Timeless

Time travel romance is not a genre that I generally enjoy reading, so this collection really took me by surprise. Each story was incredibly well-developed in only 60 pages or so, but it's the settings and the interesting way they were presented that made this book shine! The first two stories are particularly strong in this collection, and the other two are fun too! In A Midsummer's Day Dream by Linda Lael Miller, California vintage jewelry shop owner Francesca attends a Medieval Festival near London. After an encounter with Merlin in a costume shop, she slips into the 1300's. She is mistaken by the locals for a witch, and comes under the protection of an infamous duke who thinks she's a prostitute. He is destined to die in a jousting match, and Francesca must find a way to use her groing love for him to change his fate. Lovers of the Golden Drum by Diana Bane vasillates between present day and events that occurred in Scotland centuries ago. A newspaper story about a Golden Drum that saved the life of a boy triggers a series of very realistic but haunting dreams for Maggie about a Scottish Boy named Douglas and the girl Margaret who loved him. She travels to the Outer Banks of North Carolina in the middle of winter to resolve and put to rest these dreams. She meets an interesting bookshop owner, and a mysterious older man, as she tries to uncover facts about the legend of the drum and the boy it saved, and determine why the story haunts her dreams. The Outer Banks is an area that's always intrigued me, perhaps from reading so many Nicholas Sparks novels, and I really liked the way the time travel element was presented in this story, though dreams, making it more realistic than when it just magically occurs. Out of Time by Anna Jennet is about a woman who falls off a cliff after being chased by attackers while on vacation in Cornwall. Instead of crashing onto the rocks below, she remains suspended in time for a bit before falling through the fog and into the sea. She is rescued by a knight, and finds herself in the 12th century. I was particularly humored by the repulsion of the dirty conditions there, especially the unbathed people. In Echoes of Love by Elaine Crawford, a workaholic New Yorker is a few weeks away from her wedding to a rather dull, money-hungry man when she discovers that she's inherited her great-aunt's ranch in California. Her fiance and her parents wish her to parcel up the land and sell it, but she falls in love with the peacefulness of the place. When her great-aunt's story is revealed through dreams and a journal, Brenn starts reliving a modern-day version of the events.

Back cover reads: Secrets written in stardust...Promises whispered on the wind...Some lovers were meant to find each other--across eternity... TIMELESS New York Times bestselling author Linda Lael Miller takes a vintage dress-shop owner on a breathtaking adventure in medieval England-where a bewitching love awaits... Diana Bane unlocks the secret love behind Maggie's taunting dreams of a clan war from centuries past... Anna Jennet takes a plunge into the sea from the cliffs of Cornwall--and falls back in time, into the arms of a heroic knight... Elaine Crawford finds time is of the essence when an engaged workaholic inherits a California ranch--a place she's seen somewhere before...