Sandy M’s review of Sapphire Dream by Pamela Montgomerie
Time Travel Romance published by Berkley 7 Jul 09

I’ve read a lot of time travels over the last several years, and the thing that sometimes makes or breaks one for me is the method in which an author chooses to have her hero or heroine travel, along with any extra traveling she chooses to give the reader. Most time traveling methods aren’t that creative or something silly is used or it’s something that’s been done before. Sigh. How I long for a time travel that will give me something a little different.

I’m very happy to say that Ms. Montgomerie fills that bill quite nicely. Along with the time travel, we get magic in this book and it’s that magic, wielded by a redheaded dwarf, that allows the traveling for our heroine, Brenna. What’s extra special in this book is that breaking that barrier of time is intentional and necessary, and the story woven around and through it all is very well done.

Brenna is back in Scotland, something her aunt on her deathbed made her promise. Go back when Brenna reaches her 25th birthday to find whatever information she can about her family, especially the father she remembers warmly embracing her as a child. Once there, however, what Brenna finds is the unbelievable fact she’s been transported into the 17th century, aboard a pirate ship full of lusty sailors and one handsome captain. Fleeing for her life, she jumps ship to get back on solid ground again, only to have the captain right on her tail.

Which is a very good thing. Without Roarke, Brenna is coming to understand, she wouldn’t have made it very far on her own in this brutal time. And the damned pirate knows something about her and her family that he refuses to go into. It’s the prophecy, he keeps telling her. And they need Hegerty, the magic-wielding dwarf, to get her back to her own time safely.

Roarke only wants to be rid of the woman who’s been the bane of his existence for so long. After twenty years he’s returned home thanks to her, and the memories and guilt are too much for him. As soon as he makes sure she’s safe, he’s on his way back to the sea. But danger and injury to Brenna force Roarke even closer to home than he wants to be, back among his kin and the pressure of taking over as viscount, something he knows he doesn’t deserve after his actions left his home in ashes and his parents dead all those years ago. Keeping Brenna safe is now his only priority, fighting the Earl of Slains, the devil who runs his territory with an evil and deadly grip, to the death if that’s what it takes.

The action in this books is fairly consistent from the moment Brenna finds herself thrown back in time, dodging one danger and then another. As much as she’s an independent 21st century woman, and that comes in handy a few times during her travel, she still needs a man of the current times and she comes to depend on Roarke quite a bit as they fight their way across Scotland to find that pesky dwarf. I like that we see two sides of Roarke, first as a pirate and then as the man he was born to be. He’s sensitive when it comes to Brenna and her secrets. He could have been a little more alpha for me, but he’s still a great hero.

As good as the first part of the story is with all the action and sexual tension, it’s the last quarter of the book when the story begins to weave and turn and things finally come together to make sense to both Brenna and the reader that really makes the book. Ms. Montgomerie does a terrific job with the storytelling and gives you something not done before in time travel romance. There are more books in this series, but checking the author’s wet site, I found nothing about those books. A little disappointing, that.

Grade: B+

Summary:

When Brenna Cameron returns to Castle Stour on the coast of Scotland seeking answers about her past, she can’t imagine that she’ll be transported to a seventeenth-century pirate ship and a crew of dangerous scallywags who haven’t seen a woman in far too long. Nor could she have dreamed of her desires for the captain who comes to her rescue…

Rourke Douglas, captain of the Lady Marie, is immediately enthralled by the beautiful stranger brought onto his ship by a mysterious magic connected to that sapphire jewel around her exquisite neck. All he knows is that the fiery-haired siren he calls “Wildcat” stirs something deep in his wounded soul. But along with burning desire, the captain knows a bone-chilling dread, for if the prophesy of the sapphire is true, then the brazen Brenna will bring about only one thing: his ruin…

Read an excerpt.