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This was a tough one to grade since there was a lot to like in Bethany’s Song, including the setting and lead characters Bethany James and Matthew Gray. The story also had many intriguing elements, but there were so many of them that the overall impact was diluted. And while the heroine and hero were likable as individuals, they did not make a very convincing couple.
Bethany James is a school teacher. Several years earlier, in the same automobile accident that killed her parents, she was left injured, badly scarred and unable to have children. One day when Bethany and her sisters happen to be singing at the grave of their friend Yolanda – who had been reputed to be a witch – she is overwhelmed by a peculiar sensation, passes out and wakes up in a graveyard in Juneau, Alaska in 1895.
Bethany is discovered by Matthew Gray and a friend. Matthew is an architect come to Juneau to settle accounts at the mine started by his father. The Gray Wolf mine had been a profitable and well-run one, but lately there have been some financial problems, problems that ought not to have occured. As well, Matthew is mourning his wife who died giving birth to a son who also died.
Matthew and the other inhabitants of Juneau have very little problem with a lone woman who doesn’t know exactly how she got there, and before you can say River Of Time (that’s the vehicle that transported Bethany to the past) she’s the new schoolmarm.
As mentioned earlier, there’s an awful lot going on in this book. Here are just some of the story elements. Bethany can’t have children because of her accident. Matthew does not want to subject any woman to the possibility of having children since that is what killed his wife. There are financial problems with the mine, and the inheritance of the mine is tied in to Matthew’s uncomfortable relationship with his late father whom he (and everyone in the story) refers to as The Old Man. That particular phrase got very Old, very fast. Oh yes, Matthew is claustrophobic too.
Let’s see now. As the story progresses we have a mine cave-in, a couple of children orphaned, Bethany and Matthew clashing over her teaching methods, Matthew and Bethany trying to get to the bottom of the mine’s financial problems, a villain skulking around the fringes of the story, Matthew’s best friend having his back broken, Matthew’s first love coming back to town a rich widow, Bethany wondering whether the River of Time will return for her…have I left anything out?
Oh yeah – Matthew and Bethany fall in love. At least the story says so. They simmer a bit, and have a couple of love scenes, but the sexual tension and attraction between them is low. Very, very low.
As you can see, Bethany’s Song is chock full of plot – way, way too much plot for any one average book to hold it all. If the book had been, oh, about 150 pages longer, maybe it would have been able to contain all those storylines. As it is, none of them were developed to any satisfactory degree and the romance, which was slight to begin with, suffered because of all the events going on around it. Perhaps in her next book author Plunkett will remember not to overwhelm the romance.
Grade: C-
Book Type: Time Travel Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 28/12/01
Publication Date: 2001
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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.