Review: Great start, but definitely leaves you with unanswered questions!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 8, 2014
4.5 StarsIf you're a fan of A Discovery of Witches or the Outlander series, this book reminded me of elements of each. Grace travels back to medieval times Wales where she meets a vampire and eventually falls in love.After being diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor, Grace returns home to live out the rest of her remaining days. Aside from the occasional headaches, she actually feels pretty good until she begins to experience blackouts or "daydreams" where she time travels back in time. And each time that she does, she not only arrives nude, but in the general vicinity of the same person, Roman. Roman isn't your normal, everyday type of guy. The first time she appeared was nearly 1800 years in the past, and he was in the middle of a fight to the death. And, that first time was very brief; before she knew it, she was back in her time. The second time she appeared in the past, it was for a slightly longer period of time. However, each time she returns back to the present day, she learns she has only been "gone" for a matter of seconds or minutes at the most. And each episode is random. When she "leaves" is random, and when she appears to Roman is also random. A week may go by for her in present time, whereas for him, it could be years between appearances. What is startling is that she originally believes that she is dreaming; very vivid dreams, but dreams nonetheless...for her body is still in the present day. Eventually Grace's travel to the past will last much longer than a few minutes, and during this time, she will not only learn Roman's secret, but also what it means to be a woman in the 1100's. Roman and Viktor, his mentor and friend, are both vampires pretending to be human for the sake of blending in and feeding as needed. No one around them knows they are vampires, and it is actually forbidden that any human knows without serious consequences. Both will make an exception for Grace given her unique situation. And as time progresses, both Roman and Grace will not only become lovers, but develop an "attachment" to each other knowing that Grace could disappear back to her time with no notice whatsoever.Outside of some minor grammatical errors, this book pulled me in fairly quickly. In part because it did remind of the series mentioned earlier, but also because of the uniqueness of the situation. Grace just could not bring herself to believe she actually traveled back in time. That although her body was in the present, she was STILL physically in the past and anything she experienced in the past, she also experienced in the present. Also learning just how hard it was to survive in the past was a rude awakening. Nearly being raped, seeing a man killed in front and because of her, nearly freezing to death, having no family near/alive, having no rights, etc. And when things are at their worst, not having a way to return to her own time, nor knowing if Roman will continue to look out for her given his constant reminders to her that he is not human and does not feel remotely responsible nor considerate of them. I'm still left with so many questions at the end and am looking forward to reading the next book. So if you are like me and love paranormal books of any kind, then this is definitely something you'll want to pick up.