Alessandro di Montefiore could not trust his wife. Isabella was a woman known as much for her powerful cruelty as for her startling beauty. Yet when she looked at him with a stranger's innocence in her passion-darkened eyes, he found himself willing to risk almost anything for the promise of her desire.
Fate had plummeted Adrienne de Beaufort through time into the body of her ancestor, a woman steeped in hatred and betrayal. But Adrienne's soul was still her own, and only she could prevent the tragedy that lay ahead for Alessandro: death at the hands of the treacherous Isabella....
Nina Gettler was born in Salzburg, Austria, home to Mozart and the Von Trapp family. She is of Russian descent, whose family tree includes the Stroganoff family, Count Zhubov, who is reputed to have been Catherine the Great's last lover, and several other interesting historical characters. She grew up in Massachusetts, USA, and after spending her first two years of college in Austria, graduated from the University of Massachusetts with a B.A. in French and an M.A. in German.
Returning to Austria in 1970, Nina worked for sixteen years as a translator for Russian, French and Italian before turning to writing full-time. Her life-long interest in history and her fluency in several languages has been of great help in the in-depth research she does for her books, which includes traveling to where the stories are set. After spending 25 years in Austria, she relocated to Seattle in July 1995 on the strength of a gut feeling that this was the right place for her to go.
On the run from an abusive and blackmailing suitor, the heroine finds refuge in the past and in the arms of a man who should be her enemy. In the body of her ancestor, the heroine is quick to learn that the woman had been cruel and evil but she vows to never be that way. She has been betrothed to the bastard son of the family's enemy and awakens in her new body during her wedding night. From the moment she meets him however, she's overcome with lust and attraction to the standoffish male. He doesn't trust her and certainly doesn't like her and he makes no qualms about hiding it. For most of the book, despite his growing feelings, he's distrustful of his new bride. He doubts her innocence due to rumors that she had sexual encounters with her own brothers among others but he's pleased when she turns out to be a virgin. He's convinced that she's working with her brothers to kill him despite the fact that she literally falls on a blade to save his life when as assassin tries to kill him, almost dying herself and killing the unborn child within her. And he's convinced that she's sleeping around despite the fact that he knows she loves him more than life itself.
I was frustrated with the hero for most of the book. He was always angry or pissed off about something she's done or hasn't done. He's angry when she's not the evil bitch she's made out to be. He's angry when she willingly surrenders her body to him. He's angry when she admits she loves him. He's angry when he realizes he loves her back. He's angry when other men flirt with her. I didn't like him as a character. Whenever he was displeased with something he was grab her and bruise her wrists, even at one time, almost raping her in his possessive anger. I don't mind possessive men but not when that jealousy turns to abuse and I feel that's what his behavior bordered on. I did like the heroine as she was strong but complaint at the same time. She came from the past to the past so she wasn't that sassy modern woman, she could handle herself in the time period she found herself in. And she was loyal to her husband. She fought with everything she had to change fate and save his life. Overall it was a decent book. Some things bothered me, others bored me. But I was entertained for the most part.
ADULT Historical Renaissance Era Romance 💕with Time Travel and Political Intrigue, And Betrayal👺🔪 1794 France. The French Revolution is in Progress, and Countess Adrienne has been using her ocean front chateau and her skills to hide and help move fleeing aristocrats from France to England. She has a hidden safe room behind a portrait of her ancestor, Isabella . Adrienne knows a lot about Isabella, because she left behind a legacy of thick journals she wrote back in the late 15th century.
The portrait has always fascinated her and when the "citizen" enforcer finally comes for her, she tries to get the safe room open but instead, she is transported back through time and into Isabella's life!
Italy 1499 Adrienne💃💋 never thought she would fall desperately in love with Sandro🐺🍆⛲🔪, Isabella's husband and a professional soldier/ general in the employ of the evil and calculating Cesare Borgia👺, an illegitimate and power hungry son of the Pope!
Adrienne💃💋 knows Isabella and Sandro's sad and death filled history from the journals, and now as Isabella💃💋, she sets out to change it! She and Sandro🐺🍆⛲🔪 fall in love💘. She cannot let it end the way it is chronicled in Isabella 's journals! Can she change history?
ARC Provided by Hidden 💎Gems I also got this ebook from Amazon 📚with KU.
What a fantastic experience! I was mesmerized all The way through this wonderfully written and crafted novel! World 🌎building is one of the best things about historical novels 📚for us armchair travelers, and Author Beaumont📚 excels in this art. If you are going to read an historical time travel romance💕, this is the one to read! Great Book, great story! Great characters! Loved it!💕
A somewhat unusual aspect of this time travel romance was that the heroine is an 18th century Frenchwoman who time travels back to 15th century Italy where she finds herself in the body of her beautiful but evil ancestress, Isabella di Montefiore, whose diaries she has read. Most time travels seem to involve contemporary characters going back in time, and occasionally a historical character coming to the present. Maybe one needs some suspension of disbelief to believe a woman in 15th century Siena like Isabella would have kept such extensive and candid diaries but as a plot device it helps give Adrienne enough background knowledge to handle her impersonation. Overall, it was entertaining but not a keeper.
I wanted to like this, in fact, I was more than ready to fall in love with this one. I have been yearning and longing after a time traveling romance, but why? I DNF. There were a few things mislaid here…
Majority, the constant interchangeable POVs between MCs were extremely redundant to read. The story was stalled in that sense——-it was a much slower storytelling. Contradictory to that, the pace of their intimacy was lighting-fast! Very illogical, to be exact! He was supposedly distrustful and repulsed by her reputation, but upon their initial meeting and wedding night he behaved a lot more like a soft teddy bear. He easily obliged to her wishes such as they shouldn’t consummate right away, her reason being was that they were merely married strangers. And next he wholeheartedly took her word for it too when she answered that she was untouched. She is untouched, by the way. After their chaste wedding night, her very first night in Isabella’s body, in the morning hours she woke up and right away (as she sought) she transferred back to her time period. As known, she was only gone for so many hours but she realized that in her own time period many days had already passed. Quickly, she did what she needed to do and in a matter of short hours, without being any wiser or battling much conflicting thoughts she intently travel back to the hero’s time. Barely knowing the guy, without knowing her real purpose there and leaving her true purpose behind, as far as she was concerned, she thinks she belongs with him. Though, unlike her other stay, traveling back to the hero’s time she found that it was as if she never left him. He was still sleeping in bed, and everything resumed from the morning after the wedding. And here, I was most unintrigued with the plot. I thought it was too soon and too easy for the heroine to managed her ‘travels.’ She seems to has control of such unexplained extreme sport. It was unsuspenseful, uneventful and nearly tantalizingly, I found.
Anyways, returning to the hero, the heroine chooses consummation. Obviously, the author decided that there was no need to hold out for a good amount of tension, chemistry, buildup or anything. Not to point it out, MCs are still very much in fact strangers so it was very much misleading! It was just last night she told him no and then in the morning she was in favor. The whole setup was just a tease. Heroine was obviously not very concerned about anything! She was unbothered, and so I was too at this point! Mind you, these events went down within the first 2-3 chapters. The rest of the book held no enthrallment. The author could have waited just a bit further into the story for such intimacy and sentiments so that it wouldn’t feel like it came up from nowhere, and actually allow MCs to interact before they truly moon for each other. Simply, the heroine needed to figure out herself and her situation before overcoming it this way.
In 1794 Countess Adrienne de Beaufort finds herself transported to 1499 Siena, escaping mortal danger as she attempted to smuggle a young French mother and daughter into her home, in order to escape the guillotine. She awakens in the body of her ancestress Isabella, a woman for whom deceit and treachery are a way of life. And not only is she in another time, she is about to face Isabella’s new husband, Alessandro di Montefiore, the heir to the Dukedom of Siena, on their wedding night.
Alessandro expects duplicity and betrayal from Isabella but soon finds himself captivated by her. Conflicted in his feelings, their fledgling romance goes from one extreme to another. Soon Isabella finds herself caught between her love for Alessandro and an awareness that fate may prevent them from having any future happiness. I found this a fascinating story and loved the character of Adrienne/Isabella. Whilst she struggles to understand Sandro’s changing moods, she is still so determined to build on their feelings. She is determined yet understanding in all that she does. Sandro was not the easiest character to warm to but as he begins to trust Adrienne/Isabella, he soon becomes a man who is worthy of her. Consequently, he too became someone to admire. A fascinating story in such a rich and vibrant city, together with a well-developed historical aspect. I could not put this book down! I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
Countess Adrienne de Beaufort in 1794 is used to smuggling French aristocrats to England to save them from the guillotine. In a moment of mortal danger, fate plunges her across time to 1499 Siena and she inhabits the body of her ancestress Isabella, a woman for whom deceit and treachery are a way of life. She comes face to face with Isabella’s new husband, Alessandro di Montefiore, the heir to the Dukedom of Siena, on their wedding night. Alessandro expects duplicity and betrayal from his beautiful new wife. Why then is he seduced by the innocence in her eyes? Why then does he find himself prepared to take unimaginable risks because her spirit touches his heart?
I love how this time travel isn't about present time. Adrienne is also an easy character to like. I love reading about Renaissance Italy. The suspense and romance are outstanding... . An amazing book.
This is my first book by Nina Beaumont and I am excited to find a new ( to me) author who writes with such flair. This is the first book in the Magic in Italy Historical Romance Series. I enjoyed the story immensely and appreciated the authors research and knowledge.
While smuggling French aristocrats to England to escape the guillotine Countess Adrienne de Beaufort finds herself transported back in time to inhabit the body of her ancestress Isabella, a woman for whom deceit and treachery are a way of life. Not only is this a time travel but Adrienne inhabits Isabella as her self. can she change the trajectory of Isabella’s life?
This was a well written, entertaining story with interesting characters.
This is a new author for me and I have enjoyed the journey she has taken me on. I liked that the time travel wasn't from present day and that the author gave some background to the era before starting the story. The story itself held my attention throughout and I felt the angst of being two people and trying to navigate an unfamiliar world whilst trying to achieve what you were sent back to do.
The love story between husband and wife was both sad and beautiful to see unfold, I enjoyed the trust she found from her slave and jester as well as her father in law. The ending was not what I had predicted, it was so much better and I enjoyed every moment of reading this story. I am voluntarily leaving this review after receiving an ARC from Hidden Gems.
I liked the story line of the book and felt that it had a lot of potential. Unfortunately there were some plot holes and lack of connections that I didn’t like.
For example, I felt that the MC admitted her love for Sandro very early in the book with barely any interactions between them. They saw each other less than five times, and each time they slept with each other and barely had any verbal communication and then she said she loves him. It just made no sense to me. I had to skim through the book because it was just annoying. But I did like Isabella and Sandro as a couple.
Thank you NetGalley for letting me read this book for an honest review!
A fun travel through time novel that places Adrienne into the body of a selfish cruel ancestress' body on her wedding night. A much better place than the guillotine she may have been facing for aiding people escape the perils of the war. This historical romance novel makes you experience the passion that exists between Isabella and Sandro as they learn to trust each other rather than continue the hate filled relationship that the two families had been living through. Adrienne was determined to change the history of these two lovers that she had come to know in reading Isabella’s journals. Easy pleasurable prose by a great author!
The first book in the Magic in Italy Historical Romance Series,what a story I could not stop reading. Countess Adrienne de Beaufort time travels from 1794 to 1499 where she finds herself inhabiting the body of her ancestress Isabella a nasty woman who is about to start her wedding night with Alessandro di Montefiore, the heir to the Dukedom of Siena. They go through so much and finally get their happy ending, and what an ending it is. I want to read more in this series. I received a copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
Across Time, and it’s companions Twice Upon Time and The Shadowed Heart comprise Nina Beaumont’s Magic in Italy series of historical romance novels. Of the 3, Across Time is the best by orders of magnitude! It’s plot and characters are far more developed than those of the others, and its sex scenes add spice to the tale instead of comprising a significant portion of its substance.
The theme of Twice Upon Time is a variation on Across Time’s. In one, a descendant, and in the other, a subsequent life, of the proud, haughty, amazingly beautiful, and aristocratic central character is transported into that character. The French descendant becomes the anima in the body of her Italian ancestress. The soul of the Englishwoman who had spent her subsequent life dreaming about the horrors her Italian self had wreaked on the man she really loved enters the subconscious of the Italian and struggles to influence her choices from deep within. The first conceit proved more interesting for plot and character development as the Frenchwoman realizes how different she is from the Italian and stresses about dual identity, imposter issues, and the possibility she could be sent back to her French body. The shadow in the subconscious device played out in a tedious and predictable struggle.
In The Shadowed Heart, the heroine has a somewhat constrained gift of sight. The plot device there involves a man her inner sight sees surrounded by light, and exerts a powerful pull on her, but who her physical eyes have seen doing terrible things. Again it is a long, tedious, and predictable slog to the point where the heroine figures out what the reader grasped almost instantly about the nature of the problem.
All three books rely heavily on tired tropes about masculinity and femininity, the behavior of the rich, and more. I am not a regular consumer of romance novels precisely because I like to avoid those things and operate under the belief that they are indispensable features of the romance genre. None of these books did anything to dispel that belief.
I've read several books written by Nina Beaumont; she is becoming one of my favorite authors. I can’t wait to read more of her books.
This is the first book in the Magic in Italy Historical Romance Series; its 1794 and Countess Adrienne is smuggling others into England when she ends up being sent through time to 1499 and is now Isabella and is about to meet her new husband.
I received a free copy of this book via booksprout and I’m voluntarily leaving a review.
Nos últimos meses andava mega implicante com os romances históricos, achando que todos eram iguais; chatos e repetitivos.
Eis que cai em minhas mãos está estória de Nina Beaumont: As duas vidas de Adrienne, fiquei muito feliz e aliviada, pois o romance é muito interessante.
A mocinha volta no tempo para salvar o mocinho que tinha sido o primeiro marido de sua tataravó, e se apodera do corpo da tata... E com isso muda completamente todos os eventos. Pois, a mocinha tinha lido o diário de sua ancestral e por isso sabia tudo que havia acontecido.
Mas ela não muda apenas os eventos e a vida do mocinho ela muda o seu próprio destino!
Não posso e não devo dizer mais nada, o livro é ótimo, e vc deve ler pra ficar inteirado de todos os por menores.
An interesting older Harlequin historical romance. Of course, there's time travel involved with one woman taking over another's life in a different time. Set in Italy (Venice) I enjoyed the story from beginning to end.