Pictures of Scotland.org Canadian Amazon Store

Nope. Skip this one, folks.

There were several problems with logic and continuity - a character knows something in one scene that they have no way of knowing, then have forgotten they knew it in the next chapter; this gets to be disruptive for the attentive reader.

Major plot points were skipped completely (the room with the potions and the star maps, for example. Why make such a big deal out of this if they were never to be seen again?).

What was the point, also, of Marcail and O'Donnell? Neither character was particularly well-drawn or even all that likable, so it really didn't matter to the reader whether or not they ever decided to join.

Many of the scenes were short - 3 or 4 paragraphs or no more than a page - but they would jump characters and even jump 2 or 3 days from the previous scene. Unfortunately, in jumping over the days, the author missed telling big chunks of story. Considering that the time travel portion only covered 28 days to begin with, she didn't have the luxury of skipping days.

Pass this one up. If you want immortality and the Scottish Highlands, watch "Highlander" (the first movie). If you want time travel and the Scottish Highlands, read Diana Gabaldon's "Outlander."

I definitely will not read more by this author.


An interesting tale...   November 15, 2000
Having first met the author at a trade show in the Pacific Northwest, I decided to give her book a try (even though I do not generally read romances). The time-travel aspect of the story is well handled (our heroine is pulled back into Scotland in the mid-1500's), and the characters are very well developed.

I have to confess that the opening of the story is a bit rough for me. Everything that happened seemed contrived in order to get us to a certain point. About a third of the way into the novel, enough is revealed to make it clear why, exactly, events unfolded as they did in the beginning, and it all works (both dramatically and on the believability scale).

The author has a good sense of pacing, and also does a decent job of "planting the evidence" in earlier scenes before employing it in later scenes. The story unfolds logically and neatly, without being overly pat.

I cannot compare this novel to too many other romances, as it's not generally my genre of choice, but I'd have to agree with other reviewers that, if romance is the draw (and sex is a part of romance), then it does seem to take a while to finally get to the action. And, unlike Hedge of Thorns by Sally Ash (also published by Goodfellow Press), the sex seems somehow irrelevant to the romance.

All that being said, though, the story of a woman out of time and a clan of immortals is very well drawn. I recommend this book as a fine first novel.


A romance that could have had potential...   August 15, 2000
I agree this book started out with a great idea for romance and an interesting plot... but just as you would get into an aspect of the plot she was writing it would suddenly stop... as if to leave it with out explanation or appropriate detail... this sometimes made it hard to follow the plot or hold your attention...Lachlan's physical description was lacking although his personal character was not... and the romance end of this really doesn't take off until 2/3rds through the book and when it does it totally surprises you and the moment is brief and lacking in description... so I put that aside to just follow the idea of this plot on immortality... but that too fizzeled out in the end with a far too easy of a closing to what was suppose to be some kind of climax... and the final frustration is in the end she doesn't resolve all the conflicts Amber had with Lachlan about his immortality... I reread the end three times to see if I missed something... and I didn't... the author did....how completely frustrating!


Good Read   July 7, 2000
The story was good, I could not put it down. But towards the ending it kind off looses a little of the magic. The ending needed more a little dissapointed towards the end.


A True Time Travel Romance   May 21, 2000
This book links to reality more than many "time travel" novels. It leaves you with a wonderful feeling of "maybe it could happen if....". Truly a hard to put down book, I spent an entire weekend sneaking time out of other things to finish it!