"A Modern Woman Trades Places With her Regency Double. Marvelous!"

Alaina Sawyer, a doctoral student, goes to sleep one night in her modern urban apartment and wakes up in Regency England, in the bed of Alicia Saybrooke, a woman who could be her twin. She had been seeing visions, of a woman and her lover. The woman had been determined to escape her cruel husband, and had found a woman who could assure that escape for her. . . Alaina.

But the Richard Saybrooke wasn't cruel to her, though he was arrogant and insulting. Alaina quickly became aware of Alicia's infidelities and shrewish tendencies, however, and she couldn't fault the man for treating her like the woman she was pretending to be. She knew that she couldn't fall in love with him. She had to get back to her own time. His family seduced her, though, from the Dowager to the child that everyone believed was hers, and especially Richard himself. Soon, Alaina began to wonder if she even wanted to go home.

TIMELESS DECEPTION is an excellent Time Travel Romance. Ms Knight seamlessly combines the modern mentality of her heroine and the glitter of Regency England in a marvelous tale built around two women who look exactly alike—but act very much distinctly. Excellent characterization and a delightful romance leave the reader finishing the book and missing not only Alaina and Richard, but the entire family that the heroine had adopted. The actual mechanics of Alaina's travel through time were vague—aren't they always? — but are sufficient. There is very little resolution to her past (or would that be future) life, but the story is engrossing enough that such an oversight can be forgiven.

TIMELESS DECEPTION is an attention-grabbing, stay-up-all- night read. Though some readers may be somewhat annoyed by the ends left a-dangling, (and this reviewer must relate that the book ends rather abruptly as well, for those who find it a peeve) readers who enjoy time travel romances, and those who enjoy Regency-period stories should definitely check TIMELESS DECEPTION out.

Reviewed by Ann Leveille
Posted December 3, 2002

Summary

Waking up in 1816 as the Countess of Saybrooke, Alaina must convince the man of her dreams that she is cut from an altogether different cloth than his unfaithful wife Alicia.

The Earl of Saybrooke must come to gripes with his wife's sudden descent into virtue. Is it wishful thinking on his part or is she now his and his alone?