3.5/5 stars. ( )

Kate Sutherland has never quite felt right in her world. She feels further disoriented when her mother dies and she finds out she was adopted. She goes back to her mother's place of birth to scatter her ashes and learn more about where she was born. While there she starts having strange "dreams" about a woman - a cousin to James IV, Catriona Wells.

She also meets the very handsome Niall MacCormack, a Scottish historian who falls in love with her but something is holding her back. And that something is Catriona. Kate is shocked to learn that she is the spitting image of her. She is drawn more deeply into her life and wonders if she prefers it to her own.

I have often expressed my love of time travel novels and while this book is not exactly a time TRAVEL novel it was a delightful, engrossing read that I really had a hard time putting down. In fact I didn't! I read it in one sitting. The two love stories - Catriona/Patrick and Kate/Niall were both good but the Catriona one was my favorite. She was a strong woman, ahead of her time for the most part. This book is really two in one which is what made it so much fun. ( )

Kate was, at best, skeptical. At least she was willing to go to Scotland to scatter her mother’s ashes. She’s been having dreams her entire life, but lately they’d stepped up a bit. A gorgeous man, a medieval court, words of love and lust, and Kate was in them as well. Stupefying.
Scotland is beautiful and terrifying. Her mother is still remembered in the village and, her mother still lives in the village (you’ll see!). Kate meets a very nice man name Niall McCormack who tightens all her muscles and seems willing to do more, but Kate has always been “guy-shy” and won’t change willingly. Niall is a scholar of history and takes Kate to The MacKendrick’s home to view his ancestral documents and pictures. A great opportunity for Kate until she finds herself in a huge portrait hanging in his hall!
Catriona – the MacKendrick’s wife. Kate? It seems a possibility that all of Kate’s dreams will culminate in Scotland on the Shetland Islands. Right where Catriona’s did. Catriona’s main mission was to save her younger brother, not fall in love with Patrick MacKendrick. Did she? Either of those??
In a skillfully written historical jaunt we are flipped back and forth between Catriona’s history and Kate’s modern day puzzles without a hitch. The pipes play in the background as clothes all hither and thither and we learn much about Scotland’s history as well as that of the ladies. Well done! ( )

I love Jeanette Baker's stories! They blend history, mystery, love and danger, plus traveling back and forth in time. The heroine's of the story are Kate Sutherland/ Catriona Wells. It appears that the reason Kate is going back and forth in time is that there is unfinished business that Kate needs to attend to in the past before she can be at peace from the disturbing visions she has of Catriona Wells, an ancestor. A wonderful story of Scottish history and full of passion and intrigue and what story would not be complete without a few handsome men? A fast paced and hard to put down book. This is an awesome story and I highly recommend it to fans of historical fiction. ( )