Romance, Time Travel, Historical Fiction -- 3 stars
Audiobook Narration -- 3 stars
Book: American author Anne Gallagher is visiting Ireland, where her beloved grandfather grew up; but this is not a happy visit. She is bringing his ashes home as he requested. Out on the loch in her grandfather's home town, she is suddenly surrounded by a thick mist. When it clears, she finds herself in another century and in the middle of Ireland's fight for independence. ----- I had a hard time assigning a category to this book. The main body follows the history of Ireland's fight for independence so closely that it is a stretch to call it "fiction." Anne's relationship with one of Ireland's 20th Century freedom fighters is definitely a romance. And then there is the time-travel element. The mix of the three is an interesting, if not entirely successful look at Irish history. I'm not a big fan of romance novels, though that aspect of the book did add a humanness to what was basically a simple and unfortunately dull retelling of Ireland's 1921 struggles. What saved the book for me was the third section in which Ms. Harmon put a nice twist on a classic time travel novel, and as a result, Anne's unique relationship with her grandfather.
Narration: Saskia Maarleveld is a natural reader with excellent pacing, if only she would drop the fake breathiness style so common in female readers. In her case it is exacerbated by her habit of giving the final word of 90 percent of her sentences an extra puff of air which means there is a distracting pattern of sentences fading at the end. Mr. Damron gives an energetic reading of his sections complete with a natural Irish brogue.
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