Format read: ebook provided by the authorFormats available: ebook, paperback
Genre: Time travel romance
Series: MacCoinnich Time Travels, #5
Length: 300 pages
Publisher: Self-published
Date Released: November 19, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Smashwords
No ordinary hero can save Amber from death…it will take a Highland Protector
Amber MacCoinnich survival depends on her traveling to the twenty first century, or so her mother’s premonition told her. Death taunts Amber and offers peace in her endless pain. Without the mysterious savior her mother spoke of, Amber prepares for death only to wake with a handsome, dark stranger in her bed.
Gavin Kincaid spends his life shifting time in order to preserve and protect the MacCoinnich family and their line even though he’s never met one living MacCoinnich. A haunting portrait of a beautiful woman captures his attention and he embarks on a quest to put a name to the picture. When a colleague vanishes, the time-stream forces Kincaid to the twenty first century where he finds his mystifying woman close to death. His Druid gift can save her, but at what price? And when they both find themselves emotionally linked, the truth behind Kincaid’s heritage just might kill them both.
My Review:
Readers will be left hanging off of a huge cliff at the end of this book, so consider yourselves warned. But it is so worth it.
Now that the public services announcement is out of the way, what about the story?
Up until now the MacCoinnichs have confined all of their time traveling between their late-16th century origins and our 21st century. Fairly convenient, as we know what happens in the 21st century and we’ve romanticized the hell out of the kilt-wearing 16th.
But what about the far-flung future? Just because we haven’t been there doesn’t mean that the MacCoinnich penchant for traveling time won’t go there. Once you’ve moved forward three centuries or so, what difference can a couple more make?
A lot if you’re Amber MacCoinnich, the youngest daughter of Lora and Ian MacCoinnich. Amber’s psychic gift of empathy has become so powerful that it is more like a curse. She feels the emotions of everyone in her parents castle; everyone in the vicinity. She’s never alone in her own head or heart, and she can’t shut the onslaught out. Other people’s justifiable worry about her condition is part of what’s killing her. Talk about a vicious cycle!
Her mother’s gift of prescience tells them that Amber’s life can only be saved if she goes into the future and lives with Simon and Helen (and the redoubtable Mrs. Dawson) in the 21st century. Not that they have the cure, but that the cure will be found in their time. So off she goes.
Amber’s future comes to find her, in the person of Gavin Kincaid. A warrior from the even further future. In the year 2231, Gavin is one of a team of Druid warriors who has sworn to protect all the descents of (drumroll please) Ian and Lora MacCoinnich! Not just protect them, but travel through time to protect them whenever and however necessary.
Because even though the MacCoinnichs killed Grainna back in the late 16th century, there’s this itty-bitty problem with evil and time travel.
Evil time travelers keep getting this awful but brilliant idea that if they wipe the MacCoinnichs off the face of the Earth, they’ll be able to come back into power and work their wicked magic on the unsuspecting population of the planet.
They just have to go back and change history. Which is evil, but then, so are they.
Gavin and his time traveling order keep getting in their way. So when Helen uses her famous finding powers (see Highland Shifter for details) and drags Gavin and his friend Giles from the 23rd century to the 21st, evil follows in their wake.
It looks like Gavin may be the one who can save Amber, but the cost looks to be higher than anyone wants to pay.
Escape Rating B+: This series is just tremendously good fun. The books are also a lot like potato chips; I dare you to read just one!
There’s a feeling at the end of this one that everyone is holding their collective breath, that the next story is going to be the big payoff for the whole series. I also got a sense of deja vu all over again; the setup for the confrontation between good and evil reminded me a lot of the confrontation brewing between Grainna and the MacCoinnichs in Silent Vows and Redeeming Vows. We’ll see.
The future that Gavin comes from isn’t terribly well defined. That’s not all that surprising, this isn’t a futuristic story. But it was cool that the idea of someone coming from the future finally got explored a bit. I also personally liked that his BFF is a librarian. (I always like it when we’re heroes, or hero-ish)
Amber is an interesting choice for a heroine. Up until this story, she’s been forced into the background by her “illness”. Yet she doesn’t grab at the first straw that gives her a chance for normalcy. She wants Gavin to love her for herself and not because he feels obligated. They still try a courtship, as much as possible. It’s very sweet.
Waiting until the final book in this series arrives is going to seem endless. I want it NOW!
About Catherine Bybee
New York Times & USA Today bestselling author Catherine Bybee was raised in Washington State, but after graduating high school, she moved to Southern California in hopes of becoming a movie star. After growing bored with waiting tables, she returned to school and became a registered nurse, spending most of her career in urban emergency rooms. She now writes full-time and has penned novels Wife by Wednesday, Married by Monday, and Not Quite Dating. Bybee lives with her husband and two teenage sons in Southern California.To learn more about Catherine, visit her website or blog or follower her on Twitter and Facebook.
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