To save her present, she must journey to the past. Diana Montgomery has a gift. Two of them, actually. The first is that she can instinctively calm people with only a touch. The second, she can travel through time. Working with Time Weavers, Inc. she travels to the past fixing or preventing people called Disruptors from changing the future – often for the worst. Her latest assignment has her stationed in the Highlands of Scotland in 1306. She must ensure that Torr MacPhearson dies. The problem? Diana finds herself irresistibly drawn to Torr. Love… it’s a problem.
I checked this book out from my local library after reading the ARC of the second book. The writing is strong and the plot engaging. I really loved several of the side characters in Scotland, and I’m sad that we won’t be seeing them again (ostensibly… anything is possible with time travel LOL).
That said, I didn’t love this book as much as I liked the second one. And I’m glad that I started with that book because I’m more likely to continue with the series because of it. I struggled for a long time to figure out why I didn’t like this book as much, and I think it comes down to three things.
1. Body shaming - the heroine (despite later saying that she’s a size 12 (as if that makes her huge)) regularly thinks very negative thoughts about women who are plus-sized. The phrase that really turned my stomach was an internal aside “She waded – or rather waddled – into the pond.” regarding a woman who has been nothing but nice and kind to the heroine. There were several instances of this and it threw me out of the story each time.
2. Consent/jealousy - Unlike the second book, the consent here is dodgy at times. There’s a lot of people saying “no” and that “no” not being listened to. It happens with kisses, and it happens with other things (things that are very spoilery so that’s a thing). There’s also a lot of jealousy/possessiveness between the two leads and I found it off-putting. Possessiveness and Jealousy are not good emotions. Especially possessiveness. It’s objectifying. It’s controlling. And as someone who has been on the wrong end of possessiveness – it’s disturbing. While it wasn’t as bad as in some novels, it’s something that sexual assault and stalking survivors need to be aware of. And it’s something that lessened my enjoyment. Others may not have issues with it.
3. Missed opportunities - There were a few missed opportunities and what felt like dropped threads in this book that weren’t in the second one. The biggest is in regards to Diana’s power. She uses it once and then never again. And the instance of use was sort of just there… It felt like a red herring. The same is true for someone else’s powers… it’s mentioned and then never shows up again. I’m hopeful that this will come up again later in the series. The ending also wasn’t as satisfying as I hoped.
Basically I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I wanted. The second book is better. Much better. And you don’t have to read this book to enjoy that one.
That said, there’s a lot of good in here. The Disruptor plot line was really quite well done. And like I said, I liked the side characters a lot. I’m intrigued by the world that the author has created, and I’m planning on sticking with the series.
But because I didn’t love this and because I had issues with the book, I’m giving this:
Three stars.
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