Tome Thursday: Daughter of Time

Hello everyone!

It's Thursday and time for another book review.

This week, I went back in time - no, not literally, of course. Although wouldn't it be neat if someone did in fact figure it out? I'd probably totally go and visit, but staying there would be a bit of a catch. Unless, of course, someone invented some sort of machine that not only went back in time, but went into an alternate reality, because then you can bet all you own that I'd be off to Middle Earth before you could say Frodo Baggins.

Ahem.

My time-travelling episode came from picking up book one in a series I didn't realize I would end up liking, but it sounded like something to will away the time, so I thought to myself, why not.

See, I'm kind of wary of time travelling books, mostly because I've read Outlander, and nothing so far has been able to quite compare.

Daughter of Time by Sarah Woodbury, though, comes quite close.

Of course, once I actually started reading the book, I couldn't put it down until I finished it. It wasn't even too long, you can easily read it through in a day or two, and it has likeable characters, but it DOES also have the one trait that all books-in-a-series have: they don't necessarily give you all the answers you want, because, surprise! there's more of them.

Daughter of Time is a prequel novel to the alternate reality series titled 'After Cilmeri', which imagines a world where a certain prince of Wales didn't die the freezing December night when he was supposed to, but in fact ended up surviving.

How?

Read on.

In Daughter of Time, Meg, a young widow who was unhappy and abused in her short-lived marriage, is just recovering from the loss of her husband Trev when she and her two-year-old daughter Anna get the surprise of their lives:

On the way to simply pick up ice cream, they slip on black ice, and go straight through a portal into no other time but the Middle Ages.

Location?

Wales.

As in, not any place in America called Wales, but WALES, Wales, the actual place on the island.

Not only that, but they crash-land the car in a bog, and are rescued by Goronwy and one Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the last Prince of Wales.

I dare you to write THAT out as fast as you can! (For the sake of my own sanity I'm going to be calling this guy Lyn from now on, sorry to anyone who's offended, but if I try writing this down every single time I'm probably going to mess up ...)

Meg wakes up to a strange room, strange clothes, and a strange dude sitting there in a chair asking her questions in a strange language.

See, her mother only taught her rudimentary Welsh, so she kind of needs to pick it up on the fly as she goes along, but she DOES get the picture soon enough after trying (unsuccessfully) to attack Lyn with his own knifee, and then meeting the rest of his men-at-arms (who are currently with him) and realizing they're not all just playacting.

No, no, honey, you're IN Wales, in the 13th century.

Good luck!

Now that realization's under the belt (and I'm hankering for a re-read of Outlander), Meg can focus on the next best thing: survival, for herself and her daughter. On a side-note, Anna charms everyone within two miles around her, so no worries there.

Lyn claims Meg as 'his woman', ostensibly to protect her from his brother Daffyd (that would be David in modern English, I believe), and declares she's coming along when he rides south to deal with some of the Marcher lords and a man who thinks he can build a castle on Lyn's lands, without Lyn's permission.

Yeah, uh, how about no.

Meg accidentally lets slip that she remembers someone getting ambushed in a location they're riding through, which is conveniently lucky since they manage to avoid getting ambushed themselves, but they do realize treachery runs deeper than they know, and Lyn's rule isn't as stable as we'd like to believe.

So now they're going to have to deal with it along the way south, but not before Meg ends up falling into a river and floating right into Daffyd's arms; he kidnaps her and tries to sail away, but she's kind of too smart for him.

Seeing Lyn riding like a bat out of hell, she jumps into the cold sea and swims for shore.

Better the devil you know, right?

Besides, she's totally falling for the prince, and we all know it.

After all, Lyn and Meg have been sharing a bedroom for the majority of the book (not that anything happened yet), but Lyn does, in fact, bring things to a point when he says he can't imagine living without her anymore, and ends up marrying her in secret.

Marrying a "witch" might not have been in his best interest, but once she confesses she's pregnant with his child (no other woman he's been with up until then had ever managed it, and he's getting on in years at the ripe age of forty-something), EVERYTHING's forgiven and forgotten, just as long as it's a boy who can succeed him.

But not, however, before they end up almost assassinated, drop out of a window into another river, and trudge back to a wide-open castle to close all the doors and find everyone doped up on poppy juice (to be brief: it was used as a general pain-killer way back when, but could be poisonous).

However, Meg has also shared with Lyn that she knows when and how he dies: fourteen years from this moment, in December, betrayed by some of his cousins.

Lyn actually rides into an ambush orchestrated by some unhappy Welsh lord and Prince Edward of England who wants Wales, but is saved by men Meg sent after him in haste after the young man who had initially ambushed them back in the day rode in with the news to atone.

To top THIS all off, Meg is just about to give birth when she and Anna are once again whisked through time and unceremoniously deposited into their family home.

Meg gives birth to a son - who she names David, as she and Lyn had agreed, but she can't return to the man she loves anymore, and must make the best of it. Which means going back to class and dealing with delving into history, especially Welsh history, more and more.

And in a sneak peak of the actual first book of the 'After Cilmeri' series, Footsteps in Time, Anna and David (seventeen and fourteen, respectively) are snatched from 2010 and plonked down in the Middle Ages just at the right moment to save Lyn that fateful December night - and none of the involved realise just HOW closely linked they are!

After that?

Well, you'll just have to read the book.

xx

*image not mine