Leafing Through Pages – Timeless by Ruth Ryan Langan and On the Fringe by Mary Kay McComas

Stars: 3 / 5

Recommendation: Since this is review for two novellas, my rating is for both and in between. Although the third novella entertained and made me want to believe. The fourth novella bored me a lot. There is a fine line between fantasy and reality, but not at all spooky as the title of the book suggests (Dead of Night). Incidents happen middle of the night or darkness but no spooky in the plot.

J.D. Robb along three other authors published an anthology titled Dead Of Night in October of 2007. I posted J.D. Robb’s novella Eternity in Death that came as part of this book, and is the fifth novella in her In Death Series.

The third novella in the book was by Ruth Ryan Langan titled Timeless. In this story a city girl is thrust into a Scottish Castle and the Highland Larid with a romance, a timeless classic for her anyways.

A trip that our heroine, Laurel Douglas, plans with her friend ends up being a solo trip for her. And this trip takes her to a Scottish Castle built in 1832, and eventually she ends up thrusted into the arms of Conal MacLennan, a Highland Laird in the period of 1830s.

She solves her own murder from centuries ago, and also finds who killed Conan. But is thrust back again to current century and time reeling her. Not a spooky story again, but it did create romance that Laurel was looking for and finds.

The fourth and final novella in the book is On the Fringe by Mary Kay McComas. This is a total fantasy almost like Aladdin and his Magic Carpet. In this novella, our heroine Bonnie Sanderson goes on a magic carpet journey that shows her an alternate reality to her life.

The plot explores the fantastical moment and also puts our heroine into an alternate theory of life, makes her wonder what the road not taken looks like, It bored me thoroughly and so much that I skipped a lot of chapters in between to get to the ending.

Even though J.D. Robb has her novellas in the In Death series, each is a complete plot. Here I felt that the ending was abrupt and hoped to have a conclusion. It was a good beginning to a series, but a bad ending for a novella. Also the epilogue jumps by a year from when the prologue began, and no explanation how our heroine landed a year later. And no explanation of what happened to her friend that she comes with in the beginning.

Perhaps need to read the next book to get answers, but I have too many on my “To Read” Pile that it might not get added to it yet. May be in a few years.

Since this is review for two novellas, my rating is for both and in between. Although the third novella entertained and made me want to believe. The fourth novella bored me a lot. There is a fine line between fantasy and reality, but not at all spooky as the title of the book suggests (Dead of Night). Incidents happen middle of the night or darkness but no spooky in the plot.