Review: A Stolen Season by Tamara Gill

One small mistake in the past will change everything about her future...

Archaeologist Sarah Baxter just broke one of the biggest rules of time travel: leaving a piece of 21st­ century equipment in 19th century Regency England. Unfortunately, when she goes back to retrieve it, she makes an even bigger mess of things—resulting in the death of an English Earl. Now his brother is not only out for revenge, but he also has Sarah's device. Which means an entirely different approach is needed. It doesn't occur to the new Earl of Earnston that his charming acquaintance is responsible for his brother's death. He is merely swept away by a passion that threatens his very reputation. Yet he gets the distinct impression that Miss Baxter is hiding something from him. Now Sarah must find a way to steal back her device, hide the truth about the earl's brother and—most importantly— not fall in love...

Review
First thing's first, I love the cover to this novel, it's just gorgeous! The time-travel romance genre is new to me, and it adds an interesting twist to the usual historical romance - it's a refreshing change to find a modern heroine in the regency era! From the very start of this book you are thrown straight into the heart of the action as Sarah tries to make her escape with the 'mapping device' that she let fall into the wrong hands - with disastrous consequences. She is given a Season to get the device back once and for all, posing as an innocent debutante to get close to the man who now owns it. Eric was just gorgeous, stereotypically dark, handsome and brooding but this is never a bad thing.

It's obvious from the start that Eric and Sarah are going to end up together, but I was interested to see how they would work things out what with the small issue of her being from the future, not to mention the part that she played in Eric's brother's death. Without giving too much away I would have loved a flash-forward at the end to see how Sarah's actions had affected the future. I was also surprised at how quickly Eric forgave Sarah for her actions - I guess love really does conquer all in historical romance.

My one criticism would be that there is very little information on the actual time travel aspect of the book. What does this mysterious 'mapping device' actually do? What is the purpose of TimeArch, the time travel agency that Sarah works for? And why not just go back in time to before the botched burglary took place and save a whole lot of hassle, not to mention a man's life? But then I suppose we would have no story.

4/5 stars: A Stolen Season is an historical romance with a twist in it's tail.

*Thanks to Entangled Publishing for granting me a free copy of this book in exchange for a review*