Review: Daughter of Time by Sarah Woodbury

Daughter of Time by Sarah Woodbury
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

First-person romantic time-travel back to medieval Wales

Meg is struggling to come to terms with her abusive husband’s untimely death when she and her infant daughter are pulled back in time to 13th century Wales. The only explanation given for this supernatural shift is Meg’s heritage. Her family came to the US from Wales generations ago, and she can speak a bit of Welsh, luckily.

She is picked up by Llewelyn, heroic Prince of Wales, who turns out to be dashing, charming, and a military genius. Meg finds herself in the middle of the Welsh struggle to hold onto their independence from England, which Meg knows from her history lessons is doomed.

The book is filled with details about the daily lives of people in those times, such as their belt knives, which served as defensive weapons, as well as their only eating utensils. It also describes the skirmishes in the ‘Marches’, the disputed territory between England and Wales, and the vacillating loyalties of the nobility who held lands in that area.

I really enjoyed the story and the descriptions. The characters of Meg and Llewelyn are interesting and believable. I learned a lot about Welsh history.

The one shortcoming was the description of time-travelling itself, which was too abrupt. We don’t get any clues as to why or how it happened. Of course, it can’t happen in reality, so any explanation would be fictitious, but you do want some sort of pseudo-scientific theory, or mythology, behind it in a time-slip book.

Other than that small point, I recommend this book if you enjoy historical fiction with a gentle romance, spiced up with a bit of swash and buckle.

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