Book 71, 2022

This Time Forever by Margaret Chittenden

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Finished reading the book I'd taken to work on my lunch hour today. It was This Time Forever by Margaret Chittenden, and it's part of the Silhouette Dreamscapes line. Main characters are Liz Brooks and Matt Lockwood.

Travel rep Liz is afraid she's losing her mind. She keeps falling into a fugue state that seems incredibly real to her. Desperate for answers she agrees to regression hypnosis. Dr Matt Lockwood is convinced that Liz is recalling a past life, but the first time he hypnotizes her, he is stunned. Liz begins recounting the hard life of a woman in 1880's Scotland--Jeannie Findlay. Matt is astonished, because when a colleague helped him with regression hypnosis, he recalled his life as Robert McAndrew, the man who fell in love with Jeannie. Matt is overjoyed to find his lost love again, but he is reluctant to reveal anything to Liz; he wants her to figure out on her own that he was once her beloved Robbie. Liz isn't sure she believes in reincarnation, and as she delves further into Jeannie's life, she finds herself unable to separate her growing feelings for Matt from Jeannie's attraction to Robert. Matt is left waiting for Liz to realize they were meant to find one another in this life...and hoping she will agree they're destined to be together forever.

The story was interesting, yet I couldn't help but feel that more of the narrative was devoted to Jeannie and Robert's romance than Liz and Matt's. It was off-putting. Liz and Matt fell in love rather quickly, although I suppose that can be attributed to the fact that they'd loved one another before. Since I was reading two stories, the entire thing seemed disjointed. I did like the easy banter between Liz and Matt.

Favorite lines:
♦ If you were going to be weird, it was nice to know you weren't abnormally weird.
♦ "You mark my words, Jeannie Findlay. Robert McAndrew wants to toss you in the feathers."
♦ "You're a good passenger. You didn't scream once coming down the mountain." // "Yes, I did. I screamed silently. Wore out the passenger brake halfway down, too, then I closed my eyes." // "Me, too."

A little disappointed in this one. Giving it an average score of three.