I have not read the first book in this series so I was not sure what to expect when I started to read this one. I didn't even know that Juliana Gray is a pseudonym for Beatriz Williams (who I haven't read anything by, but have a couple of books to read). However, I quite liked the beginning of this book which starts off with Emmeline Truelove traveling to the Orkney Islands. That she tends to see her dead father and the late Queen add more intrigue to the story. Then, I discovered that this is not an ordinary historical mystery book. It got time travel! I mean I love time travel and books (and movies) and this surprise delighted me.

A Strange Scottish Shore is a book that surprised me in so many ways. I mean I had never ever read anything before by the author so I hoped this would be a pleasant book to read, I did not expect the story to totally charm me. But, I loved reading the book. Sometimes books can feel predictable, but this one felt delightfully surprising to read. Not that I didn't suspect things, rather that the story took turns that I never thought it would and I felt that the story all the way through kept up that way. Delivering a story that felt refreshingly new all the way through.

This book is one of those that sneaked up on me and I definitely need to get myself a copy of the first book in the series. Emmeline Truelove is fa fabulous characters and I enjoyed her working relationship with Maximilian Haywood and I even loved her "relationship" with Lord Silverton. When I started to read this book did I not read the blurb before. I often do that when I have the book as an ebook so knew very little about what would happen. And, that was just a perk in my opinion. You should try that. Much more interesting to read books that way.

I want to thank the publisher for providing me with a free copy through Edelweiss for an honest review! ( )

I have not read the first book in this series so I was not sure what to expect when I started to read this one. I didn't even know that Juliana Gray is a pseudonym for Beatriz Williams (who I haven't read anything by, but have a couple of books to read). However, I quite liked the beginning of this book which starts off with Emmeline Truelove traveling to the Orkney Islands. That she tends to see her dead father and the late Queen add more intrigue to the story. Then, I discovered that this is not an ordinary historical mystery book. It got time travel! I mean I love time travel and books (and movies) and this surprise delighted me.

A Strange Scottish Shore is a book that surprised me in so many ways. I mean I had never ever read anything before by the author so I hoped this would be a pleasant book to read, I did not expect the story to totally charm me. But, I loved reading the book. Sometimes books can feel predictable, but this one felt delightfully surprising to read. Not that I didn't suspect things, rather that the story took turns that I never thought it would and I felt that the story all the way through kept up that way. Delivering a story that felt refreshingly new all the way through.

This book is one of those that sneaked up on me and I definitely need to get myself a copy of the first book in the series. Emmeline Truelove is fa fabulous characters and I enjoyed her working relationship with Maximilian Haywood and I even loved her "relationship" with Lord Silverton. When I started to read this book did I not read the blurb before. I often do that when I have the book as an ebook so knew very little about what would happen. And, that was just a perk in my opinion. You should try that. Much more interesting to read books that way.

I want to thank the publisher for providing me with a free copy through Edelweiss for an honest review! ( )

If Indiana Jones and Nancy Drew had a daughter it would be Emmeline Truelove. I love this character so much and enjoyed the continued adventures of Emmeline, Silverton and Max, the Duke of Olympia so much.
This book has everything in it I love; mystery, time travel, a spooky castle set on cliff in Scotland, great characters. I could not put it down and are eagerly looking forward to more Emmeline adventures. ( )

Emmaline Truelove, Lord Silverton, and their friend Max Haywood, now the Duke of Olympia, are once again seeking the answers to the strange events in Greece last year. No longer the Duke's secretary, Truelove is now the
Director of the Haywood Institute, created to be the organizing force in the Duke's research into history, archaeology, and anachronisms--and last year's events, recounted in A Most Extraordinary Pursuit, are currently a major focus.

And a puzzling adversary, a ginger-haired man who seems determined to stop something the new Duke of Olympia will do at some point in the future, is becoming ever more dangerous.

Silverton disappears--just disappears--while he and Truelove are traveling north to meet up with the Duke, who is meeting a possible new Duchess. In Scotland, at the castle of Thurso, Truelove and the Max negotiate tricky social waters created by the rumors they are lovers, and also the puzzling reasons for the ginger-haired man's pursuit.

They do figure out that Max has some ability, apparently, to move people through time, something made even more dangerous than it sounds because Max doesn't yet understand it or have full control of it.

Things get much more dangerous when the ginger-haired man arrives at Thurso, with his own plans.

It's exciting, intriguing, and ever more dangerous, especially when Truelove finds Silverton again--in the Orkney Isles in the early 1300s. Unable to reconnect with Max to return to their own time, they make a life there, unencumbered by the sharp difference in their social standing in 1906 Britain.

But time isn't done playing games with them, and they are confronted by more mysteries, the "selkie legend," and both local threats and the reappearance of the ginger-haired man, still pursuing a goal they don't understand at all, but which they apparently stand in the way of.

It's a lot of fun, both exciting and intriguing. There's a satisfying conclusion to some major plot threads here, but there's clearly another book coming, also.

Recommended.

I received a free electronic galley of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.com, and am reviewing it voluntarily. ( )

Intriguing, sometimes hard to follow story of Emmeline Truelove, researcher, who is sent to the remote Orkney Islands in 1906 to investigate a “selkie suit” but then finds herself (and her lover) in the 13th century in the same location. ( )