Four years ago, Rosalind accidentally stepped through a time-slip and ended up in the 21st century, leaving behind her husband and infant son. When she finally manages to return to her own time, she doesn’t know what to expect. Does her husband, who already had a history of abandonment by the women in his life, think that she ran off? Will her son hate her for disappearing? Has her husband remarried, giving her son a new mother? Through interference by a con-woman and a spectacular twist of fate, Rosalind – in disguise – is brought into her family’s household, only to discover mysteries, disappearances, and tragedies that she couldn’t have anticipated.

When I read A Stitch in Time, I fell absolutely in love with this series/world. Technically, both of these books are 100% standalone. This is a case of a series stepping sideways to a new character, rather than continuing a story arc. This was a great story, and proves that my first experience with Armstrong wasn’t a fluke. Did I like it as much? Not quite, even though tbh I listened to the audiobook twice in a row because I wanted the double-experience. The enjoyment-difference between the two were slim, though, and I think A Stitch in Time edged this one out purely because I like the narrator more. (The narrator, as in the story’s narrator, Bronwyn, rather than the audio’s narrator, though that’s also true. I’ll get to that later.) There were also slightly fewer paranormal elements to this one, so that it read mostly as historical fiction and mystery, as well as fewer spicy romance parts.

All that added up to me enjoying the first book a bit more, but I still loved this one. I loved seeing how Rosalind’s character evolved through living four years in the modern world, loved seeing August (her husband) again after his role as a side character in the first book, and of course loved the glimpses of Bronwyn’s and William’s lives in the years that followed the first book. It makes me want to go back to read the first one again, to see if I can catch glimpses or hints from this book, as the early portion of the book overlaps to a certain degree.

Anyway, I don’t really have anything in-depth to say about these books. They weave together several genres that I love, with a critical eye toward sexism, racism, and classism. Plus all the cats. I mean, it really doesn’t get better for me.

Performance: This book was read by Gemma Dawson. It’s my first experience with Dawson, and I thought the narration was good within certain parameters. It was slower than I’m used to, so I had to speed the book up. The regular British characters were perfectly fine. I didn’t like Dawson’s child voice, especially for the two-year-old Amelia, and her “Canadian” accent for Bronwyn was frankly atrocious. It’s an accent often given to North Americans by British readers, and it doesn’t sound remotely like any North American accent – I can’t even place what it’s supposed to sound like. So yeah, I cringed every time Bronwyn spoke, the same way I’m sure people from other countries cringe when American audio narrators read non-North-American accents. However, Bronwyn wasn’t in the book often, nor was the two-year-old, so most of the book was well-narrated for me.