Stacia in Progress

In the rest room next door there was a long, explosive sound of gas releasing, then a contented 'Ahhh.' Grace clapped a hand over her mouth to hold back the hysterical giggle that rose in her throat. She had to finish before he did, or he might hear her. The competition was the strangest in which she'd ever engaged.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present you with : Fear Peeing. The next time I see a movie in which someone is on the run and afraid for their life, I want this scene in it. 

Son of Morning was such a hodgepodge of storytelling, but strangely, it all worked. I liked the contemporary suspense part of the story just as much as I did the Scottish highlander-slash-Guardian of the Knights' Templar-slash-faux bodice ripper-slash whatever was going on here. 

It was as if the author decided to put a B-movie suspense plot together with a form of Outlander-light. Throw in a BFF computer hacker, a sketchy pee scene, and voila! We now have a book I'm digging on because it's so wonderfully mashed together with sexual tension, danger, and a little bit of humor.

When she saw Black Niall again, she was going to throttle him, even if she had to climb on a stool to do it.

Niall was your run-of-the-mill highlander alpha type, but his part in the story before the characters actually met up were a great romantic fantasy draw. What woman wouldn't want some mystery man coming to her in her dreams, so much so that she can even hear him whisper at her when she's not fully asleep? Am I right? 

She had never met a man like him before, and never would again; he was extraordinary in any century.

The sexual tension was well-played. My buddy readers and I were anxiously wondering how the time-travel was going to happen, and when the two main characters would come face-to-face. However, in the meantime, we were all completely absorbed in Grace's time spent on the run from the "big baddies."  When two bizarre halves of a whole are woven together in such a way that keeps you guessing and right there in the story, it's a good thing.

As I've seen before with this author's books, some of the stuff reads a little off from PC norms of today (one ex : crooks generically labeled as "the white guy" and "the black guy"), and I laughed a little at the mention of how it was much easier to find a pay phone than an atm (definitely not true in the past 10 years or so), but I know this book is almost 20 years old now, so I'm guessing we're looking at a snapshot of time past, 

This is nothing like the other two Howard books I'd read before, but I enjoyed it all the same. I'm guessing that it won't be long before I am tempted into grabbing the next book of hers I can get my hands on.