I enjoyed the mystery aspect of this novel, though I felt like the book ended without uncovering a significant part of the mystery. The pacing was also a bit off; everything moved slowly in the beginning, then careened at breakneck speed for the latter half. A more substantial epilogue would have been helpful to tie up a few loose ends. I did appreciate how the stories were interwoven, so you got to see multiple viewpoints throughout the book. Knowing things before the FMC did added to the suspense I felt while reading. 

Sidebar: the scene in prison with the sex worker was deeply unsettling to me despite the lack of graphic details. It reeked of rape and felt purposeless, as it didn’t add anything to the plot or character development. (And besides, I thought we’d learned by now that sexual assault as a plot advancer is unnecessary and gross.) We already knew this guy was bad news; we didn’t need to add nonchalant sexual assault to the list of crimes!

An engaging and enjoyable historical novel that includes time travel, art, politics, and a pandemic.

Listen all I could think while reading this book was about Outlander 😅 it's like the same freaking book just way shorter which, for me, made it feel lacking 🤷‍♀️

The premise is so freaking similar lol a woman who has basically no family but a background in the medical field (for this MC it's a neurosurgeon, so kinda like Claire when she goes back the second time). There's a lot of build up to when she finally goes back in time, and then once she gets to medieval Siena, she finds herself in trouble but, instead of being a badass and using her talents as a surgeon, she becomes a scribe. And listen, I'm a humanities girlie through and through, but that's it? She's just like "I can read and write" and they make her a scribe's assistant and apparently she needs zero training or time to adjust to the very different style of language and diction during this time period?? This time period when she's just living life and has this job is so boring lol I almost DNF'd there because I kept thinking how I'd rather read Outlander.

But I stuck with it. The romance angle was...again lacking. There was so little build up. Like her and this dude saw each other a few times and talked about his paintings, he followed her onto a ship, and then all of a sudden he's all up in her grill, they're holding hands, and BAM he proposes???

Oh! It's also like Outlander because of course the MC lands herself in the past right before a major historical event, the freaking plague which is cool, but it happened waaaaay too fast in the book. One minute she's being proposed to on a ship and literally as soon as they land she's on the run from the plague which lol.

She gets sick WITH THE PLAGUE, conveniently ends up back in modern times to get treatment which she survives somehow and then goes back because gosh she misses how quaint medical Europe was and she wants to marry her muralist fella.

The whole thing just felt rushed and forced.

The one saving grace this book has is the mystery part of what's going on with her brother's research. But the multiple POVs also really threw me off and made it hard for me to connect to the MC. I'm also just incredibly impressed by the author's credentials. 

In summary, I need listacles/videos/etc. to stop recommending "books like Outlander" based only on content. Very similar premise, yes, but far inferior quality, sorry. I want "books like Outlander" that have rich history and details that makes me feel like I'm living in that world too and a romance that makes me believe in real, true love damn it. 

I loved it! I will buy this for my collections to read again in the coming years!