The Soul of Time
This is the sixth of Jennifer Macaire’s seven-part Alexander series. Ashley, a young journalist in the 3rd millennium AD, wins a prize to be sent back in time to interview the personality of her choice. She chooses Alexander the Great and is duly transported to the 4th century BC, only for her return flight to go awry and to be stranded in the past.
Ashley does very well for herself, becoming Alexander’s consort and succeeding in saving him from an early death without altering the historical record. The Soul of Time finds Ashley, Alexander, their son and their close companions wandering incognito in northern Europe. They have an eventful time, and after escaping from hostile Druids, take a ship back to the Mediterranean. We are left still wondering if and how Ashley gets back to her own era.
I liked it better in the earlier books when Alexander was still in the historical record and Macaire was giving us a seemingly authentic view of life in his army. In this book we are in pure historical fantasy (of course all time travel is fantasy, but there are degrees of fantasy). The book has all the ebullience and verve of its predecessors, but I did not find the Nordic background credible in the way that Alexander’s army had been credible. Ashley has been away too long, and I must wrap up the story by reading the final volume.
