Customer Reviews

Across Time (Big Book) (Harlequin Historical)

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This probably takes the honors of being the worst time travel story I've ever read. I remember reading it when it was first published, and liking the concept; but something about it disappointed me, and I got rid of it shortly after. I found it again at a used bookstore, and decided to try it again. What a mistake! Even now, I find the idea of a young girl, escaping the horrors of the French Revolution by escaping into the past of the Italian Renaissance, intriguing. But the execution is sloppy and poorly thought out, and the continuity errors are the most idiotic I have ever seen in a time travel story. What's worse, it reads like a retread of Elizabeth Chater's classic body-swap time travel romance, "The Elsingham Portrait," without having any of the charm, the consistency, or the plot.

The story begins in the 1790s, with the aristocratic Adrienne de Beaufort escaping the attentions of a wicked and lustful revolutionary by looking into the portrait of her distant ancestress, Isabella de Montefiore, and pleading for her to help her. Lo and behold, the next thing Adrienne knows, it's 1490s Italy; she's occupying the body of the aforementioned Isabella, and she is about to consummate her marriage to a hotcha Italian hunk named Alessandro. There's a great deal of making out and bedroom squabbling between the two, before Adrienne remembers that she left a poor aristo mother and child in hiding back in the 1790s, and she really should drag herself away from her Renaissance lovenest and help out the poor things.

So, she goes to the portrait, and is zapped inexplicably back to the future, whereupon she lets the aristo mama and daughter out of their hiding-place. The mother immediately wants to know where she's been; apparently she's been away for days and days. After the aristos are sent to England, a friend of Adrienne's tells her that the wicked revolutionary has been tearing up the countryside looking for her, and she should best hide herself in a safe place. Adrienne replies she knows just the place- which means that she quickly hies herself back to Isabella's portrait to go back to the Renaissance.

The most disturbing thing about all of this is that the question of where Adrienne's body has been all this time is never even raised, nor does our heroine ever wonder what happened to Isabella. But Isabella is an evil slut, so it really doesn't matter, I suppose. As far as us readers are supposed to know, Isabella has been sucked into a black hole, her body only available for Adrienne's use when it's convenient. For when she comes back to the 15th century, she is set upon by Alessandro, who demands to know where she's been; apparently, while Adrienne was in the 1790s, Isabella's body vanished. Words cannot describe how creepy this is.

It gets even worse, if possible. It seems that Isabella had Alessandro killed, and then married a French count, who is Adrienne's great-great great (and so forth) grandfather. Well, Adrienne loves Alessandro and wants to have lots of his babies, so of course it's out of the question to go along with history. After much boring intrigue and a lot of stuff involving the Borgias, she prevents Alessandro's murder and proves herself to be a loyal, loving wife. In the end, she even orders the burning of Isabella's portrait- once and for all freeing herself from evil, and proving that true love will conquer all!

When I read this ending, I thought my brain would melt. Apparently the author didn't realize that by refusing to marry her great-great grandfather, Adrienne has made sure that her family- and herself- would never exist. And by destroying the portrait, she has destroyed the way that she, in the future, would find her way back into the past. I guess that Ms. Beaumont has never heard of "the Grandfather Paradox," because this book is sure a textbook example of that. Now, a lot of great time travel novels have dealt with this very paradox (which is, mainly, if I went back in time and killed my grandfather, I would never have existed, ergo, how could I have gone back in time and killed my grandfather?) by proposing a series of alternate universes. However, this book does not even begin to tinker with such ideas. Instead, it blithely ignores continuity, paradoxes, and the space time continuum, and tells us that all we need is love... even if we did kill our own grandfather.

All in all, "Across Time" is unconscionably stupid, and does nothing for the romance or time travel genre. If you're interested in a good time travel romance, read "The Elsingham Portrait" by Elizabeth Chater; for a lighter take on the body-swap theme, there is "Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict" by Laurie Viera Rigler; and for a darker one, there is "The Mirror" by Marlys Milhiser. Please read those, and leave "Across Time" to collect dust as it deserves.

The concept of a woman from the past going further into the past has never quite been my favorite. The attraction to time travel is feeling like you are the lead character going back in time. Saying that, the story lacked depth to me. The heroine spent most of her time crying and screaming. She made foolish decisions that did little to change the course of history, which seemed to be her mission, and she fell too quickly in love with a heroe who never trusted her. I would recommend you pass on this one.