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59 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
FABULOUS COMBO OF INTELLIGENCE & SENSUALTIY!!, October 4, 1999
By A Customer
I read this book because of the time travel after reading another similar romance theme. WOW! My only disappointment was that there wasn't more book. Linda Howard amazed me with Grace's authentic struggles to stay one step ahead of her pursuers. Grace's character made me proud to be a woman. I loved her because she wasn't particularly beautiful or helpless, instead she more like us ordinary human females. What made her so extraordinary was her intelligence and willingness to do and learn anything necessary to survive and extract vengeance. Black Niall was a terrific hero. He can haunt my dreams anytime. I liked him rough, very masculine, and just slightly barbaric. Linda Howard did an excellent job of creating in Niall a hidden sensitivity and vulnerability that made him irrisistible. You realize very quickly that he loved and needed Grace passionately when he chose not to kill her, as his duty demanded, for discovering the "treasure". I understand Niall's anger with God for the destruction of the Templars not only because they had been in God's service for so long, but also, because they had become Niall's friends and "brothers". I think it was important to Niall to have family because he couldn't claim his own. It was a bit ironic that as the "Guardian", Niall could travel through time but he couldn't see far enough into the future realized that his God had provided for him. For the reader in San Diego, if you wanted something that dealt with only fact and truth, look for your next book in NON-FICTION. Don't pick out a book whose excerpt reads: heroine travels back in time to meet hero. You'll be sadly disapointed. I take my own religion quite seriously but I also realize that fiction is just that: fiction. To enjoy you must "suspend your disbelief". By the way, Niall never wanted to become a monk, he was forced to in order to live. However, he never broke any of the vows he took while they were invoked. Remember that once the Templars were disbanded and he became the "guardian", all vows were revoked except that to protect the treasure with his life for as long as he lived. Niall was a lusty fellow, but then again, in those times, most men were.
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41 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Suspence Thriller!, April 11, 2002
Grace has everything to lose: a happy life with a loving husband, a wonderful brother and an amazing career. She loses it all in one moment. To save herself and avenge the murders of her husband and brother, she is on the run with the very documents that caused all this horror. The police, thinking she killed her husband and brother, and the killer, who wants the documents, are both after her, but she is a strong and an intelligent woman and she gets away...just barely . She learns "street smarts" and how to survive despite this agressive murderer on her tail. When Grace discovers the mystery the documents hold, she knows she must travel through time as the documents explain to meet Black Niall, who she has been dreaming about since she first discovered the documents. He has shared her hot dreams and their lust for each other is so powerful all he has to do is kiss her to make her explode with passion. With Niall's help, they travel back to 1998 to face the ruthless killer. Niall is almost God-like in his strength and the love he shares with Grace makes you wonder if they were made for each other. I expected a romance novel but instead, this novel was filled with action, suspence and VERY little romance...but when she finally does meet Black Niall (65 pages away from the end of the book!) they share some amazingly HOT scenes!! The story reminded me of the movie "The Fugitive" mixed with the film "Mission Impossible," But I didn't find the lack of romance all that dissapointing because the story was so well-written and interesting. This story should be classified as a suspence thriller. She doesn't even meet the hero until page 340 (The story ends at page 400). Most of the novel is about her running from the killers. It's exciting and you really come to love Grace and care about her character. She is so three-dimensional, she seems like a real person. Black Niall sounds delicious but he also plays a minor role in the novel. He is like the supporting character and he comes across as 2-dimensional. I never fell in love with him but I did lust after him. The ending was sweet but I had another ending in mind that never came to fruition. However, that made the novel UNpredictable and that's a good thing. This is my first novel to read by Linda Howard, and I see myself picking up MANY more in the future. I HIGHLY recommend!
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31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Time travel with that special Howard touch!, April 14, 2001
Linda Howard is a great writer of contemporary and historic romances, and here she successfully tries another subgenre - the time travel romance. As a general rule, it's not my favorite genre, but Howard does a wonderful job. This is the story of Grace St. John, an academic who is translating a mysterious ancient Scottish manuscript. After her husband and brother are murdered in an effort to get the manuscript, she realizes that it contains valable and powerful secrets. She learns to live in hiding and continues her translation. She begins to have shockingly realistic dreams about Balck Niall, the Scottish warrior that features prominently in her translated text. Meanwhile, hundreds of years ago in Scotland...Niall is having the same dreams. Eventually Grace deciphers a formula for going back in time and shows up most unexpectedly in the midst of a bloody battle. Naturally Niall is fiercely attracted to her, but he has reason to be suspicious of her sudden appearance and her motives. There are so many things about this book that I like. First, Grace is not one of those dingbat heroines who dashes headlong into dangerous situations just to show how spunky and independent she is. Grace recognizes and appreciates the risks she faces and diligently does her best to survive. Second, the time travel doesn't just "happen". That's always been my pet peeve with most time travel romances - suddenly one of the characters finds themselves traveling through time for no apparent reason. Howard's explanation may be somewhat fanciful, but at least it IS an explanation. Third, Howard doesn't tidy up 14th century Scotland. This isn't modern times with old fashioned clothes. This Scotland is dangerous and dirty and primitive. Not that these things alone make the book great; it just that they minimize the distractions from the imaginative and sensual story Howard has created. And that's another big point - there aren't alot of sex scenes in this book, but the ones that are there are incredibly hot. Don't say I didn't warn you.
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