Customer Reviews

Five Star Expressions - The Cymry Ring

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When I first read about this book, I was extremly exciited. It combined historical fiction with, what I thought would be a compelling mystery. Neither of the these components turned out to be interesting or enlightening in any way. The story started out slowly, and dully, and remained that way through most of the book. I forced myself to finish it, thinking the ending would compensate for its lack of entertaining material in the rest of it. It hardly did. For those of you who are looking for an intriguing novel that will provide new details about ancient Britian, or time travel, I would suggest you find another book.

CID detective Ian Carreg is a widower with grown children and a grandchild on the way. Dr. Jemma Henderson is a physician and daughter of a physicist; she is also wanted for murder in America. When Carreg follows Jemma into a shed on Cyrmy Henge, he is knocked unconscious. He wakes up, with Jemma in Roman Britten during the Iron Age.

I have always been a fan of Dymmoch's writing. I am also a fan of time travel. Unfortunately, neither work very well in this book. Not only was there no logical explanation for how the time travel happened, there really wasn't any explanation at all. There was also no logical loop connecting a talisman from the present to the past and back to the present, which could have been resolved with just a bit more thinking. The history was fascinating and I learned quite a bit about the period, but the characters were flat, as was the story. I kept expecting to feel more involved and just never did. So why did I rate it "Okay" rather than "Poor." Because I did finish the book, fairly easily, shall definitely keep reading other books by Ms. Dymmoch and, overall, recommend her as an author. Just don't judge the author by this particular novel.

Fifty-five years old English CID Detective Ian Carreg is still coming to grips over the death of his beloved wife Marjorie, who died when an out of control speeding car hit her. Though he "talks" to his Marjorie, he keeps himself busy though his two adult children Peter and Margaret worry about him.

CID sends Ian to arrest escaped felon Dr. Jemma Henderson, daughter of renowned physicist Dr. Marcus Henderson, convicted of murdering her lover. He heads to her dad's home where he enters a shed in Cymry Henge just before an explosion occurs. He soon realizes that somehow Jemma sent both of them back seventeen centuries to Roman Britannia where they confront and then befriend three Welsh. Captured by the Roman legions, the pair with their new friends struggle to survive while trying to insure future history remains the same while trying to figure out a way to tell her father and his children they live albeit over a millennium before they were born.

THE CYMRY RING starts off like a typical police procedural tale until her father's machine successfully sends them back seventeen hundred years and switches into a time travel thriller. The story line is action-packed especially in Roman times as the "settlers" from the twenty-first century fight to stay alive in a world so different than their birth time. Ian and Jemma are believable characters, easy to understand so readers empathize with their plight. This is a special tale told by a master storyteller.

Harriet Klausner

I enjoyed the historical aspects of this book, and thought those descriptions and some of the characters fascinating. However, the main parts of the plot were rather lame and juvenile. It kept inexplicably going back and forth between whether Ian believed or didn't believe he had travelled in time, and he kept thinking of Jemma as a murderess even when he overheard a plausible explanation. His analysis of their relationship made no sense whatsoever. I agree with another reviewer about the connection with the ring being not very understandable, though it could have been incorporated well. I can't believe this writer receives such good reviews. I will not read another book by this author.