Wrapped in Wishes

This time travel book was amazing. It had Egyptian mysticism, magic, supernatural, time travel, good versus evil battles and so much more. I have no idea how they came up with the title of this book or the cover because it really doesn't do this book justice. This is an intense love story. When a young woman can't cure her insomnia she finally resorts to hypnosis and this opens up realms of the supernatural, time travel,ghosts, mysticism. It has so many twists and turns, that it is IMPOSSIBLE to put down until you are done. I LOVED it.

Wow! I just finished this book this morning and ... Wow! This is NOT your typical time travel romance book, even though the dumb title and cover art suggest that it is. I know there is a reason for the title (something in the book), but it doesn't let people know how special this story is. The title should have been something a little more sinister-sounding. The plot is so different, with a lot of suspense and freaky occurrences. It was exciting and scary, because you just didn't know what was going on. There seemed to be no explanation for what was happening. It all came together, with a very satisfying ending. I was glued to this book and highly recommend it.

I found a mention of Wrapped in Wishes on a website several years ago when it won a Waldenbooks award. On that recommendation, I read it and found it to be an extraordinarily original and distinctive time-travel romance. Chloe Plum is a law professor in contemporary New Orldeans whose personal life is in a mess. Her fiance betrayed her. She suffers a miscarriage soon afterwards and finds out she cannot have children. She then begins to suffer from debilitating insomnia during which she distantly hears a baby crying. She reluctantly decides to try hypnotherapy for her insomnia. In doing so, she slips into the life of a past ancestress in Victorian times. What is even more surprising is her ancestress's problems parallel those in Chloe's own life. Olga Bicos does an amazing job with the plot: she keeps two different timelines in dialogue with each other and periodically drops in coincidences to have the two timelines reflect back on each other. The reasons for the time-travel are complex and compelling. This is a wonderful time-travel that is on my Top Ten Romances of All-Time list. This time-travels comes right under Diana Gabaldon's Outlander and Dragonfly in Amber for me. Wrapped in Wishes reminds me of Linda Howard's Son of the Morning in a lot of ways, but this one was first and in many ways better.

I rarely read books by authors that I am not familiar with these days. I have so many series that I try to keep up with that I rarely stray. The title of this book is what caught my eye and I was not disappointed at all. It is a wonderful story that spans the ages. The chracters are vivid, and while the latest craze has been these "timeswept" novels this book stands far above many of the rest. Not only does the premise not make you laugh for a long time, it almost makes you wistful. It is a wonderful book by a very powerful author.