but his favorite concubine Makere will do anything to keep from losing favor with him. Can Maggie return to her own time before it’s too late, or will she lose her heart to a man she can never have?

There’s an odd schizophrenia to this particular romance that almost prevented me from finishing it. For the first fifty or so pages, we learn about Maggie, about her life, why she’s in Egypt, and so on. We also get massive information dumps on Egypt itself, details that bog the story down into a history lesson that feels like a primer for the real story. While there are readers that enjoy this particular style, I’m unfortunately not one of them. I like to live the history, not be lectured it, and I found it very hard to slog through everything as we get ready for Maggie to go back in time.

Things improve when that happens, because finally, there’s some action. The world is very well realized and the characters believable, and the tension that is introduced when Maggie meets Ramose and Makere is palpable. It’s incredibly simple to get swept along while Maggie settles into her new life, and I enjoyed that particular aspect of the ride quite a bit. I even fell for Ramose, which always helps. However, as soon as Ramose returns from battle and announces he has to go and see the Pharoah, things start to derail again when Maggie goes with him. A lot of time has to pass, and this gets skimmed over. Normally this isn’t a bad thing, but this is the romance at its highest. I don’t want the author to tell me how they’re falling more and more in love. I want to see it. There’s just too much telling and not enough seeing in the entire last third of the story for my tastes, including the epilogue which was vastly disappointing.

My enjoyment of the romance got tempered by Maggie’s obsession with her virginity, too. I understand she’s Catholic. I understand she’s a good girl. But in all fairness, I just have difficulty relating to thoughts like, Anything won too easily was never valued highly, my mother used to say and Take it slow, I told myself. Slow. If you act like a whore, he’ll end up treating you as one. There are sections of the story that feel almost like inspirational romance, which I’ll say here and now, I don’t like to read and so choose not to. Maggie and Ramose literally spend weeks upon weeks together, sleeping in the same tent when they’re traveling, and not once do they consummate their love. I never understand why Ramose – a powerful man used to taking what he wants – doesn’t press the issue more than he does. I hardly want a forced seduction, but it didn’t make sense for this particular character to never even bring it up after Maggie’s initial protests.

There are a few technical issues that disrupted my reading flow as well, like the use of drug for dragged on numerous occasions, and even using millenniums instead of millennia. Since the story is told in 1^st person and the narrator is a highly educated woman, there’s just no excuse for the errors.

Perhaps readers without the same biases I do will get more satisfaction from it. As it stands, only the middle third with the budding romance and danger from Makere truly entertained me.

Readability	6/10 – A tedious, information dump beginning and unfortunate errors like drug for dragged hold back a sweet romance in the middle third.
Hero	7/10 – Remarkably appealing
Heroine	5/10 – I have to admit to not understanding the virginity issue, but that’s a personal bias
Entertainment value	6/10 – The middle third is nicely paced and romantic, but the story suffers from a boring beginning and a dragged out end.
World building	8/10 – It’s clear the author knows her ancient Egypt, but that dissemination of detail only flows in the middle third.
TOTAL:	32/50

Wanted by Amber Scott

TITLE: Wanted
AUTHOR: Amber Scott
PUBLISHER: Liquid Silver Books
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 51k)
GENRE: Time travel erotic romance
COST: $5.95

Her father’s death leaves Samantha Hendricks with three things – memorabilia about the old west gangster Jesse Kincaid he was obsessed with, a bottle of whiskey, and questions. At a crossroads in her life, she drinks some of the whiskey as she debates her options, only to blackout and find herself in the most vivid dream of her life. Jesse Kincaid doesn’t know what to do with the woman he found, but he does know she’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. He can’t resist a single night with her as he takes her to safety. But Samantha keeps hopping back to the present, and Jesse is starting to wonder what it is about her. How are they going to overcome the years and questions that separate them in order to find true happiness?

I was quite taken with this cover when I saw it, and the fact that it was a time travel romance – one of my weaknesses – had me buying it almost as soon as it came out. There were a few things in the excerpt I read that made me pause, but ultimately, I decided to try anyway. Unfortunately, the few things in the excerpt ended up being the root of some of my issues with the story.

First of all, while the prose itself is unchallenging, it’s not consistently cleaned up. There are multiple instances of homophone errors (peak for peek, for example) and word choice mistakes that completely yanked me out of it. The phrase, As he slipped his proud attraction into the mouth of her pussy…, still makes me giggle hysterically, because I’m nearly positive the author meant to write erection. And if she didn’t…well, that’s a euphemism that just doesn’t work, I’m afraid, especially with the blunter “pussy” at the end of the phrase.

I also had serious issues with the heroine almost from the start. I had hoped that the fact that Samantha was angsting over being a spinster at the age of twenty-five was an anomaly (she's supposed to be entering law school and be a modern woman and considers herself old at twenty-five?), but her odd sensibilities got worse. At one point, when she first meets Jesse, she swears, but then she almost immediately regrets it, and proceeds to apologize to him. Whispering. Meek doesn’t even begin to cover it. Any respect I had for her was gone at that point, and with the characterization as shallow as it was, there was no room to get it back.

The entire story is incredibly shallow, actually, and that’s the biggest problem with it. Jesse and Samantha have sex almost right away, and then she disappears. When she reappears in the past, they almost immediately have sex again, and both of them are considering themselves head over heels at that point. Because they’ve had sex twice. Not spent time together. Not had any kind of conversation. There was never any basis for me to believe that these two actually had anything in common for a long-term relationship. There’s also little explanation given for much of the time travel aspects. Details are hinted at with the jumps back to the present, but even in the end, they never quite satisfy.

That pretty much describes my reaction to the entire story. Unsatisfied.

Readability	7/10 – Scanty on detail, with a few homophone issues and word choice mistakes that jump out because the prose is on the sparse side.
Hero	5/10 – Nice but lacks depth, since he feels like an ABC of what makes a western robber hero
Heroine	4/10 – Lacks personality and I never get much of a sense of what drives her, except for a few details that make me want to shake her.
Entertainment value	4/10 – Predictable and shallow, and when I needed details, they weren’t there.
World building	5/10 – There’s no real sense of place in either the past or the present, and the lack of real explanation for how everything works is frustrating.
TOTAL:	25/50

Ring Around the Moon by Anita Birt

TITLE: Ring Around the Moon
AUTHOR: Anita Birt
PUBLISHER: Cerridwen Press
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 92k)
GENRE: Contemporary time travel romance
COST: $6.49

Beth Ormond was just looking for peace and quiet to gather her thoughts and plan for the future. A month in Cornwall seemed like the perfect opportunity. Until a man staggers out of the forest the night she arrives, calling her another woman’s name and claiming she’s his wife. Now Beth has to figure out who exactly Alan Tremaine is, and what that means for her and her unborn child…

The premise of this sounded incredibly promising. Most time travel stories I read have the heroine moving back in time. I think it appeals to the urge to live in a different era without losing the effects of modern sensibilities. This story suggested it was about a man being pulled to the present, and while it has been done before, it’s not nearly as common. I was excited about this story when I started. That excitement, unfortunately, didn’t last.

The headhopping started almost right away. It didn’t happen in big long sections. It occurred in very short ones, sometimes paragraph to paragraph. I would do anything for e-pubs to either have longer excerpts so I don’t get surprised by this, or some sort of label on their stories to show when it happens. Because honestly, there are some of us who absolutely hate it. Very, very few people can pull it off. I’ll tolerate it if a story is good enough, but really, I wish I didn’t have to.

But I couldn’t even tolerate it in this one. Before I get much of a chance to know either one of the main characters, Beth is acting like an idiot, overreacting at the drop of a hat, then flipflopping from tears to I must have you in the next breath, then going back to tears. She does that throughout the book. I can't remember the last time I read a heroine who seesawed so dramatically. Her logic completely escapes me, and I don’t think I can even blame it on the hormones of her pregnancy. Her mood swings make no sense except to add artificial drama. Alan doesn’t fare much better. His personality seems a little more stable, but he’s so boring that I just can’t be bothered to care.

With such huge obstacles for me to overcome, the story never really has a chance, but it’s certainly not helped by the fact that any conflict that gets introduced for these two gets resolved or dismissed within just a couple pages. The only one that sticks around for longer than that doesn’t even get resolved. The story ends with just the thought that, “Well, they’re together and they want it to work so let’s just keep our fingers crossed, okay?” And it’s not even a little conflict. It’s big. Enormous. And it’s still looming there when it says, “The End.” Maybe if I was a little more invested in the characters or romance, it might not bother me so much. But I wasn’t, so it did.

Readability	4/10 – Constant headhopping, melodramatic dialogue, histrionic behavior…it drives a reader to skim.
Hero	3/10 – Boring and flat.
Heroine	3/10 – Histrionic and completely unbelievable.
Entertainment value	2/10 – Between being bored by the characters, annoyed at all the constant flipflopping, and disbelieving of how everything just fell into place for these two, it’s lucky I finished it at all.
World building	5/10 – It’s all tell not show with this. I never felt a sense of history or place.
TOTAL:	17/50

Rogue's Challenge by Jo Barrett

TITLE: Rogue’s Challenge
AUTHOR: Jo Barrett
PUBLISHER: Wild Rose Press
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 58k)
GENRE: Time travel romance
COST: $6.00

In this sequel to Highlander’s Challenge, Ian Southernland has been sent to the future in order to retrieve Jenny Maxwell, Tuck’s friend, so that she can be there to help deliver Tuck and Colin’s baby. His mission goes slightly awry, however, when he lands in the future on the day Tuck came back the second time, finding Jenny pursued by the castle guards. He manages to rescue her and take her back to the portal, but she ends up leaving her glasses behind, making her nearly blind as a bat 400+ years in the past. Unable to function without proper spectacles, she demands to go with Ian when he intends to go to Edinburgh and get her another pair…regardless of the arguing they can’t seem to get past and the memory of a single kiss that took them both by surprise…

With Highlander’s Challenge one of my favorite reads so far this year, I jumped to buy this when I saw it come available. Barrett writes characters that sparkle, and this book is no exception. Ian is thoroughly charming, both in his roguish ways and when he’s being more sincere, while Jenny’s intelligence and stubborn nature make a fine counterpoint to that. Starting off on the wrong foot, combined with Jenny’s frustration at not being able to see anything, sparks wonderful exchanges between the two. I can’t help but smile and look forward to their next bout.

While other characters are around, including Tuck and Colin, the fact that over half the book consists of going to Edinburgh to get Jenny new glasses means they take up the vast majority of the story. Michael, their traveling companion, provides the necessary outsider’s POV to the pair, reminding Ian of all the reasons he shouldn’t pursue Jenny. Others provide some local color, but really, the book shines brightest when the author lets Jenny and Ian just go at it.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t shine in any other areas. The headhopping that bugged me a little in the first book is still there, only more pronounced, happening more frequently with shorter sections dedicated to a single POV. There also seem to be more technical issues, things that jumped out at me much more glaringly this time around. Words are misused – they’re for their a couple times – while spelling mistakes slow down what should have been a very fast read – sparing for sparring, for instance.

The mechanics of the time portal that were set up in the first book are muddled at the very beginning of this one, and no explanation or theory is ever posited to explain all the differences. Ian makes a vague attempt, explaining that he finished the journey that Tuck had started with her second trip into the past, but Jenny clearly isn't satisfied by that, and with hers as the scientific mind, I kept waiting for her to come up with some answers. She didn't. Invariably, she and Ian would start arguing again and the entire discussion would get derailed. In the end, it felt too much like a convenient device to get Ian into the future without having to spend too much time there to find Jenny.

There’s a subplot about someone who slips through the portal after Ian and Jenny that feels very tacked on, too. It’s meant to add tension to Jenny’s presence. Somebody is after her, after all, and he doesn’t have her best intentions in mind. However, the details over his involvement in issues back in the present day are sketchy, and without being able to understand the depth of his anger, I never felt threatened by the man. The greatest danger comes just as they’re returning from Edinburgh, but then he disappears again for a huge long stretch which makes any sense of alarm fade away. The entire ending is very anticlimactic as a result.

All in all, it’s a charming read. Just not quite as charming as the first book.

Readability	7/10 – Only the crisp dialogue and likable characters save the headhopping and technical mistakes riddled throughout
Hero	8/10 – He plays the reputation of rogue with ease, but slides believably into a deeper role when masks are stripped away.
Heroine	8/10 – A tad strident at times, but a wonderful counterpoint to Ian.
Entertainment value	8/10 – Weaker conflict and more technical issues kept me from enjoying this as much as I did the first book.
World building	7/10 – With Jenny half-blind through the first half of the book, atmosphere and details are only scattershot.
TOTAL:	38/50