Janelle's Time by Dayna Leigh Cheser

First Published: 11 July 2012
Publisher: All Things That Matter Press
Pages: 266
Format: Ebook
Dates Read: 22-23 November 2012

Synopsis

Janelle’s Time is the story of the great love between a New Hampshire farmer’s daughter and the younger son of an English Duke.
From her father’s death to the birth of twin daughters, Janelle makes it difficult for Richard to keep her safe.
Unaware of Janelle’s maternal-line powers, the couple time-travel to 14th century England, where they meet Richard’s ancestors - and discover some startling truths about his aristocratic family.
Logan Conor, the Scots Duke of Muileach, crashes Richard and Janelle’s wedding, bent on revenge, but finds his own true love instead.
On their wedding trip, a madman attempts to kidnap Janelle - twice.
Later, Richard unknowingly betrays Janelle who strands him in England. Richard finally arrives home, but fate separates them again – and he misses the birth of his son. Will they ever make a life together?+
Filled with unexpected twists and turns, their love story spans two continents, and hundreds of years. But, can their love survive their very different backgrounds and the endless obstacles life throws at them?

My Rating

My Review

I just could not like Janelle’s Time. Truly, I did try to like it, but as the story progressed, I found myself disliking the book more and more, to the point that it became difficult to actually finish the book. When I first started the book, I was a little ‘meh’ about it, but had high hopes that it would get a lot better after some time. However, I just couldn’t.

Firstly, though, I want to start off with what I did like. I liked the idea behind the story. There were many different ideas within the story, and individually, I did like them. However, I felt that there were way too many plots. To me, it was like the author had many interesting ideas of how a romance should be like, albeit a little cliché. However, instead of merely selecting a few of these devices to spice up the romance, it was just thrown in haphazardly with no head nor tail. As a result, it left me very confused throughout the entire book, wondering why something suddenly happened, and then, just as abruptly, it ended. Just to clarify, I felt that some things were thrown in there for the sake of putting it in that it made the plot very messy and just reminded me of a lot of clichés put together.

Initially, I felt that the book started off as a normal historical romance, albeit a bit different because women rarely, if ever, got to inherit. Then suddenly, it transformed into a time-travel romance, and I was intrigued. All of a sudden, the time-travel ended and it became a normal historical romance again, leaving me simply confused.

As for the characters, I found them to be rather two-dimensional. Like, they weren’t real to me, I couldn’t connect with them at all. For once, when I was reading, I wasn’t transported away into another world, watching the characters interact and seeing them in my mind’s eye. Instead, it felt like I was merely reading a book. Ok this may seem confusing to anyone who doesn’t love books. But if you love books, I think you should get what I’m talking about!

For me personally, I felt that there was too much sex till it took away the point of the story. I’m not against these scenes or anything like that, nor did I feel it was badly written. I just couldn’t get into it, because I simply could not believe the story. As such, the rather numerous scenes got to be a little tiring and made me cringe after a while. You see, for me, I have to believe the love in order to like the sex scenes. If not, I would just want it to be over as soon as possible because it would feel very contrived. Sadly, this was the case in this book.

And I do have one query. Is it even possible for his rival (forgot his name, sorry) to marry Rachel so fast? I mean, in those times, wasn’t a marriage license required in order for them to get married? After all, it wasn’t Gretna Green, where couples could just marry whenever they wished to be.

However, I do have to say one thing. Towards the end of the book, I felt that the plot picked up. It became more of a nice historical romance that I would rather enjoy reading. And that at least, is this book’s saving grace from a one star. I personally feel that if the beginning part of the book was not there and I was merely judging this book based on the second half, I may even have liked it!

And yes, I have to say this. I don’t like Janelle. I mean, it’s a good thing she knows her own mind, but I found her to be very narrow-minded. Like, she only wanted things her own way, and not any other, which made her seem very immature.

All in all, I just could not bring myself to like this book. I wish I could say I did, because from other reviews and an excerpt, the book did seem good! But I guess, for me, it just wasn’t my cup of tea. And yes, I still feel the time-travelling part wasn’t well thought out. A lot more could have been done with it, instead of just teleporting from place to place. And really, I doubt very much that Janelle could have gotten away with all those witchcraft at the time and age. Sadly, I find that I cannot recommend this book, for the simple reason that I did not enjoy it.

Disclaimer: A complimentary copy of this book was provided to me in exchange for an honest review.