My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A Rip in the Veil is the first book in The Graham Saga, Anna Belfrage's time slip series featuring time traveller Alexandra Lind and her seventeenth century husband, Matthew Graham.
On a muggy August day in 2002 Alexandra Lind is inexplicably thrown several centuries backwards in time to 1658. Life will never be the same for Alex. Alex lands at the feet of Matthew Graham - an escaped convict making his way home to Scotland. She gawks at this tall gaunt man with hazel eyes, dressed in what looks like rags. At first she thinks he might be some sort of hermit, an oddball, but she quickly realises that she is the odd one out, not him. Catapulted from a life of modern comfort, Alex grapples with her frightening new existence. Potential compensation for this brutal shift in fate comes in the shape of Matthew - a man she should never have met, not when she was born three centuries after him. But Matthew comes with baggage of his own, and at times it seems his past will see them killed. How will she ever get back? And more importantly, does she want to?
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I think that the idea of time travel is one of the most interesting ideas when it comes to books. I mean going back in time and having to experience a time you only have read about in history books are tantalizing. And, Anna Belfrage has with A Rip in the Veil portrait it very well. So well that I'm not sure I would like to travel back in time, even if that means meeting a hot Scotsman. It's a very rough time and let's face it, women in the seventeenth century are nothing more than a property of either their father or their husband. Alex Lind was lucky meeting Matthew Graham since he isn't that bad, but still, he is a seventeenth-century man with the opinions from that time. And Alex, well she isn't really used to the life at that time. So, there are some clashes between them.
What really fascinated me with this book was actually Alex mother Mercedes and her story. I was curious to how she came to disappear some years before Alex herself disappeared and then I learned the truth about how and why and I was engrossed. I'm of the opinion that the less you know about a story the better so I will just leave it there. I just want to say that the twist to the story, the revelation about Mercedes, well I loved that.
The whole time travel thing, how Alex could travel back in time is connected to Mercedes so I can't say too much about that either. However, I liked how it was done, it was a great way of explaining how someone could travel back in time.
As I wrote before this book got me thinking that travel back in time is perhaps not the best idea. Not even meeting a Scotsman that looks like David Tennant or Douglas Henshall. Alex may find herself drawn to Matthew, but the loss of her "future" family is hard on her and having to adjust to her new life is not easy. Personally, the thing that made me shiver with horror was the fact how few books you could read if you even could read.
A Rip in the Veil is the first in The Graham Saga and I quite enjoyed reading the book. I especially liked that Belfrage didn't try to glamorize the past. Matthew and Alex had to tackle some serious problem and life was not always that great...
What really fascinated me with this book was actually Alex mother Mercedes and her story. I was curious to how she came to disappear some years before Alex herself disappeared and then I learned the truth about how and why and I was engrossed. I'm of the opinion that the less you know about a story the better so I will just leave it there. I just want to say that the twist to the story, the revelation about Mercedes, well I loved that.
The whole time travel thing, how Alex could travel back in time is connected to Mercedes so I can't say too much about that either. However, I liked how it was done, it was a great way of explaining how someone could travel back in time.
As I wrote before this book got me thinking that travel back in time is perhaps not the best idea. Not even meeting a Scotsman that looks like David Tennant or Douglas Henshall. Alex may find herself drawn to Matthew, but the loss of her "future" family is hard on her and having to adjust to her new life is not easy. Personally, the thing that made me shiver with horror was the fact how few books you could read if you even could read.
A Rip in the Veil is the first in The Graham Saga and I quite enjoyed reading the book. I especially liked that Belfrage didn't try to glamorize the past. Matthew and Alex had to tackle some serious problem and life was not always that great...
Sounds really interesting - I have written a novel with what sounds like a very similar premise, called The Witchfinder's Well (on Amazon). My heroine is from the present day, and goes back to 1565. I must download A Rip in the Veil!
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