I love fantasy. I love romance. So when I found out one of my favorite romance authors had decided to delve into fantasy I was excited. Nervous, but excited.
I confess myself disappointed.
Strangely enough, the problem with this book wasn’t the magic. That’s what I thought the problem would be. Usually when a romance writer crosses over into fantasy or paranormal, the weakness is with what we in the scifi and fantasy world call the speculative element. The problem was with the one thing I can usually count on Catherine Anderson to do very well — characterization!
Quincy has intrigued me from the start of the Harrington series because of his propensity for health food in a family of ranchers. That propensity faded and died in the first half of the book before I ever got what I had been hoping for for 4 books — a reason why he’d developed the health food cravings in the first place.
Worse, Ceara travels forward in time from the 16th century to stop a curse laid down by her ancestors on the Harringtons. Their first wives die from something to do with the blood — either terrible accident or injury or, in Loni’s case, leukemia. She decides to go forward in time to sacrifice herself by marrying Quincy to break the curse. This works, but…why did she do that? Seriously, I’d still love to know the answer to that question because it seems kind of fundamental to both Ceara’s character and the whole plot!
But actually, the plot was thin. The beginning was quite good because Loni was dying and this woman comes from the past with outrageous claims and Quincy had to decide to marry a perfect stranger to save his sister-in-law. Well, all his sisters in law, since the other two were slated to die in the near future as well if the curse wasn’t broken. They get married, have an intense wedding night, and then…
Nothing.
There was no tension in the middle of this book. Once Loni was cured the book became a sort of comedy of errors, watching a 16th century woman adjust to modern life. Granted, that stuff was fairly well done. But what was the point? What was driving the story and the plot? The romance was as good as over. Oh, there was a quest for the three magic words but even that was worse than any quest I’ve ever rolled my eyes at because they were saying they loved one another but in different words. If there had been any other tension to keep the book going I probably would have seriously appreciated the fact that Catherine Anderson is aware that saying “I love you” is a relatively modern invention. I really would have. But there was no other tension.
I never bought into the love between Quincy and Ceara because I never knew who they were or what they wanted. I honestly can’t believe I’m saying that about one of this author’s books, but there it is in a nutshell.
Highly recommend this author. Do not recommend this book.
Rating: 2/5
Title: Perfect Timing
Author: Catherine Anderson
ISBN: 0451239482
Published February, 2013