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In A Blast to the Past, Virginia Farmer combines two popular romance novel elements – Scottish history and a military hero – with a bit of slapstick humor. The result is a light but rather forgettable romance.
Chief Brian Skelley is a U.S. Navy explosives expert training some British military men in the Scottish Highlands. They find an explosive that is clearly not part of the drill and before Brian knows it, the bomb explodes. He awakens to find himself in the year 1301 being cared for by an impoverished and threatened clan, the Mackenzies.
The young and stressed-out female laird, Caira Mackenzie, doesn’t have the time or resources to take care of a stranger, especially one she suspects might be English. For his part, Brian suspects that Caira is some kind of nun (she covers her hair); it takes him quite a while to fully comprehend that he’s traveled in time. When he does realize it, all he wants to do is recreate the explosion, hoping it will send him home. Then he sees the kind of harassment the Mackenzies face at the hands of the English. Brian hates bullies and decides to use his expertise with explosives to help the clan and its pretty laird.
This book is a pleasant read, but I never believed in the characters or got caught up in the story. Its greatest strength is Brian. His plight, and his attempt to create gunpowder in hopes that a second explosion will send him back to the future, is the focus of the book. He’s not a particularly three-dimensional character, and many of his traits, such as his fear of close relationships, are quite expected. Even so, he definitely overshadows Caira, who is practically nonexistent. She is such a standard-model historical heroine – a giving woman who is wearing herself out to protect her people – that I have nothing to say about her. The characterization of Caira and Brian is so slight that I never connected with either of them. There’s nothing disagreeable about reading about their relationship, but it didn’t exactly set my world on fire, either.
The author has clearly taken pains in her research about the Scotland of William Wallace, and includes several details of clan life that seem to be accurate. It remains wallpaper, though, and a couple of things bothered me. Apparently, in his one year in modern Scotland, Brian had learned enough Gaelic to get by in the 14th-century Highlands â?” something I found hard to believe. Fortunately, the medieval Scots generally speak in your basic slightly-archaic English, with a couple of “oachs” thrown in for that thistle-and-heather flavor.
This is a very lighthearted book with a strong dash of comedy to the story; it mostly failed the humor test. In the very beginning, some of the British soldiers are shown joshing around; the joke they tell must surely be World War II vintage, if not even older. After Brian goes back in time, we meet Malcom and Callum, two unforgivably wacky old men who insert their supposed-to-be humorous bickering into the story at every possible moment, causing me no end of boredom. Indeed, I thought that the back cover blurb, which reads “MacBOOM!, was the funniest thing about the entire book.
I didn’t hate A Blast to the Past; the Scottish setting is interesting, as are Brian’s fish-out-of-water experiences there. But I found the characterizations thin, especially of the heroine, and the romance goes along in a strictly by-the-numbers way. If you’re looking for a humorous time-travel, you might well enjoy this, but I wished it were a little less humdrum.
Grade: C
Book Type: Time Travel Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 29/04/04
Publication Date: 2004
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Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.