[.ca] An Original Sin (ISBN 0505523248)

Unique time travel Romance:
Clever, funny and imaginative time travel...Fortune MacDonald lives in a future bereft of men. In fact, her job is to manufacture man-models to meet her clients'...well, needs. You can imagine her surprise when she wakes up in the past (our present), in a bed that belongs to the genuine article!

It was OK:
I have read much better. The concept drew me in but by the end I was ready to be done with it. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't great.

I dinna like it. Ye ken?:
Four-Two-N is a a woman from the future where Men are extinct (don't ask), after a particularly rowdy party she wakes up in bed with a man from the past. Leith Campbell is a highlander transported into the future which he believes is actually hell, can these two disparate souls find happiness? Or will the obstacles between them prove too much to overcome? I wanted to like Original Sin, but I found the plot to be too silly and cluttered. Okay, I can handle some fantastic elements. But Original Sin had way too many, and the storyline was unclear especially the beginning where there was way too much dialog heavy with Scottish dialect. In particular Leith's dialect was jarring: do we really need dialog like: "Come wi' me lass, so I can protect you from danger" and "God's teeth, woman ye would confuse Saint Peter himself." The plethora of dinna, canna, verra's just drove me nutty and pulled me out of the story time and time again. A cute idea, but a little too far-fetched for my taste.

Fun Reading:
I ordered this book on impulse, not expecting too much, but I was surprised. Two opposites are forcibly brought together by a devilish spirit intent on inflicting pain by ripping them apart after they fall in love. How these two people from different worlds and cultures, come to not only empathize with one another, but to love "beyond reason," to use the author's words, is the meat of the story. Along the way, the reader is treated to a glimpse of the inner workings of a demon mind trying desperately to avoid redemption. I did not give this book 5 stars because I found some of the passages tedious, as the characters resisted their attraction for one another. Paradoxically, I also found the sexual imagery laid on a little thick. Otherwise, the story is as original as the title. Fun to read!

Dead Bang on Target!:
I read Nina Bangs books out of order of their release, but does not matter, she is one of the freshest voice with TT to come along in Romance in a Decade. I just finished her newest release devilishly wicked vampire romance "Master of Ecstasy", which shows her voice and style has developed more - to be expected - this her first book showed the diamond in the rough. In this book she had time-travelling lovers - but both from different times (a theme she echoed in the vampire book with many of the same characters like Ganymede and Sugar Sparkle at the core of them.). He is from the 1700's and she is from the year 2300. The come together in the year 2000, sort of neutral ground so to speak. Ganymede, is a mischief-maker, actually a misery maker. He loves to bring people together just to make them fall in love, then he sets about to destroy their lives. Sigh, such is the life of a mischief-maker! The two lovers come together under mistaken impressions: he thinks he's been sent to atone for his sins by teaching the ultimate virgin the joys of lovemaking, while she believes she has been sent to take him back as a love slave to save mankind in the future. Talk about culture clash! It's wickedly funny, bright and a breath of fresh air. So if you are snatching up "Master of Ecstasy" and have not read this, you might want to grab it as well, since it's in the same series.