Grace St John is archaeological scholar. Fluent in five ancient languages, married to another archaeologist and the love of her life. She never imagined that a cache of old documents would soon set her on a path of no return, one in which everything she holds dear and everything she has ever believed in will be put to the test. I was enthralled from page one. Well, let me back up - page one of the first chapter. Someone really needs to tell Ms Howard that prologues aren't normally 13 pages long. But I digress. Grace is a scholar, a tad overweight, a bit nerdy. She speaks five ancient languages fluently, she's married to the only man she's ever had sex with, sickeningly in love with him. She doesn't wear makeup and one of her best friends is a teenage Bill Gates. I was truly at a loss as to how this could be a love story but I was so wrong. This entire novel is a love story, in differing degrees and once I had a chance to sleep on it and think about it, I came to the conclusion that Ms Howard truly outdid herself. This is brilliant.The story starts out with Grace working on translating some ancient Celtic papers that hint at a lost treasure "more priceless than gold". It's written in several languages: Old English, Latin, Old French, ancient Gaelic...right up her alley and area of expertise. But someone wants these papers and they will kill to get them. Grace watches her husband and brother brutally murdered right in front of her eyes, protecting her whereabouts. (love of a husband/family) She goes on the run with nothing more than her laptop, the papers and the clothes on her back. Her teenage hacker friend helps her to clean out her bank account so she can leave the area until she knows whats going on (love of a friend). On the run, scared out of her mind, unable to conceive what's happened so far, she ends up in a series of towns working for cash, living in ratholes but all the while working on deciphering the Celtic papers.It's while she is in Chicago that she begins her transformation. (love for her husband, brother and self) She discovers that the papers detail the story of one Knight Templar - Black Niall - who is guarding a treasure of untold riches. In shock that her family was slaughtered, that she herself is the target of a madman, for treasure? With the help of a boardinghouse landlady and a scrappy street fighter (love of friends) she begins her change from mousy, nondescript Grace to a woman who will stop at nothing for vengeance. She loses weight, changes her name and appearance and learns a few self defense techniques. Her husband and brother will not have died in vain. I really loved Grace. This story is as much about her as it is about the treasure. If you've heard the saying that you don't know what you can accomplish until you have no other choice - this is Grace. It's heartbreaking to watch her exist, because that's all she is doing for a good part of the book. Unable to let herself grieve for her lost family, she becomes nearly anorexic, unable to sleep. Surviving but not living. Don't get me wrong, she doesn't turn into some badass chick overnight - or at all - she just does what she has to, when she has to, in order to carry on. Eventually she discovers a way to actually time travel to the era of Black Niall (a spoiler I won't give away) in the hopes she can prevent the killers from locating the Treasure (and yes, that's capitalized for a reason).The relationship between her and Niall (romantic love) and the position that Niall holds (love of God and mankind) are spoilers which I won't get into but let me just say they are powerful. At this point, I could not have put this book down had I tried. The ending was wonderful. 5 stars and a recommended read
I’ve always been intrigued with the mysteries of the Templars and also like books with time travel, and this book has both. The prologue is set in France in 1307 just two months after the infamous Friday the 13th when the the greatest military order ever to exist was betrayed and destroyed by Philip IV of France and Pope Clement V. Most of the leadership was killed, many horribly tortured, but some did escape. It was known that the Templars had vast treasures, and greed played into the events of that day that we still to this day have uneasy superstitious feelings about.In this prologue we are introduced to Niall who is to be the guardian of the Templar’s treasure, not their gold but a treasure far more valuable than all the gold in the world. We find out why this Scot joined the Templars and that he is more than a warrior, but it is not until later in the book that we learn the rest of his story. It is much later when we learn just what the Templar treasure really is and why it is so worth guarding from the world.A great deal of this book is the story of Grace St. John, a contemporary young woman in the 1990’s. Grace is a happily married woman who lives with her husband and her brother. She is doing research for her employer that involves the Templars and recently discovered ancient writings in languages long lost. When she visits her young friend Kristian, who is a computer geek, to help her when her modem is not working, she is seeking a name – Niall of Scotland. The name appears in the manuscripts but she has not been able to find it anywhere else.I am not going to tell the story in this review, but terrible things happen that evening, a double murder that Grace is witness to, and in that instant she has lost everything. Her boss is the murderer and she was to be the target.Grace’s story of going from a relatively ordinary young woman to a fugitive on the run from both the police and some very powerful killers is pretty much hard to put down. One can help but think, “what would I do?”. She has no money, the clothes on her back, and a briefcase with all the papers in it that she was researching. She knows the answer to “why” has to be in those papers. The story follows her from one desperate situation to another where she uses luck, ingenuity, perseverance – more luck to keep one step away from those who seek her.And why is she having dreams of the mysterious Niall who she is still seeking within history. And for the reader, we know that Niall, many centuries earlier, is aware of a woman watching him although he is in a totally obscure castle in the Scottish Highlands. We also learn more about him and just who he is (which was interesting to me although this is fiction because I have read about those times and the people who he comes in contact with). Grace, who is understandably horribly alone, is having some pretty hot dreams about this man she knows has been dead for hundreds of years. Thus the story takes us back and forth between the 1900’s and the 1300’s and the tie between these two characters. Yes, there is time travel and there is mystery and danger. There are some good side characters in the story along the way. It’s a good read, and I should say no more.
Do You like book Son Of The Morning (1997)?
It seems to me that that Son of the Morning was Linda Howard's attempt to write a book a la Outlander: modern woman with some useful knowledge time travels and find husky Scottish warrior. Like Outlander, there's also a husband and big measure of guilt because she shouldn't feel this attraction to the Scottish hunk.The plot of this book was all over the place, with a lot of mumbo jumbo about not understanding God, etc. This was just a device so we didn't question the nature of the treasure, did it really kept Niall young, etc. The reasons why the villain went to these extremes to get these papers made no sense whatsoever. Why not kill them all once you're sure you have everything in your hands, specially since they had no clue what the papers were about?Thea leads met in person for the first time at around the 70% mark - I kid you not. In the meantime, they know about each other via dreams, where they meet to have sex. **eyeroll** Most of the book is about Grace running away from her former boss and finding her inner strength to fight back. After a while, I just got bored of this.The best parts of the book were the sex scenes, which were scorching (Linda Howard definitely knows how to write those.) Because it took so long for the leads to meet, I didn't believe their romance one little bit.Natalie Rose was good but her voice for Niall was really bad. Between trying to sound masculine and the Scottish accent, sometimes her voice would sound garbled. Glad it's out of my TBR but it didn't really deliver.
—D.G.
3.5 stars, but rounded up to 4 for a fantastic first 2/3 of the novel.This was supposed to be a time-travel romance. But what I actually read was completely unexpected--and so much better! Barring some awkward plot twists towards the end, this was a good read. The description of the book above is fairly accurate. Grace, an archeologist specializing in medieval languages, stumbles upon a set of documents relating to the great treasure of the Knights of the Templar. Soon after, a mysterious organization seeking the secrets of the treasure themselves try to kill Grace to steal the documents. The second part about going to the past to find the Black Niall, not so much. A majority of the book focused on Grace's development from a sheltered, bookish woman living in the suburbs to a hardened woman more than capable of defending herself on the streets. After the evil organization starts hunting her down, Grace is suddenly on the run with no money and no friends. She must learn to evade seasoned assassins by traveling along the road by night, hiding herself in crowds, and using public restrooms in gas stations to "clean up" after days of not showering. It was fascinating to read about Grace's transformation in a situation in which she had to either adapt quickly or die. The author did an excellent job navigating us through the seedier streets of the cities of the US, where violence and poverty is a part of everyday life.That was the good part. But when the time-travel elements started to seep into the story, the story turned awkwardly bizarre. Grace, while on the run, is driven by her desire for vengeance and using the secret of the documents against the organization. The documents are connected to Black Niall, her main romantic interest. They interact across time through dreams, mostly. Even up until here, the story flowed smoothly. When the time-travel aspect really started to gain speed, however, I was already 2/3 into the novel, comfortably situated in the story of a desperate woman who was hardening herself to fight against the dark organization that ruined her life. After almost starving to death and narrowly escaping the men hired to kill her, Grace finally finds a comfortable rhythm of moving from city to city, making up false identities, disguising herself, and learning to fight dirty. At this point, I just want to read a story about a woman kicking ass, not a woman falling head-over-heels in lust love over a guy she barely "knows". The transition from the survival story to the love story was too quick and jarring, especially since the "survival" part was gritty and suspenseful, and the "love" part was like a regular romance novel. I felt like I was reading two separate novels. The ending also left me unsatisfied. I won't spoil it, but rather than the kickass woman Grace had become, she was reduced to a damsel in distress, waiting for a big hunk of man to come resolve all her problems. While I don't usually mind damsel-in-distress scenarios, I felt a bit cheated in this case since I had watched Grace grow from a meek woman into one more than capable of fighting her own fights. Why did the author feel compelled to use Black Niall as the crutch? I just don't understand.If the story had ended better, I would have been surer of my 4-star rating. However, while I hated the end, I loved the first 2/3, bumping my rating to a solid 3.5. Good story, Linda Howard. I just wish you told one story, rather than smooshing two together.
—Kay
So, as I was reading this book, I couldn't decide if I loved it, or if I was annoyed with it! Now that I have finally finished it though, I'm going to have to go with loved it. Even though it took... oh, around 250 pages for the main characters to finally meet, (I kept thinking, OK, get ON with it already! Time travel so you can meet him already! *wink*)however, the build up was interesting in itself and kept me intrigued. And when they DO finally meet, it makes up for the slow, seemingly never-ending suspenseful beginning! The chemistry between Niall and Grace is great. And their journey's I found to be heartwarming and endearing. I give it four stars, only because of the slow start.
—Celeste
