Karen writes:
For years I’ve been looking for this
book that I read that I loved but I cannot remember the title, the name of
the book nor the author! I’m pretty sure it’s part of a series but I
don’t know for sure. Yesterday, my co-worker and I were talking about books
and I was telling her about this book that I loved and wish I could remember
anything about it and she had read it too, which I was stunned!!Okay, what I remember of the book – which may not be 100% accurate because I read it
YEARS ago but it was about a young blond girls who was touring a crumbled
down castle in Scotland I believe (in this century, she had a cell and/or
ipod, etc, you get the idea) she got separated from her tour group and was
studying a suit of armor and then BAM she was back in the 1200’s (or
somewhere around there) and she was laying in the grass and there was a man
on a horse galloping straight at her.She ends up falling in love w/ that guy, who owned the castle and was I guess the Lord or that particular land.
His castle was falling apart and she was handy with tools and helped him and
his men (she actually took charge of the rebuilding and earned these men’s
respect) rebuild the keep, etc.She found a way to go back to our time but
she was in love and went back to his time for good. When she went back to
him she brought a backpack filled with books, penicillian and chocolate
(among other things). Also, when she was back in his time (originally) she
had met a woman who was from our century who had fallen into a pond and
ended up in their time and I believe there was a guy who disappeared from
back then and wound up in our time which is why I believe there was
definitely a series and I would really love to find out who this author was,
what the title of the book was, etc. It’s been driving me crazy for YEARS
and if you all can help me in any way, I would be greatly appreciative!!
What is it with the time traveling folks bringing key supplies with them when the move permanently into the Days of Yore with Minimal Dental Care? I am now pondering, if I were to move myself for the red hot burnin’ love to a time period with much less in the way of modern anything, what would I bring? Five items of absolute necessity? Tough question.
Can’t help with the book but I’ve pondered this “5 things to bring back in time” idea. I think one of them would be something like the old Mother Earth Catalog which told you how to do/build/make things with minimal technology. I agree that dental care (or lack there of) caused a lot of problems and don’t lets get started on the problems women faced monthly with “the Curse”. Obviously penicillin would be useful but its shelf life is limited and which of your sick 5 children will you give the dose to? Chocolate is great but remember that they didn’t even have sugar back then just honey as a sweetner so get used to food cravings. In those days you’d settle for food that wasn’t too rotten or full of bugs. Frankly I don’t think true love would win out without a modern bathroom!
5 Items…Let’s see
1. Well as the daughter of a dentist who is major paranoid about oral hygiene, number one would be a toothbrush & floss. (Cheating—putting them together as one item)
2. Glasses. I’m blind as a bat without them—20/1200 vision.
3. Antibiotics. (As much as I can cram into a bottle and still call it one item!)
4. My silicone Diva Cup (menstrual thing-a-ma-jig I can’t live without)
5. My husband. Actually he’d be #1 on the list. No fair, you say? Oh very well then, I’d bring my Herbal PDR.
Try Knight Errant by R Garcia y Robertson. It is the first in a series about Robyn Stafford who travels back and forth in time to the 15th Century and falls in love with Edward, Earl of March. I read this years ago and as soon as I read your post it leaped to mind (and then I had to try to remember the title and author!). There are a few differences but the similarities are striking. It was a fun read as I remember, not perfect but fun : )
It’s a Lynn Kurland book. The hero’s name is Jamie…
A Dance Through Time?
It’s Lynn Kurland. When I Fall in Love, I believe.
It’s definitely a Lynn Kurland book. I really think it is The More I See You. I am 99.9% sure it’s The More I See You. The main couple is Richard and Jessica. Jessica’s father was an architect so she helps Richard rebuild his castle with stone. She meets Abigail from the book The Christmas Cat. She goes back to the present to come back to the past with a backpack of future stuff. One of them being a solar powered CD player. This is one of my favorite Lynn Kurland books so I know it well.
Don’t know the series, but if I were swept back in time to marry the man of my historical dreams, I would take:
1. A carton of noseplugs (just until I get accustomed)
2. A backside full of innoculations.
3. A carton of Rh immunoglobulin, or directions on how to make it—perhaps by swinging a vial around on a string as a crude cetrifuge. For you see, I wish to bear my Troo Lurve (whose blood type I do not know) many children, but I am Rh Negative—which is still a leading cause of miscarriages even in my original time.
If this is too weird, then how about a blood testing kit for my Troo Lurve, who, if RH positive, will be most understanding about my reluctance to risk pregnancy, as I am naturally more important to him than the future distribution of his vast estates or the longevity of his name. Besides, we can always adopt that beggar child who saved my life in chapter fifteen . . .
4. A book on soap-making, with chapter on natural toothpastes. Seriously, my Dad owns this—I think it was published by FoxFire yonks ago.
5. My knitting needle collection
I’m going to second The More I See You. I thought the hero’s name was Richard, but I got thrown by Jennifer being a violinist. Both J names, too. However, it’s definitely The More I See You. Lindleepw got it!
I bought for my husband and teenaged son this very fun t-shirt. It is filled with all the essential knowledge you need if you ever time travel back to the past:
http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TO&Product_Code=QW-CHEATSHEET&Category_Code=QW
It’s a riot. How to make your own penicillin, make “miraculous inventions”, etc.
@Moviemavengal: That T-shirt is AMAZING.
Haha, my spamword is: return83
I thought of Knight Errant by R Garcia y Robertson. I really liked that series. However, it was more a historical fantasy than a romance and the details are definitely wrong. I remember that Edward was considerably younger than the heroine—but he was a very mature teenager. The other two were Lady Robyn and White Rose.
Didn’t she have batteries in her medieval survival kit?
I just checked and it looked like he hasn’t published anything except some short stories since Firebird in 2005.
Susan Sizemore also wrote a couple of entertaining medieval time travel novels—WIngs of the Storm and Autumn Lord. There was another but it was more cliched and I never finished it.
In Wings of the Storm there was a regular time travel project set up and the heroine, who was sent back by accident found a cache of modern supplies.
Of course none of these were the book that the OP remembered, I’m just whittering on here..
I definitely read this novel, only I can’t remember the title or author, either. No joy with Google. I’m 100% the books mentioned aren’t the right ones. It was definitely a modern day woman on a tour of a Scottish castle. Their was either armour or a painting of a knight and POOF.
Now this is going to drive me bonkers. Well, more bonkers.
Best thing to take? Spices! You get back to the Middle Ages with a bag of cinnamon sticks and hey presto, you’re the new owner of a palace. Thanks to ocean freight and globalization you can get them now for next to nothing, but back then you’re a bazillionaire.
So yeah, I’d take other things, too (my glasses, for starters) but if I’m going back in time, I want to be filthy rich. Trans-temporal arbitrage for the win!
I reiterate, it’s definitely ‘More I See You.’ Go here http://www.theromancereader.com/kurland-more.html for a more detailed review and the first six pages are available online via Amazon (including the armor scene) http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0425171078/ref=sib_dp_ptu#reader-link Further confirmation on Lynn Kurland’s very own forum board where a reader talks about Jessica bringing back chocolate. http://www.9kingdoms.com/dcforum/DCForumID1/682.html#2
Lisa, spices are a good one. Other great portable wealth ideas (courtesy of R. A. MacAvoy, The Book of Kells, another great time travel fantasy): steel sewing needles and spools of bright colored thread. Remember, everything had to be sewed by hand, and most women had only bone needles. Thread was incredibly labor-intensive to produce, and it was hard to make it strong but fine.
If I remember my spice lore properly, nutmeg and mace were more expensive than cinnamon. It was only found on one island – in the Bandas, maybe? – and that was one of the last, if not the last, to be “discovered.”
Yup, definitely Lynn Kurland’s The More I See You – it’s one of my faves.
The More I See You by Lynn Kurland. One of her best.
plumbing > true lurve. that is all.
OK as a BIG fan of time travel stories I have acctually thought this one out.
1.) seeds- of things I would like to have for the future. As many of you have said world trade is limited so growing your own produce/herbs/etc. would be of benefit LONG TERM. Which is important for someone making a long term descision such as true love.
2.) world atlas. Just so you know where you are and where you want to go. Makes future trade and commerce a viable option. Also many atlasas (or is it atlasi?) have a section about world cultures.
3.) History book of the area you are living in. Nice to know who’s a major political player and what any future wars will happen (thanks Diana Gabaldon!)
4.) As many of you have said. Spice or jewelry currency. Nice to be rich!
5.) General book on “How-to”- medicine, weapons, architecture, etc.. (this would be a shout out to Bruce Campbell’s movie The Army of Darkness. His car and him gets sucked back in time and in the trunk of the car is a small library worth of how-to books. It saves his bacon.)
So as you can see while I value comfort in the here and now I would sacrifice it for knowledge if I traveled to the past. It would be too easy to burn through limited supplies, but if you had the knowledge to make it really work then it could eventually be a fairy tale! Or a Lurvefest!
I have thought about the TT thing a lot. But I think more about the things I would do before I left to prepare. The top five would be:
1. Laser Hair Removal
2. Laser Hair Removal
3. Laser Hair Removal
2. Laser eye surgery
3. Long term/permanent Birth Control.
I have to say having read (STILL READING) Diana Gabaldon I can’t read any other Scottish time-travel books T_T I feel like I’m cheating on my boyfriend or something if I do. I feel sullied and unusual ;D
I want that shirt. I want it so bad. But I’d have to say monetary goods would be numero uno in my book, and heck if I knew exactly where/when I was going I’d make me my own little info book! Like da Vinci :3 In code.
Or are we taking into account time-space continuum here?
This is definitely Lynn Kurland’s _The More I See You_, which, alas, was my least favorite LK novel – I like the pure historicals (From This Moment On – Colin is absolutely adorable) and her fantasy better (and -squeee!- there will be a new Nine Kingdoms novel in 2010).
spamword: student84: Yes, in ‘84 I was still a student, and no, I don’t ever want to go back… 😉
From someone who does actually like to go camping on occasion:
“plumbing > true lurve. that is all.”
Yes.
Also,
supermarket > true lurve
antibiotics > true lurve
And then you might miss out on the great love affair with a medieval knight, because he would be totally freaked out by your weirdly hairless legs, armpits (and legpit?)… 😀 😀
@Muse of Ire: thanks for reminding me of MacAvoy’s The Book of Kells. An old favorite that I haven’t re-read in ages!
Agreed, that’s a fabulous t-shirt, too.
Anyone else thinking condoms might be a good thing to haul back in time? I mean True Love or not, I can’t count that good…
I thought about that, but maybe he wouldn’t. My grandmother never had hairy legs or arms and neither did two of her sisters and some of my mother’s cousins. Their head hair, eyebrows and lashes were just fine though. Unfortunately it wasn’t passed down to my mother or me.
Was that TMI? Anyway my point is that she was of Germanic decent so maybe it wouldn’t be that strange and I would feel a hell of a lot better. 🙂
I know everyone pretty much has their hearts set on Lynn Kurland here, but this one sounds a lot like Teresa Medeiros’ Touch of Enchantment with a bit of Breath of Magic tossed in. It’s been years since I read these books, but they immediately came to mind. I haven’t read the Kurland one, though, so it might be a better match.
spamword: under69. Seriously, are these things deliberate?
Ok, yes, this is definitely by Lynn Kurland and it is The More I See You. Great book! I’m actually re-reading it…in between writing the 3rd book in my time travel series.
First on my list would be coffee…and lots of it! I would also bring books on medicine as well as some kind of anti-biotic. Maybe some kind of pipes for indoor plumbing as well :D.
Terisa Wilcox
Along with spices, seeds, knowledge of first-aid, and glasses (I, also, am blind as a mole without them or contacts):
Blueprints or drawings of bathroom and drinking-water piping and sewer-systems. Including the design of a lovely kind of pipe called ‘S-bend’, it’s used in toilets: the water reservoir in the dip section of the pipe keeps gasses and smels from traveling up the pipes.
I remember learning about that during the hIstory Channel (?) and Modern Marvels: Bathroom Tech. It seems that it was a key component missing in Queen Elizabeth I’s indoor toilet, and why no-one could figure out how to make it stop smelling. Someone even wrote verse about it! Not only would you and yours benefit, but you could earn the gratitude of royalty, and benefit lives for centuries to come! 🙂
When I cleaned out my dad’s study after he died, I brought home a very old surgery text that showed how to do just about anything medical. In case, you know, civilization collapses or I find myself in 12th century Britain. I also save my seeds. And, dry, penicillin will actually last for quite a while. Not so erythromycin or doxycycline which you would need for some of the STDs though penicillin will take care of syphyillis. I’d probably take some good cooking pots, too, ones that would not need to be mended on a regular basis.
I got my husband the print.
My essentials:
1) Solar charger (see iPod and PDA)
2) iPod (I require music)
3) PDA (with memory cards for my herbal info files and informational ebooks)
4) Valuables to sell for currency
5) Good solid pair of boots.
I’ve thought about trying the Diva Cup, but I’ve always had trouble with insert-able menstrual products. Me and tamps just don’t get along. If I could hang with it, I’d scrap the sturdy boots in it’s favor if it can help me avoid having to go the cloth route.
i always feel like it’s cheating with time travel romances that the woman who travels back in time would bring modern day supplies with her!
i would definitely bring:
1. antibiotics
2. pictures of my friends and family (but then if I was a romance heroine, chances are I have very little friends and family)
3. some sort of survival guide
4. spices and herbs, like others have said, so that even if I have to be filthy, at least I would filthy rich
5. my inhaler (damn you, asthma!)
i want to add a mirror- not sure if the glass mirrors of today were invented yet and i think i will go nuts if I have to look into a cloudy looking glass to see my reflection.
Visiting another time would be essentially the same as visiting a foreign contemporary culture: differences of time and of place follow similar patterns. The traveller is the one who has much to learn, not the ‘natives’, and a conviction that one’s own culture is essentially superior in all respects to that of the natives is not a good attitude! One would need to start with the language: I suspect most of us would take quite a while to learn to express ourselves fluently in Middle English or Medieval Scots, let alone Gaelic. Then adopting the correct modes of behaviour for the place and class in which one found oneself, simply understanding the cultural norms, would take some work. I don’t think there would actually be much leisure to fret about depilatories and antibiotics.
I think it is also a great mistake to believe that everyone would be full of wonder and admiration if the time-traveller attempted to introduce inventions from the future; trying to improve the sanitation is a way of telling your ‘hosts’ that you despise their way of life, and is therefore unlikely to make you very popular. The traveller must learn to adapt. In fact, the human brain edits out background so much (visual, aural and olfactory) that one would cease to notice the ripe organic smells in a week or two, just as all of us today who are city-dwellers seldom notice the acrid stench of motor traffic and dirty city streets.
The things I would want to take with me: paper and pencils (for writing and drawing); my spectacles if possible; a Swiss Army knife: knitting needles (it would be okay to introduce a new craft—nothing weird or magical or patronising to worry people there). For the rest, I would hope to learn to be a Medieval woman, rather than trying to introduce elements of the 21st century into the Middle Ages.
@AgTigress: Thank you. You just made my morning. I stopped reading time travel romances years ago because it drove me crazy how these heroines could just pop up in the 1300’s Scotland and have their modern English be almost entirely understandable with the exception of words like “cool”.
@ everyone who said antibiotics: Yeah, you’d need those. Because if you went back in time, you’d bring so many extremely dangerous modern diseases that you’ve been vaccinated against that you’d cause a plague. Even if you brought nothing worse than strep throat or the flu, guess what? In medieval times, either of those could easily have been deadly. There might not be anyone left alive to burn you as a witch for your advanced medical knowledge, so if you managed to avoid food poisoning, dying in childbirth, or catching the bubonic plague, you might even have time to set up that plumbing system. (Sorry for the sarcasm and historical obsessiveness, but hey, this IS Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, right?)
spamword:england69. I concur, LiJuun. These have got to be deliberate.
5 essential things…. Hmmm… Trying to be practical here…
1. A paper-making kit (paper was expensive, and by gosh, I want paper to write letters and such!)
2. Sturdy cotton granny-pants underwear – Because the knickers of old could be pretty uncomfortable, or non-existent!
3. Gold and jewelry (rings, necklaces etc) – Good for trading in to get local currency, or bartering for things like food and shelter
4. (made up) papers of nobility – So I don’t end up in a brothel or as a scullery maid when no one knows who I am and assumes I am low-class and worthless.
5. I want to say antibiotics, but instead, I will say up-to-date inoculations for mumps, measles, diptheria, rubella, flue, hepatitis, meningitis, tetanus, rabies, encephalitis, polio, tuberculosis (is there a vaccine for that?), malaria, dengue fever, scarlet fever, chicken pox, and… and…. well you get the point.
seriously… values63? Yes, there is value in all these things 😛
Alyssa, how right you are on all points! The 21stC traveller could be a serious health hazard to her Medieval hosts!
I sidestepped the fact that most time-travellers would initially be made ill by the food, NOT because the food was tainted, but because it would be very different from their usual diet.
When middle-class British tourists were first visiting Mediterranean countries in large numbers in the 1960s, many of them had real trouble digesting food cooked in olive oil (an extremely healthful ingredient), because they were completely unaccustomed to it: at home, they could eat food fried in lard without any problem. This no longer happens, because we use olive oil a lot now. I can eat a hot curry without a qualm, because curries are almost as common here (UK) as they are in the Indian sub-continent, but someone who has never eaten a really spicy curry can suffer very considerable intestinal disturbance. Again, nothing to do with the quality of the food, but simply a question of the individual’s digestive enzymes.
Struck me instantly as Gabaldon’s “Outlander” series… but I need to reread them. Saddly I’ll admit, my wife got me hooked on them and we just bought the seventh book. Of course, I’m also hooked on the Blahck Dhaggher Brohther Hhoodh. series by JR Ward, even if they are a bit hokey. Love this site, love the book reviews and the cover snarks.
Sounds like A Knight in Shining Armor by Jude Deveraux. I used to love that book.