Author: Amy Harmon
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Year: 2019
Genre(s): historical romance, some fantastical elements
Part of a Series: No
Rating:
Why I read it: Recommended by Amazon and I enjoyed Harmon’s Sand and Ash
Summary: Following the death of her beloved grandfather, best-selling author Anne Gallagher travels to Ireland to honor his final wish – for his ashes to be spread on one particular lough near where he grew up in Ireland. While out on the lough, she is caught in a strange mist and when she is rescued, she finds herself no longer in 2001 but in 1921. This Ireland is a dangerous place as it is a county on the brink of war, trying to gain independence from the British.
Anne is taken in by Dr. Thomas Smith, who has mistaken her for her great-grandmother. She is surprised to find her grandfather as a young boy and struggles to adjust to the 1920s as she is forced to pretend she is someone else. Will she find a way back to her time? Or is she destined to become a part of the history she has fervently studied?
Review: There have been many stories about people traveling back in time – Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court comes to mind—but it seems nowadays, all such stories get compared to Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander. Especially if it involves a romance. Is it fair? Probably not. But it happens. Even I started to compare it to Outlander in my mind—especially as it is written in first person POV with our heroine as our narrator—but I’m not going to do so in this review.
Because that’s not fair to this book or Amy Harmon. Her novel deserves to stand on its own.
Harmon does a good job with portraying Anne as a fish-out-of-water. While it can be a cliche to make a main character a writer, it serves the plot well as Anne’s research for her books give her enough knowledge about the time to help her navigate her situation and keeping her secret. She has to keep her wits about her as she’s ended up in a dangerous time in Irish history and no one knows who to trust.
Like in Sand and Ash, Harmon once again masterfully creates tension. Not only has Anne fallen into a dangerous time, she has been mistaken for someone else. To save herself, she has to pretend she is that person until she can figure out how to get home – if she can get home. But it also opens her up to questions she cannot answer, which increases her chances of getting caught. I was always on edge, wondering when her jig would be up. The eventually payout was very good, which is all I will say without spoilers.
She also does a great job at weaving Anne into actual historical events without making them all about her. Anne is more of a witness or a bystander than anything else. She does come to play another role later in the story but once again, I feel like that reveals too much. All I’ll say is that it makes sense in the story and is a clever twist.
And finally, the romance. There is an immediate attraction between Anne and Thomas but their relationship still builds slowly. I loved watching them fall in the love and really could root for them to succeed. I’ll let you find out if they do or not.
Bottom line: A sweet romance set against a backdrop of political tensions about to explode.
Sex: Some but nothing too graphic.
Moonlight Musing
Would you share information about the future if you ended up in the past?
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