Thursday, December 28, 2023

Review: Timeless by Jacqueline Hopkins


 

Genre: Historical/Romance/Time Travel

Description:

“When Liza Starr Love, an historical romance author, travels back in time with her main character, Ross York, who is a Peterson Detective in her tenth historical romance novel, she must prevent him from altering the future and try to save the life of her infamous ancestor--Belle Starr.

Liza is frantically working on her book deadline because without it, she has no way to keep her farm afloat after her husband died in a freak framing accident. She needs the money from the sale of her book, but a thunderstorm with tornado prevents her from working on it when the power goes out. When she gets it back, her hero and his daughter from her books appear in her office.

Ross, who lost his pregnant wife, is traveling on a wagon train to Santa Fe across the territory of Oklahoma, to take his daughter to live with his brother and his wife, he must also protect the gold he's carrying to pay the Peterson Detectives and keep it from falling into the wrong hands of the Younger Gang. But a severe thunderstorm one night finds himself and his daughter in a strange home with strange surroundings in the future he doesn't understand.

Together, Ross and Liza must figure out how to get Ross and Sara back to the 1880s. For Ross to arrest her ancestor without hurting Liza, the woman he's fallen in love with. For Liza to figure out how to save her farm, let a man help her and fall in love all over again. And for them both to figure out how their love can transcend between two worlds they travel between.”

Author:

Born in Durant, Oklahoma, Jacqueline Hopkins describes herself as a “displaced Okie with a bit of Choctaw blood.” A bit of a nomad her place of residence has bounced around a bit, with stints in states as varied as Hawaii, Alaska, Florida, and Connecticut as well as internationally, living for a time in Iceland. She currently lives in Idaho and is the author of several books that range from romance, to memoir, and even one that while primarily a cookbook has a little memoir thrown in as well. That’s a mashup you don’t see very often.

Appraisal:

This combination of historical fiction and romance (aka historical romance) and time travel isn’t one you see very often. I’m sure they’re out there, but not common in my experience. The couple examples I’ve come up with involved people from modern days traveling back in time and having to adapt to a time that was simpler in some ways, but also harder for the average person as well. This is different in that while we have a people going back to the 1800s, but also people from the 1800s who travel to modern times for a while. An adult man from the 1800s who thinks he understands things getting thrown into the modern world with various motorized vehicles, washing machines, hot tubs, and … well, let’s just say that just like with a toddler starting to explore, an adult thrown into modern times needs a close eye kept on them too. That all makes for some intense, but humorous things to happen.

Along with those new twists from traveling back and forth in time we’ve got the tension of a typical romance, complicated due to differences in how certain things from dress, to action, to gender roles were viewed in the 1800s compared to today. Throw it all together and the result is a fun read that also got me thinking about the changing world. I’m afraid I wouldn’t handle it well if I was transported a hundred years into the future.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

Format/Typo Issues:

My review is based on an advance reviewer copy so I can’t judge the final product in this area.

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 75-80,000 words

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