"Belle Fontaine was a relic of Louisiana's gracious past, a crumbling Civil War plantation house, where shadowy images seemed to flit between the shifting pools of sunlight, and haunting melodies echoed through the empty rooms. For Sarah Jennings it was a refuge from the consolable sorrow of her brother's death in the Vietnam War, a place where she could lose herself in swirling dreams of a dark-eyed lover who called to her across the years...
"THE FULFILLMENT
"Damien, too, had lost a brother to war--the War between the States--but in Sarah's soft embrace he found a sweet ecstasy that made life worth living again. If only he could fathom the mystery surrounding her arrival at Belle Fontaine, if only he knew whether they were to share more than a brief tryst in time."
It has been an unconscionably long time since I last reviewed a book! I'm actually ashamed! Well, I've made it back on here and I fully intend to do a better job. It's going to be a real challenge because the fall semester starts tomorrow and I'm going to be pretty overloaded working full-time and going to school full-time. This is what I get for wanting to be a college professor!
Anyway, onto the review of this book. I'm afraid it's not going to be super in-depth because this book wasn't one of my favorites. The biggest reason for this was the terribly, horribly unrealistic and antiquated dialogue. It really wrecks the break from reality when the dialogue isn't believable. A man and a woman walking around sighing, "Oh my love!" over and over again is not what I would call realistic. Not to mention the quickness with which Sarah and Damien fell madly, deeply in love was a little bit too sudden for me. I don't feel like I ever really loved the characters. I don't think they had enough depth for me. While it was sad that both main characters had lost their brothers to horrible deaths in different wars, that was about all I cared about. I didn't feel that much empathy for either of them, which is a little bit disappointing. While the actual time travel aspect was interesting, I wasn't entirely thrilled with the fuzzy logistics of it. I know it was meant to be that way, but there seemed to be some contradictions throughout the plot. What I did find interesting was the search that Sarah performed while trying to find out whether or not she belonged in the past. It reminded me of the hunting that any good genealogist would have to go through. That journey, in particular, was what helped me get through the latter half of the book. Overall, the characters were somewhat flat and disappointing. The dialogue was probably some of the most flowery, overly-dramatic, and unbelievable that I've ever read. The plot was alright, but nothing all that special. I doubt I'll be reading anymore books by Riley even though I'm sure I have a couple of hers on my shelves. This book was not my cup of tea.