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I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book which I received from the author. All views expressed are only my honest opinion.
MY REVIEW:
Genre | Tropes: Romance, Historical Fiction, Time Travel
Rating: 5 out of 5 ⭐
This was a very unique and heartwarming take on a historical fiction story. Most of what I read in this genre is placed in the Regency era and this book is actually set in the Jacobean era, 1605 to be exact. But let’s start from the beginning. Isla lives in 2025 and works as an assistant for a member of parliament. Their office is planning their annual costume party and Isla needs a costume to dress up as Wendy from Peter Pan. Her friend, and co-worker, advises her to visit McQuivey’s costume shop because all the best costumes are there.
But when she visits the shop, the curious owner encourages Isla to try on a very special Jacobean gown and ushers her into a different changing stall than what the others look like. When she walks out, she finds herself in a strange location outside of a woodshed with a large family home looming in front of her.
She finds herself outside the home of the Maidstone’s and must figure out why she was sent to this time frame and what her role in history is. There is a very important event that takes place in English history during this year and Isla is right at the center of the action.
This story encompasses adventure, danger, and romance beautifully throughout its pages. Isla’s love interest, Simon, is a perfect match for her and challenges her in so many good ways. He encourages her to see her own beauty and find her inner strength, even when the odds seem daunting. They have fun together and unravel the mystery of her arrival, along with his sister and brother-in-law.
All of the characters in this book come together perfectly in a way that made me adore this book from the first page to the very last word. I hope to visit this series more as it develops with possibly other time traveling stories!
If you like historical romance with a time traveling twist and plenty of adventure, then you’ll adore this book as much as I did!
GET IT HERE:
One moment, Isla Crawford is inside McQuivey’s Costume Shop trying on a Jacobean-style gown for the parliamentary Autumn Ball, and the next, she is standing in an unfamiliar garden, barefoot, coatless, and at the mercy of a fierce storm. Confused, she seeks refuge in a Tudor manor, where she discovers that she has inexplicably traveled back to 1605, mere weeks before the culmination of Guy Fawkes’s infamous Gunpowder Plot. Simon Hartworth, Lord Bancroft, finds his orderly seventeenth-century life disrupted when a mysterious woman appears on his sister’s doorstep during a storm. Intrigued by the stranger’s quirks and bewildering speech, he feels compelled to protect her and heed her warnings about a fatal plot against Parliament. As Simon is drawn into Isla’s dangerous scheme to stop the evildoers, he can’t help but also feel drawn to her. With seemingly no way to get back home, Isla uses her twenty-first-century knowledge of the past to try to thwart Guy Fawkes and his coconspirators without altering the course of history forever. She and Simon must race to unravel the threads of the treasonous plot even as they wonder how their hearts will navigate their deepening connection and the seemingly insurmountable four centuries that separate their lives.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sian Ann Bessey
Sian Ann Bessey was born in Cambridge, England, but grew up on the island of Anglesey off the coast of North Wales. She left her homeland to attend university in the U.S. and earned a bachelor’s degree in communications with a minor in English.
She began her writing career as a student, publishing several magazine articles while still in college. Since then she has published historical romance and romantic suspense novels, along with a variety of children’s books. She is a USA Today best selling author, a Foreward Reviews Book of the Year finalist, and a Whitney Award finalist.
Although Sian doesn’t have the opportunity to speak Welsh very often anymore, she can still wrap her tongue around, “Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.” She loves to travel and experience other cultures, but when she’s home, her favorite activities are spending time with her family, cooking, and reading.
You can visit Sian on the web at http://www.sianannbessey.com
Looking for book recs…
Adventures in Literature 
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