Heroes in the Dust: Book 2 in the ISKANDER series
Jennifer MacaireTime-travel Romance
Available from Jacobyte Books
March 2003
ISBN (paperback) 1 74100 130 7
| Ashley has been chosen to participate in the journalistic time travel event, which only happens once a year. By her choice, she is transported back to the time of Alexander the Great. When it becomes time for her to return to the present, Alexander snatched her from the beam. Now she is stuck in the past, and can tell no one but Alexander who she is. She does not dare change one iota of history, or the time senders will use the beam to erase her. She will cease to exist. Alexander and everyone around her believes she is the daughter of the Goddess Demeter, being kidnapped by the lord of the underworld, Hades. Only Alexander knows she's from the future, and by his order no one is allowed to write about her. In the previous book, Alexander fell in love with her, and they married. They have one child together, a son Paul, who has been kidnapped by the warlord Bessus. As the story opens, they are chasing him over the mountains to retrieve their son.
This book is a time travel for the reader, not just the characters in the book. Jennifer Macaire took me back to 330 B.C. before I knew what was happening. All of her characters are very real. Her interpretation of a powerful and erratic yet vulnerable Alexander is excellent. His love of her and his love of his male friends does not conflict, but somehow weaves together in a totally believable way. She stays with him through war and wounds, marriage to another woman, and holds her secret knowledge all the end of his life close to her heart, but will not tell him. One their travels she bears a daughter, Mary, who died of pneumonia as an infant. The baby's death almost destroyed both her and Alexander. When Alexander marries Roxanne for political reasons, Ashley is comforted by Alexander's best friend, and becomes pregnant. This is a totally marvelous book. I didn't think of it is a time travel, I thought of it as an historical romance. There is another volume to this series, which made the ending of HEROES IN THE DUST just a touch flat. It needed more of a hook to the next book. That's the only flaw I found, but believe me, I can't wait for that next book anyway!
Overall rating:
Reviewer: Judy Cook |
