A new land, a new time . . .

To protect his people from a great evil, Merrick Mac Lochlainn, newly crowned high chieftain of his clan, must travel forward in time nearly 1,000 years. But when he awakens in nineteenth-century England, he has no memory of his mission to save his race, nor can he recognize Jenny Keating, the spirited young beauty who calls herself his wife.

A new love . . .

Orphaned and on the run from a cruel headmaster, vulnerable and alone, Jenny never dreamed of being rescued by any man, much less a chivalrous and handsome warrior like Merrick. Drawn to his powerful physique and mysterious ways, she begins a dangerous deception and poses as his beloved. But her feelings of desire are all too real. Together they will battle a dark threat that jeopardizes their very lives, all the while tempting each other with a passion too powerful to resist.

There’s something to learn from picking up a book and pressing forward in reading it even though you don’t want to because even though this book was riddled with one cliche after the other, I still rather enjoyed this book. I still enjoyed the relationship formed between Merrick and Jenny. I enjoyed this story even though it is one of my most hated storylines….the amnesia story. One thing that I wasn’t too happy to find out AFTER I finished the book was that it was the second book in the series by Margo Maguire, but I guess it doesn’t really matter since I didn’t feel as if I was reading out of order or anything, this book could pass as a stand alone so I guess my annoyance with it being the second book stems from I wish I had known it was the second book so that I could have gotten the first book first and read it but meh, whatever…its over and done with and I enjoyed the story so all is well that ends well.

This story is about Merrick Mac Lochlainn’s quest to try to save his people from the evil Eilinora who killed his father and is trying to take over the world. He must find and take possession of the blood stones and bring them back so that they have a fighting chance at destroying the evil Eilinora, who killed his father and stole the ruling sceptor. Merrick must find those blood stones and he must travel forward in time to retrieve them. Only thing is he doesn’t know where they are so he has to go and find them. His clue? Find Keating, Ana, his cousin who has some sort of special powers that enables her to detect the future or whatever says she doesn’t know why Keating, or what it is, just find Keating and he should find the blood stones.

Oh and another thing is Merrick’s brother, Brogan has already went in search of one of the magic stones but hasn’t returned yet so they’re sending Merrick in to the future so that he can give finding the other dang stone a go. Once he gets to the future, he comes across a woman who is being attacked by highway robbers and being the gentleman that he is, he gives her a hand…he’s shot for his troubles and he goes down. When he wakes up, he doesn’t know who he is or where he’s at and that just brings a lot of trouble to him because Jenny has taken it upon herself to save him and claim him as her husband so that they would both be safe from the Gypsies and the men that tried to get her.

Jenny’s story is she’s left her position as a teacher at the Bresland School where she’s been living ever since her parents died and she hates it over there. She can’t wait to be rid of that dumb place and when she gets a job offer to become a governess, she jumps on the chance to leave. Now, leaving was supposed to be easy but it most certainly is not in her case because the evil headmaster hates her guts and her stupid ass roommate has stolen the only object of value she ever had, her mother’s locket. I swear, Jenny’s got the worst luck. She’s hated by the headmaster, her locket got stolen and the guy who was courting her for marriage dropped her like a ton of bricks because he believed everything the headmaster said about her and so she really has nothing worth sticking around for, so at the first chance she gets, she’s off to find that stupid ass Harriet (her roommate) and get her locket back.

On the way there is when she gets accosted by those highway robbers and that’s when Merrick comes to save her. She ends up saving him too because she stuck around to make sure that he was taken care of after getting shot. He doesn’t remember who he is or where he came from or where he was going so she feels she has to keep up her little lies so that he doesn’t get confused all the more. The more she lies, the closer they get and the harder it is for them to part ways. The thing that made this amnesia story good for me was that Jenny didn’t wait until the worst possible time to come out about her lies to Merrick. She doesn’t wait until someone else tells Merrick what a lying sack of shit she is. She tells him at the beginning and tries to get out of being Merrick’s “wife” even though it’s totally obvious that she seriously wants to be.

The way these two were brought together was sweet. I enjoyed the story and I felt for the characters and I enjoyed seeing each of them struggle with the depth of their feelings for each other and I enjoyed the background story of the evil witch and the good guys coming out on top. I know that with romances, the happy ending is always a given but getting there is never easy and it wasn’t easy with these two. I thought this book was an entertaining story that was easy to follow for the most part.

One thing that kind of took me out of the story is from time to time, MM would refer to Merrick as Merrick and then a paragraph or two down, she’ll refer to him as Matthew, which is the name that Jenny gave him when he didn’t know who he was. That struck me a few times, confused me but it didn’t take me too much out of the story, the story was a solid B read so I’m giving it a 4 out of 5.

Good read.

4 out of 5